This is Not Who We Are

Prominent expressions of racism are often condemned by people who claim they are not representative of the rest of the nation. Others argue that “yes they are” and that many more people are racist than we like to admit.

Both expressions are understandable. But, both mis-represent the complex reality of racism.

Racists claim to speak for the nation. They position themselves as defenders of the authentic population against the outsiders. So denying them status to speak for the country has an obvious appeal.

But the history of the nation is riddled with similar incidents conducted by crowds, individuals and governments.

Saying “This is not who we are” denies that history.

Different types of racism

It often feels like racism is divided into the wrong and the right kind. And that it is not a social phenomena but an all-encompassing identity.

In the 1980’s Oliver Letwin MP, then a policy wonk in the Thatcher government, wrote a paper claiming that inner-city regeneration was doomed to fail because of ethnic minorities predilection for disorder, discos and drugs. When it emerged in 2015, some people tried to defend Letwin by claiming it wasn’t representative of his views. That he didn’t “… have a racist bone in his body“.

What Letwin’s defenders meant was that he wouldn’t express those views now, his identity is not that of a racist. This is racism as a Dungeons and Dragons persona; while Letwin might be a Mage, a Rogue or a Barbarian he wasn’t a Racist.

But if one can claim that people of colour are inherently more criminal than their white peers and still not be racist then the word has been evacuated of all meaning.

The mistake here is to assume that Racist is something you are, when racism is something you do.

So people who otherwise would disavow some examples of racism are still capable of doing and saying racist things.

And societies likewise.

Across society there are actions and expressions that target specific racial groups and inflict harms to specific ethnicities. However some of these are condemned as racist and by the same people that are perpetrating others. Perpetrators who might even angrily and earnestly reject the label.

The wrong type

Open expressions of racism that might use racial slurs or openly call for violence against racial groups, tend to be condemned. Especially if violence is to be carried out by the public, who lack the monopoly on the legitimate use of force. Violence carried out by the state invites far less censure.

And the right

 Meanwhile people who might be vocal and (potentially) sincere in their condemnation of the first will happily engage in the right type of racism. They might write, say or do things that target specific racial groups. They might use dog-whistle language to communicate their discrimination without stating it openly. They could craft laws that penalise specific ethnic groups, or leave them subject to violence. That violence might be direct, or it could be through neglect. Laws that relate to migrants and asylum seekers for instance tend to hide their violence under a façade of care but still prevent them from being rescued when they are in danger. They may even criminalise a whole way of life. But they normally don’t name those groups explicitly or call for violence openly.

The number of people who will engage in the former are relatively small. People who declare that these people are an unrepresentative minority are not wrong.

But they are only talking about half the picture. Because it is hard to think of a government that hasn’t engaged in the latter, and certainly not the current one.   

Renouncing White Privilege

I used to be in favour of white privilege but I’m not any more.

I read ‘White Privilege: unpacking the invisible knapsack‘ about a decade ago. I thought it was a neat exposition of a range of phenomena I’d been trying to think about clearly but couldn’t express.

I still think it’s an interesting essay but I don’t think the concept of white privilege is very useful anymore.

There are two reasons for this.

The first is that white privilege makes for interesting reflections but it doesn’t really suggest any action for tackling racial injustice. At most, it prompts an audit on the individual level, of the various ways one has benefitted from being white.

Having conducted that audit, however one is provided with very little in the way of actionable guidance on what to do about it.

I think racial injustice is a society-wide, structural issue best tackled by collective endeavour. I think individual action untethered from the collective is of quite limited value.

Openly acknowledging your white privilege may be encouraging for a non-white person to hear. And that is not nothing. But I’m skeptical it does much to address structural inequality.

Some people will then go on to join in the collective endeavour but I think they were likely engaged with the issue already.

If that were all white privilege did I would have little criticism of it.

But more often it prompts people to defend themselves against the charge of privilege. This normally involves detailing the various forms of disadvantage to which they are subject: sex, class, gender identity etc.

At its most jarring this can involve people declaring that their white, male status is the source of their oppression.

But in truth those occasions don’t bother me as much. The man who argues that white and male are the really oppressed classes, was probably not going to be an ally in the first place.

Far more troubling are those who point to e.g. their working class status, or their gender. Because those genuinely are sources of oppression in society. And they should be points of solidarity between groups. Instead, white privilege often functions to cut across potential alliances.

A sensitive reading of white privilege would make clear that it does not rule out being subject to other forms of disadvantage. And I’ve spent time making that argument myself. But the fact remains that once the frame is triggered a lot of effort has to be expended litigating and relitigating the nature of privilege in order to reassure people who might otherwise be allies. I no longer feel sure the effort is worth it.

The second objection is to the frame itself.

As a friend pointed out (in a conversation that eventually convinced me to change my mind on this matter) the things identified as white privilege aren’t privileges at all. A privilege is an extra thing you’re granted. If everyone was entitled to it, it wouldn’t be a privilege.

To take a couple of the “privileges” at random from ‘Unpacking the knapsack’:

I can arrange to protect my children, most of the time from people who might not like them
I am never asked to speak on behalf of my racial group

The fact that white people have these things isn’t the problem. The fact that non-white people don’t, is.

Framing these as “privileges” centres the people who have them, when the focus should be on the people who don’t. And often people will assume tackling white privilege means stripping them from white people rather than extending them to others.

I don’t want white people to renounce their “privilege“. I want everyone to enjoy their basic rights.

Game Theory.

David Goodhart has been appointed a commissioner at the Equality and Human Rights Commission (EHRC). To understand why this is a bad thing it is worth reflecting a bit on what he has said on the subject of race in the past, and on what he has left unsaid, and why.

Goodhart is one of a set of writers who style themselves as “post-liberal” truthtellers. They range from Paul Embery, and Munira Mirza, and Douglas Murray. People who can finally say the unsayable about things like race, immigration, multiculturalism and culture. This set define themselves as rebels and in order to do so they need a regime against which to revolt. Without it, why should anyone give their rebellion the time of day?

If one doesn’t exist then it is necessary that it be invented. And this is largely what David Goodhart has done. He has made his name, and a good portion of his living by assailing the smug, dishonest, and largely fictional regime of the “London Metropolitan Elite” (LME).

The LME is a protean and highly adaptable foe, they live in the cities, primarily in London but can be found elsewhere if the need arises. Their concerns can vary but whatever they are they are highly indulgent and completely out of touch with those that the real, authentic working people of the country care about. The same goes for their political allegiances, and even occasionally gender and sexuality. When it is required they can be women, or LGBT, and they almost always include people of colour.

By definition then the principles and beliefs of the truth-tellers is similarly flexible.

Nonetheless this truth-telling tends to have two basic leitmotifs :

1. Racism exists only at the level of deliberate intention regardless of outcome
2. Structural and cultural forces are only relevant to the extent they affect White British people

Of course, Goodhart has never, to my knowledge come out and stated these precepts directly. The implication is there, but the quiet part is not said out loud.

Nonetheless you can see them at work behind many of his interventions. They function to delegitimise the concerns of his opponents and minimise claims for racial justice. Because racial justice is something only the LME are concerned about.

The next is the appeal to class.

For instance, if we highlight the fact that children in Bangladeshi and Pakistani households are 2.8 and 2.4 times as likely to be living in poverty than those in white British households that is because we in the LME are missing the real issue here, which is class. Despite containing a great number of (often cultural) Marxists, the LME hate talking about class.

The slight-of-hand often relies on holding up the educational attainment of white working class boys. White working class boys are the group in the UK who suffer real injustice and any attempt to focus on anything else is only ever a result of a callous disregard on the part of the LME.

The problem with this argument is not exactly that it is wrong. White working class boys do suffer from lower educational attainment. It is just that it is dishonest. It’s the equivalent of the islamophobe who suddenly discovers a concern for women’s rights when it comes to the burka.

If its proponents were serious about addressing the issue of white working class under-attainment there are a whole range of things they could do. They could call for the return of the Educational Maintenance Allowance to support low income students, or better housing provision to reduce over-crowding, or a more generous benefits settlement to help those on lower incomes. Any and all of these might help. Crucially they wouldn’t just help white working class boys, but working class students of all ethnicities.

Its like jazz: you have to listen to the notes that aren’t being played. No proposals are put forward to help people on low incomes because better outcomes isn’t the point. The point is to portray the concerns of the LME as hypocritical and indulgent fripperies, born of a refusal to engage with the pressing issues of the day.

Another common trick is to claim that those highlighting injustice, or racial discrimination are really the ones to blame for it. Normally by cultivating or indulging (usually black) “victimhood“.

Black or “minority” victimhood is a common trope in David Goodhart’s comments on race. It is a very bad thing, it creates an illegitimate sense of grievance within minority cultures and holds people back from achieving better outcomes for themselves.

But it is only black victimhood that is a problem, and only the grievances of the minority that are illegitimate. The grievance of the (white) majority is perfectly justified.

To be clear, majority grievance is not racism, it just so happens to be the grievance of the white majority and to be focussed on the presence of those of other races. Goodhart does not come out and say “the problem is people of other races” but he leaves us to fill in the blanks. This looks remarkably like fostering racial division: provoking the kind of resentments that can lead to violence, or at least a damaging “culture of victimhood” but for some reason those concerns do not apply when one is talking about the majority.

Once again, his target here is actually the LME. It is they who would tar anyone who disagrees with racism, because of their smug insistence on multiculturalism. They don’t care about the concerns of the authentic majority, because they are not part of it, and anyway it impedes their desire for more takeaway options. No-one outside the LME ever eats anything other than British food, by the way. By opposing the LME in this way David gets to reassert, once more his status as an honest, and fearless truthteller. And then to leverage that status to sell more books, write more columns and maybe bag himself another gig at a thinktank.

This is perhaps the most dispiriting thing about the whole process. So much of it is just a game. The real status of people of colour or the white working class are not the concern. They are just features of a rhetorical parlour trick. Moves in a game; the aim being to win points against an opponent who has been invented purely so that spectators can be charged to watch you defeat them.

David Goodhart et al might or might not think racial injustice is a real concern in England. He might or might not think that racially just outcomes are as important as intentions. He might or might not think white greivance (nudge nudge) is valid. But he’s built a reputation and a career out of taking the positions he has.

And now David Goodhart has been given the chance to play at the EHRC. He’ll decide on matters that affect people’s daily life: matters of employment, criminal justice and the impact of government policy. It may or may not be a coincidence that he has been appointed by the government of the hostile environment, a government that has spent the last decade undermining the position of people of colour in the UK. But it certainly benefits both to give him a bigger board to play on. The real losers are everyone for whom this is not a game, but who have to play along anyway.

The Language of belonging

A statement of principles.

It is impossible to define an in-group without implicitly or explicitly defining an out-group. An in-group that includes everyone is essentially meaningless.

Therefore, in order to talk about belonging, we must inevitably delineate who does and who does not belong.

For any statement which does not do this explicitly, it is possible to tell who falls into the second category by looking at who is included in the first.

Who belongs?

There has been a lot of talk recently about the need to talk the language of belonging. This means, I think, that the left, in particular, needs to reconnect with values like “community” and “tradition” and “patriotism”. I want to discuss why the left often avoids talking about this, and suggest someways we might begin to do so.

Learning the language of belonging

A lot of people seem to think that the left, has lost the ability to talk about belonging because they have become too rootless, metropolitan, or too globalist. Or else, they have become too scared of offending the cultural elites.

The assumptions that underlie this thesis are worthy of at least a blog of their own (if not a book). But for now, it would be useful to take this argument at face value, and think about how we could do it and how we should do it.

Based on the principles outlined at the start of this blog; it behooves us to think about who should be excluded from our community. Who doesn’t get to belong.

Who cares?

It is the working class, who care about belonging. And a successful political project must also do so as well, but the left currently does not.

We can tell that this working class is white, because the left is actually doing pretty well among BAME communities. But talking about belonging, apparently doesn’t mean talking about them. Perhaps, despite the levels of deprivation, they are part of the elite?

The reason why so many on the left get queasy when others start talking about belonging, is that so often the conversation has explicit or implicit racial undertones.

If your discussion only ever seems to apply to places like Bolsolver it is easy to see why some people in Tottenham would assume you don’t think they belong. BAME communities are pretty attuned to being told they don’t belong. It is a message they have received often, particularly over the last decade.

Is belonging necessarily racist?

I would hope not.

We can talk about belonging in a way that doesn’t empower the far right. We just have to think carefully about who we want to exclude.

The far right might be a good candidate. A model of belonging that does not pick out ethnic categories but instead highlights resistance to fascism as it’s badge of entry.  The people who belong are the people who oppose ethno-nationalism and authoritarian strong-men. There is a long tradition of resisting fascism in the UK. If we want to valourize our culture and heritage, maybe that would be a good place to start.

This isn’t risk free. If we focus on British history of defending democracy, we can easily slip into a narrow, historical jingoism. It might obscure the fact that during much of Britain’s history it has allied with autocrats; brutally suppressed popular democratic movements and propped up authoritarian dictators.

We might want to pick an economic definition. What about those who live by earning a wage opposed to those who live off inherited wealth, or the dividends from dodgy investments?

This might sound like Bolshevik rabble rousing, but it doesn’t need to be. Barack Obama – hardly a trotskyist – won in 2012 by successfully framing his opponent as vulture capitalist; the face of heartless, Wall Street finance.

But we should be careful. If we place too much emphasis on the value of labouring for a living we might begin to fetishize work in a way that masks how often workers are exploited. Or we might begin to stigmatize those who rely on benefits to survive.

To me, neither historical jingoism or stigmatizing those on benefits seem like productive avenues for the left. But neither does a model of belonging that leads us to a mean-spirited ethno-nationalism. There are any number of ways we could define belonging: an ethic; a relation to the means of production; loyalty to a given historical tradition. Or alternatively: age, educational status; ethnic identity; sexual preference.  Some are more likely to enable us to build networks of solidarity and support and some are more likely to cut across them in ways that are at best unhelpful and at worse dangerous.

None of them are without potential risks, and all must be handled with sensitivity and care.

Talking about belonging always involves talking about exclusion. We can do it, but we should think carefully about who we want to exclude.

As far as it goes

Does it matter that two of the highest offices in the land are held by British Asians?

On the one hand, it would obviously be bad if BAME politicians were unable to become Chancellor or Home Secretary. Whether due to official discrimination, unofficial prejudice or (more likely) an array of structural forces that simply made it untenable.

So, having a Chancellor called Javid and a Home Secretary called Patel is a good thing, in as much as it proves that’s not the case.

Representation is also important. As far as it goes. And that can be a long way. So if a young British Asian was feeling unsure about their ability to succeed in UK politics, or the UK more generally, maybe seeing a Pakistani Chancellor of the exchequer and a Home Secretary whose parents fled Uganda will help. If it does, good luck to them.

But representation matters as far as it goes, and it might not go very far. Because while seeing people like you in positions of power is important, the encouragement won’t mean much if they are actively working to inhibit the chance of more people like them from doing the same.

And the record of Priti Patel and Sajid Javid on this front is not encouraging.

Priti Patel takes a very dim view on human rights. So it seems unlikely that the 21stcentury equivalent of Ugandan Asians fleeing persecution at home are likely to be offered a safe refuge, and the opportunity to thrive in the UK.

Sajid Javid has made a great play of his humble beginnings. But he also reads the Fountainhead once a year in tribute to Ayn Rand’s social Darwinist vision of freedom. His voting record shows he was very happy to slash support for low income families like the one he tells us he grew up in.

So why isn’t representation taking us further this time? Why won’t the policies match the optics?

If we want to be ungenerous we might say that it’s easy to make space for a one Priti and one Sajid, if doing so avoids difficult questions like why aren’t there more of them?

That certainly is an effect. But let’s grant Priti and Sajid some agency here. They’re not simply dupes, they have beliefs and they act upon them.
Those beliefs don’t translate into policy that materially improves the lives of the communities that Javid and Patel come from though.

Skin colour clearly under describes politics. Javid and Patel demonstrate that themselves.

I think one reason why is that members of minority communities that find themselves in this position are encouraged to think of themselves as exceptional. This impression is inspired and reinforced by the lack of others like them, and an ideology that emphasises the importance of individual striving over communal effort. One that makes people disinclined to reflect on the structures that enabled them in favour of memory of their personal efforts.

An ideology that we can see reflected in the statements and voting record of Priti Patel and Sajid Javid.
Voting records are an imperfect measure of course, all this might show us is how effective the Tory whipping operation is.

But if we want greater representation to equate to better conditions for minority groups, then we need representatives with a mindset that encourages that.
You might say “Javid and Patel are Conservative politicians, what do you expect?”

To which I would reply, “Exactly”.

The meaning of London, and of Belonging and of English

Is London English any more?

What colour do you have to be, to be English?

What colour are the elite?

What does it mean to belong?

Over the past couple of months, a slew of white men have all decided to pontificate and fret about “Immigration” and “Englishness” and “Belonging”. Taken together we can piece together an idea of what is meant by ‘Englishness’, by ‘belonging’, by ‘elite’ and by ‘London’.

None of these words mean what you think they mean.

To start with the most recent, and the most obvious; John Cleese peaked out from his home in the Caribbean to declare that London wasn’t really English anymore. Foreign friends visiting the city had confirmed this view.

It is not clear how these foreign friends ascertained the nationality of the people the saw in London. Presumably they didn’t talk to a representative sample of them? Perhaps they kept an ear out while seeing the sights? Seems like a bit of an oversight, to assume that the voices you hear at the London Dungeon are representative of the residents of Southwark. Let’s credit Cleese’ fabled, foreign friends with more acuity than that.

Maybe they based their opinion on observation of the general populace? How can you tell that people in England aren’t English just by looking at them? I think we know how, don’t we?

At the start of May, Tom Smail, a self-described “multi-lingual Londoner” wrote a piece in Prospect magazine lamenting the sense of isolation he now feels, at the lack of English voices in the communities that surround him. After thirty-five years living in Green Lanes with his French wife and Italian stepchildren, Tom now feels alienated by the Turkish and Kurdish voices that besiege him.

Let us ignore the cognitive dissonance sparked by referring to ones foreign family during a lament about immigration. Let’s also resist the urge to ponder how his immigrant family feel about this article, lamenting their presence in London.

Because Tom isn’t lamenting their presence is he? They’re not the type of immigrants he’s upset about. Why might that be? I think we can guess.

This week, Giles Fraser declared that Labour have “betrayed its working class base and turned itself into a party for London, Cambridge and Brighton.” The word “London” is doing a lot of work here. It apparently isn’t just a geographic signifier, so what is signified?

Giles past interventions have made it clear that he sees England as divided between an authentic, leave-voting, working class who understand patriotism and can appreciate football; and rootless, decadent, metropolitan Remainers. The latter are citizens of nowhere who sneer at love-of-country and could never appreciate the world cup.

London must mean elite, it must mean frothy-coffee drinking rootlessness, and absolutely no working-class people. But what else does London mean? It means not England.

Of course, some people acknowledge that there are multiple facets to London. Some of these facets are working class, some of them suffer from poverty and unemployment. Some of them are communities that have been at the sharp end of neo-liberalism for decades.

But here’s the rub, those people are white too. And of course, those are the people who are being swamped by the immigrants. Losing their culture and their communities to the influx of foreign people. None of those newcomers are part of the working class. Instead they are part of the elite, or at least if they’re not the elite, they are an infliction which the elite imposes in order to facilitate their frothy coffees and ‘diversity’. And no matter how long they’ve been here, they’re can never be English.

Some people just come right out and say this stuff. Lots of people are far more comfortable expressing their racism now than they were a few years ago. But most of the time they don’t need to.

If you spend a whole interview talking about immigration, then sign off by advising the left to talk about “Belonging”, it’s pretty clear who you think belongs, and who doesn’t.

You don’t have to say that only white people can be English, you just need to talk about how places with lots of non-white people (like London for instance) are not English.

You can’t talk about who the English are without creating a negative image of who the English aren’t. You can’t talk about belonging, without defining who doesn’t belong. So you don’t have to. Do the first bit, and people will fill in the blanks.

I was born in London, and have lived here my whole life. My wife is white, she was born and brought up in Canada. She still has a Canadian accent, She is an immigrant. But John Cleese et al seem to be more perturbed by my presence than by hers. And I think we all know why.

The privilege of being generic

Some White people don’t like being called “white“.

Why do we need labels? Why can’t we all just be people?

Those of us with post-colonial backgrounds, and elsewhere might raise an eyebrow at this,

“Why indeed?”

Some people have always had labels affixed to them. If you’re not white in the U.K. you likely spend a lot of time negotiating various labels both those you affix yourself for others and those they place upon you. Where you’re from, where you’re really from.

But being white does not normally necessitate this. If you’re white you’re assumed to be from here. This is perhaps where the anger comes from. If you’re accustomed to being accepted wherever you go it can be difficult to feel that you suddenly require explanation.

There’s a historical irony to this. White as an ethnicity was a conscious creation of racial theorists of the 18th and 19th centuries. It was shaped by the need to differentiate Europeans from inferior, colonised races; and by efforts to fashion and preserve hegemony by Protestant elites in America. Who got to be white has always been up for negotiation, but the principle of exclusion was vital.

Having moved from an identity based on reified differentiation, Whiteness became the default from which everything else is an exception. If you are the generic option then you must, by definition belong. However much space is allowed for people that differ from you (and that space can contract as much as it expands) it is clear that you are making space for others at your indulgence. They might be allowed to stay (or they might not), but that’s not the same as belonging.

The consequences of this trope become clear when a broadcaster comments on the number of white people that attend a Brexit rally and unleashes a torrent of white grievance. Grievance that would be called identity politics if the parties involved had more melanin.

But the consequences are bigger then just Jon Snow being made to give a public apology. The consequences of the White default are that members of the Windrush generation can face sudden deportation to countries they left as children. They are that MPs like Diane Abbott and David Lammy can face continual vicious racist abuse and death threats. Because some people think that just being born here and then getting elected does not give one carte blanch to criticise a state that fundamentally isn’t for you. They are that the Mail can decide a Black MC is being “ungrateful” when he castigates the failure to offer justice for the Grenfell disaster. The consequences are that Shamima Begum’s newborn baby can be left to die in a camp for the sin of having an abused teenager for a mother. Because the rule of law is only conditional for people who are exceptions to the rule.

It does not matter that the Home Secretary who revoked Shamima’s citizenship is not white. Not being white does not necessarily inoculate you from the overwhelming logic of the white default. Especially if your career ambitions rely on it not doing so.

White is not the only default. A recent book has pointed out how much of our lives takes men to be the basic unit of measurement, across culture, design, healthcare. And people who are LGBT have a lot they can tell you about the assumptions of heteronormativity that run though discussions of sexuality. These are just two examples. Each of these defaults have their own historical roots, and modes of expression. But all of them reinforce the idea that the generic is the common good. Everyone else has narrow sectional interests which are granted more or less tolerance depending on the times. To draw attention to this dynamic is to engage in divisive identity politics, and even the default are not free to do that.

The case against stop and search

Should we bring back stop and search?

In many ways, it never went away. But it was in significant abeyance for several years. The current wave of knife violence has amplified calls from police to ramp up the use of stop and search, in a return to policing tactics last seen at the start of the decade, before usage plummeted.

Stop and search rate, per 1000 people, by ethnicity over time

 

Source: Police powers and procedures England and Wales statistics

There were a number of years in the middle of the last decade, when Theresa May – she of the hostile environment and go home vans – positioned herself as the scourge of racist and counter-productive policing. The following is an excerpt from a debate on the use of stop and search from 2014, inspired, partly by an Her Majesties Inspectorate of Constabulary (HMIC) report on the usage of stop and search:

Michael Ellis (Northampton North) (Con): The figures given by my right hon. Friend on stop-and-search are frankly a stain on British policing. The vast majority of stop-and-search powers are exercised under the Police and Criminal Evidence Act, and police officers are required to have reasonable suspicion before exercising those powers. Do not the figures indicate that, sadly, in a large number of cases it is nothing but the colour of the skin of the person being stopped that has caused the stop-and-search to happen?

Mrs May: I am sorry to say that my hon. Friend is right. It is clear that in a large number of cases, there were no reasonable grounds for suspicion. Given that a black person is six times more likely to be stopped and searched than a white person, one can only assume that it is the fact that the person is black that leads to the stop-and-search taking place.

Michael Ellis: Disgraceful.

Mrs May: It is absolutely disgraceful. Sadly, as I indicated in response to another hon. Friend, the feeling has been passed through to young people in black and minority ethnic communities that this is what happens and is, if you like, a fact of life. I want to change that and ensure that it is not a fact of life.

Source: Hansard 30 April 2014

I would encourage anyone to go back and read the whole debate, if for no other reason than to see Theresa May deplore the draconian usage of stop and search licenced by Labour Home Secretaries during their most recent term in office.

In the wake of the 2011 Riots, the HMIC report, and year after year of grossly disproportionate stop and search statistics; the political climate had shifted so far that two conservative politicians could stand up in parliament and brand the police’s actions “disgraceful”. A cynic might also point to the context of a running fight between the Home Office and the Police Federation regarding budget cuts. But still, how far we’ve come.

Subsequent reforms to the practice of authorising Section 60 orders (orders that permit stop and search to be carried out in a specific area without need for reasonable suspicion for a limited time) always the most grossly disproportionate power; brought usage to almost zero. The Home Office’s Best Use of Stop and Search Scheme (BUSS) outperformed the (admittedly rather pessimistic) expectations of civil society groups and did reign in excessive stops. But while stop and search declined, disproportionality remained:

 

(This chart and the one below are taken from The Colour of Injustice report by Release and the LSE, 2018)

Black people continue to be subjected to stop and search at a disproportionate rate.

That’s not fair. But surely, given the current knife crime epidemic, might we accept a little disproportionality if it will take knives off the street? If it did that, maybe we would and maybe not. The problem is that stop and search is overwhelmingly not deployed against, nor does do much to prevent knife crime.

It’s mainly used for drugs.

What this chart shows is that, as the use of stop and search has declined for other offences, drug stops have made up a bigger and bigger proportion of the total.

Self-reported drug use is very slightly lower among Black people than white. It is higher among Black men than white men, though not nearly at a level that justifies the disproportionate level of policing.

Source: Illicit Drug Use amongst Adults, NHS Digital

The evidence indicates that Black people are more likely to be stopped on suspicion of drug possession, and if found to be in possession of drugs are likely to receive a more punitive response. To pick just three indicative stats: Black people are subject to court proceedings for drug possession offences at 4.5 times the rate of whites, are found guilty of this offence at 4.5 times the rate, and are subject to immediate custody at 5 times the rate of white people.

Given the above, what are the chances that granting the police carte blanche to ramp up stop and search will result in proportionately more knives being recovered? As opposed to many more young Black people being arrested for possession of small amounts of cannabis?

We don’t need to speculate. Studies on this topic go back decades. And they all indicate that stopping people on the street is not a very effective way of capturing knives. There is statistical evidence that shows that increase in stop and search do not correlate with decreases in knife crime, and there are studies showing that stop and search undermines community trust in policing. If people don’t trust the police, they will not tell them if they know someone who is carrying a knife. If young people do not trust the police, they will not rely on them for protection, instead they might carry a knife.

Stop and Search fulfils a psychological need to just do something. But that something is not keeping young people safe.

Threats to The West.

Hurrah, another open debate.

Do middle-aged pundits pose a threat to civilised society? How might this threat be managed?

Let me be clear, I’m not suggesting that the likes of Claire Fox, Trevor Phillips, Matthew Goodwin, Eric Kaufmann and David Aaronovitch really are a threat, I’ve always opposed discrimination against pundits of all ages. I’m just asking questions.

There’s a debate taking place at Conway Hall, the original subject was ‘Is rising ethnic diversity a threat to the West?’A glance at the website shows they’ve changed the title to the less race-baity “Immigration and Diversity Politics: A Challenge to Liberal Democracy?” It is reassuring to know that ethnic minorities are no longer a threat to the whole of western civilisation, we only constitute a challenge to liberal democracy.

But the original is what the panel signed up to. So it is worth unpacking that original title a bit. On one level it might be dismissed as pure click-bait. Designed to garner publicity, I guess it was dumped when the backlash proved to be a little more vociferous than the organisers expected.

But what is implied by asking if ethnic diversity is a threat to the west?

Firstly, that there is something readily and unambiguously identified as “The West”. What might that be? Presumably this is not just a geographical marker.

So a concept then. Not just the west, but The West.

If ethnic diversity is potentially a threat to The West, then clearly ethnic diversity must be intrinsically lacking from The West to begin with. The West, therefore denotes something ethnically homogeneous, or at least it ought to be. It was in some purer, more authentic time. To the extent that The West is ethnically homogeneous it is safely The West, to the extent it is becoming diverse it is not.

Does it exist, this ethnically pure West? If so, when was it? And where?Who were the ethnically pure Westerners? The debate is taking place in London, so presumably the English are in. Or some of them at least. If the English are in The West, are the French? Presumably.

But are Australians? Geographically they can’t be, but if not then do Australians also constitute a threat to the ethnic purity that is so vital to its survival? What about Canadians? Or Americans? If they don’t count then this West is looking very small and embattled indeed.

But if they do, and Australia is in, then maybe it is just White Skin that defines the West? For how long have America and Australia been homogeneously White? Have they ever? Do Southern Italians count? They can be downright swarthy, so does Italian migration constitute a threat? There have certainly been times in American history when it did. But does it now? That might be news to Matteo Salvini and the Lega Nord.

What about the Irish? We might include them now, but I think if we were to inform some Victorians that Irish Catholics were to be included within the rarefied circumference of Western Civilisation many of them would object in the strongest possible terms.

If the West doesn’t make much sense as a term of definition, it does make sense as a term of exclusion. The most important point about The West has never really been about who it includes. Its always been more about who it excludes.

All ideas contain the idea of their opposite. So this West, the one that may or may not be threatened by ethnic diversity, cannot exist without its reverse. The Orient perhaps. The Orient is also not an actual place. It is a concept. The Orient signifies ethnically, diverse, polyglot impurity. When we talk of the threat to The West, post by ‘ethnic diversity’, we mean the threat that it will become like The Orient.

At the moment The Orient is often Asian and largely Muslim. At times however, it has included Africa and it sometimes still does. In the 50’s and 60’s it also included the Caribbean, and within the last century it has included the Irish and Jews. People who are not currently from The Orient, would do well to remember that they might find themselves from there at some point in the future.

People from The Orient are inherently destabilising. Their very presence is problematic. The more people from The Orient, that there are in The West, the more diverse it becomes and the less it can be said to exist. The very existence of these Orientals is a threat to the binary separation on which The West depends. Too many of them and it will simply collapse.

This impression is confirmed if we look at some of the people who have invoked the defence of The West, who have raised the alarm and rallied to its defence.

Last year Donald Trump voiced his concern over the threats to Western Civilisation and praised the far-right Polish government’s role in defending it. Marine Le Pen is fond of invoking defence of Western Civilisation to buttress her attempts to alienate and exclude French Muslims, and Victor Orban has made it a key plank of his authoritarian ethno-nationalism. To that rather unedifying list can we now presumably add Conway Hall and Academy of Ideas?

Some participants in this debate have been defending their liberal, anti-racist credentials and arguing that of course they fervently disagree with statement; but they believe in free-speech and confronting racism with open debate.

The problem is they’re not the ones currently being debated.

Once the topic of whether one’s identity is a civilisation-level threat has been put on the agenda, those who endorse the question do not have a great claim to the gratitude from the people who’s lives they are debating. They are playing the game regardless of which team they may be on.

Other of the participants in this debate have been on Twitter defending their participation on the grounds that they are just asking important questions. These questions are out there, whether or not they get publicly answered. The fact that they are now being answered at prestigious events involving Russell-Group academics, prominent radio and press-pundits is neither here nor there.

It’s a useful move, the “Just asking Questions” defence. It allows those who often have very little at stake to say irresponsible and offensive things without ever having to take responsibility for the tension they create. They would never shout fire in a crowded theatre. But they are loudly asking if anyone else sees all that smoke. It’s open debate and you can’t blame them for any resulting stampede. They’re just asking the question.

 

On the burka and bans

Should we ban the burka?

NO.

I was sorely tempted to leave it at that. So sick am I of this preposterous and disheartening debate.

But given that we are, apparently, doing this again; here’s five reasons why it’s a bad idea.

1) It will do nothing to help women who may be suffering under oppressive religious or cultural strictures. It will simply make them liable for criminal proceedings should they follow those strictures. So it will further inhibit what limited freedom they have to go out and interact with wider society.

2) Ditto for social integration either then.

3) There’s not much liberating about setting the police on women and girls because of how they’re dressed. But we all knew that didn’t we? Because:

4) This has sweet FA to do with improving social cohesion or liberating women. This is about picking an out-group and squeezing them for political capital. It doesn’t take a genius to clock that the fact this out-group are Muslim and overwhelmingly non-white is like, not coincidental.

People who are suddenly excised about the oppression of Niqabis often seem strangely unconcerned about the fact that say funding for women’s refuges has been slashed by £7million since 2010. Or that Universal Credit makes it harder for people to leave abusive partners. Which seems like it should be top-of-mind for those who worry about domineering men trapping women in the home? Not to get all whataboutery about it, but it does give cause to question their motives.

5) Finally, because, outside some strict and sensible limits regarding safety and public decency, it is in no sense the place of a democratic state to legislate what people can wear and it beggars belief that we still have to say this. Who are these supposed liberty-lovers who think that the Government should be piling in to decide what women can wear on the way to the shops?

Ah but what about swastikas etc?

That’s a facile comparison, because swastikas are specifically worn to indicate the wearer’s hatred of other people, and to inspire fear in those people. The burka isn’t.

Ah, but what about if women are forced to wear the burka?

Well, we have laws against physical and now emotional abuse and if necessary we should deal with that situation under that rubric.

However, I suspect it won’t be. Because, again, this isn’t about protecting women.

The right type of clothing doesn’t protect women from an abusive partner. Refuge, support, and a welfare system that doesn’t impose harsh financial penalties for trying to escape does that.

But there’s little political capital in offering genuine solutions to domestic violence. Instead, let’s just wheel out the dog-whistle, again.