the criticism that is flying through the office today is that Denham’s hubristic comments will be met with headlines that describe an over-zealous politician at the end of his straw. His message – though not as sensationalist as it will be interpreted and promoted through the media channels – will not resonate with those who still experience racism. It’s obvious that the core of the message – that racism is fading, relatively – will obfuscate the real message of the labour party, that more can, should, and will be done by a labour future (the last bit is my own opinion, and not the one going through the office, I can tell you!).

Black is white
Truth is lies

Doubleplusgood

I too welcome Mr Denham’s comments, but question the timing. The wealth of a person’s parents has long been a deciding factor in the degree of their success within society, why is he choosing to make the statement now?

Why has this ‘newly-found’ mass of disadvantaged people been largely ignored up to this point?

The answer is political expediency. Labour has so far attempted to force social mobility upon the country with headline grabbing stunts such as compelling Oxbridge to take candidates with lower grades. What possible benefit can be gained from such a policy other than the further dilution of university degrees and sub-standard graduates who will ultimately fail in the world of work? Surely the best way to create a more open society is to look lower down the failing education system.

Agree that it is a good speech and the right broad political and policy approach.

There are three reasons

1. An evidence-based approach to disadvantage would point strongly in this direction.

I wrote a summary of this for The Observer in 2001, stressing this point,”it is not surprising that rather than a single ‘ethnic minority experience’ of life in Britain in 2001 there is a complex pattern of opportunity and disadvantage with as many differences within and between different ethnic groups as can be found by comparing the ‘ethnic minorities’ to the general population” and offering a summary of the key evidence of that point
http://www.guardian.co.uk/uk/2001/nov/25/race.world4

2. This is the right way to bring an analysis of class in as central, without claiming it is the only dimension which matters. That could have the ability to reconnect the equality and equalities debates which have too often run on separate tracks.

3. That at least creates some foundation on which we might try to build broad coalitions for a fairer and more equal society, and to reject a politics of ‘competitive grievances’ between disadvantaged groups.

So ‘does class or race matter’ is obviously an odd frame to allow the debate to get into.

Just about the best thing you could do for the most disadvantaged minority ethnic populations would be to significantly reduce child poverty, and support better educational outcomes, and jobs opportunities for those from poorer backgrounds. Success in those areas would have a disproportionately positive impact on any and every section of the population which faces a high levels of disadvantage.

There will be specific areas of ethnic disadvantage, but that should depend on the evidence base. For example, there is evidence of an “ethnic penalty” in employment rates and pay after you correct for socio-economic factors, with better than average education results leading to worse than average jobs/pay outcomes. (The recent evidence from ‘blind’ CV exercises captures one contributor to this). But one needs a sharper focus to unpack when or whether there are specific factors.

By contrast, in studying Parliamentary selections, I found there was no current disadvantage for non-white candidates in Labour selections (they win over 10% of new selections), in contrast to women. So in that field the effects of class are very strong, those of gender still important, but any race issue much less important than they were even 10 years ago.

[1] Are we supposed to know where you work, Carl?

One problem I see with Mr Denham’s statement.

The Times report includes the following:

“Lord Ouseley, a black peer who is a former chairman of the Commission for Racial Equality, agreed with Mr Denham that Britain had made great strides in the last decade, but warned that there was still a long way to go.”

So if racism is dead, why are we still describing people as black, white etc? Does Lord Ouseley function any different to say Lord Coe (apart from being slower?). I think the statement may be shown to be premature by its reporting.

Waah! Waah! Nasty BBC won’t buy all my scripts! They must be racists! I demand more respect!

I on the other hand…

A bit of reading of the Telegraph article produces the following interesting gem:

“However, the corporation does have a target that 12.5 per cent of its employees should be from ethnic minorities by December 2012. In January 2009, the figure was 12 per cent.”

You can see why Ms La Plante may feel put out by this. I am – why should a nationalised institution be able to target employing any group? Isn’t the BNP in trouble for something similiar. Of course this could be wrong – Telegraph doesn’t link to or identify its sources – but if not, I think the racism is dead message hasn’t reached the BBC (if a hiring manager has to make a choice between two candidates and one fits the profile required to meet a target, the manager, obeying the requirements of their employer, will all else being equal select them. This is discrimination).

The question is: why should a person’s race be used as a determinant on terrorism / crime related offences unless they think that being brown automatically makes you more likely to commit terrorism

Sunny, I think that’s what they do think.

Are you saying they are wrong?

It’s about the first genuinely “Labour” thing I’ve heard Labour say in years, and a sensible thing to boot.

Regardless of how it’s portrayed, and what he says, it’s less about racism ending or not (though it should be evident that racism is on the decline in this country?) and more about not dictating policy based on statistics that aren’t necessarily relevant to the problem at hand.

Minorities will still need support, but can we really be so blind as to think that rich ethnic minorities receive the same type of racism as impoverished and unemployed ethnic minorities? So yes, good announcement.

Mike Killingworth

no, that’s up to interested parties to find out themselves (of which I’m sure is limited). It so happened that there was a brief discussion of this story before the libcon article appeared, and so I thought I’d include it in my comment. Where I work is of no reflection to the report or to what I think of John Denham.

Should such targetting (for stopping or whatever) not in some way reflect the probabilities?

“If my name were Usafi Iqbadal and I was 19, then they’d probably bring me in and talk.”

I’d like to see ‘Iqbadal’ pitch a load of toss like ‘The Red Dahlia’.

La Plante hasn’t produced a good script in over a decade.

[8] Let’s do a thought experiment, Watchman. You’re a manager in a large organisation (public or private – no difference) and you have to hire someone. You finish up with two candidates whom you consider could both do the job well. But you only have one job. How do you choose between them?

In my experience, there is always one and only one candidate who stands out at interview – because there’s only one job, you look for one person and human beings tend to find what they’re looking for.

If the situation you envisage ever arose a proper Equal Opportunites employer would toss a coin. But somehow that never becomes necessary, even in the most right-on outfits.

[11] OK. I just thought you might work for a political party, and if so that ought to be disclosed.

The end of racism, Sunny? is that why the EDL, SIOE, the BNP and UKIP are on the rise?

a slight digression: Trying to be a little bit more sophisticated about “profiling”

@15 – not sure you can chuck UKIP in there. It’s perfectly legitimate to be anti European Union because it’s costly, undemocratic, pointless etc. I don’t think they’re in the least bit racially against the EU.

@17 I’m sure it’s perfectly legitimate to be a frothing anti-EU loon without being racist, “reactionary, stupid, bigoted and extraordinarily homophobic” – for some reason, UKIP can’t quite manage it.

http://www.devilskitchen.me.uk/2009/04/ukip-homophobic-shit-for-brains.html

http://www.leftfootforward.org/2010/01/ukip-crisis-over-extremist-views-of-euro-allies/

Read down for more fun times including holocaust denial: http://www.whatnextjournal.co.uk/Pages/Back/Wnext29/Ukip.html

Of course I suppose you think negative discrimination on the basis of race or skin colour is not racist. That must be why UKIP can get away with being racist and say they aren’t racist: http://ukipwatch.org/2009/10/godders-bloom-in-paki-race-row.html

I think race remains a major factor in discrimination. For example, do you know of a school where there are is an all BME teaching staff with a derisory view of the all white children their teaching? I’ve taught in schools where the polar opposite is true. However, the last research report to come out which identified teacher racism as a significant problem in the classroom was slammed by the unions. I’m all for a multidimensional analysis, but caution should be exercised, IMHO, less “multidimensional” become a byword for sweep sweep under the carpet.

@14.

Mike, I’ve twice had feedback from interviews over the last few months where I apparently did nothing wrong, but they selected another candidate. As one decision took three days to be made, and as I performed well in both cases, I am inclined to believe the people giving me feedback that it was down to effectively who they felt would fit best, not the stand-out candidate. I doubt my race or gender was part of these decisions (if so, I’m well out of there…), but people have to be able to decide between two-equally impressive individuals, and if targets are there to be met, this may be the deciding factor. I’ve worked in target-driven environments enough to know that managers sometimes become automata as a result of targets, even if that was never the intention.

Anyway, arguing that the possibility of racial discrimination happening does not exist because you do not believe the in possibility of two equally good candidates is rather a strange argument. Just because it is indeed unlikely does not make it impossible, and try deploying that argument against some BNP idiot who would be able to crush it by asking you if the theory was impossible (probably in shorter words).

@17 – i’m certainly not saying there aren’t nutjobs in UKIP but to be anti EU is to not really have a party that represents that view point except the UKIPers. Every party has nutters in it.

[20] “An ability to fit in” is usually part of the person spec (it may be dressed up in posher language including the word “team”) and is a perfectly valid criterion. I’m sure I’ve mentioned this before, but it remains relevant: Lambeth Council found that its housing benefit service improved its efficiency when the individual teams (who dealt with claimants on the basis of the alphabetical order of their surnames) were re-organised to be ethnically homogenous.

It is always frustrating to miss out on a job, but if you have been told that you were the “second best” candidate a couple of times you will get one soon. When I was jobhunting I liked to have several applications on the go at any one time so that I could quickly move on from any rejections.

http://www.guardian.co.uk/commentisfree/2010/jan/14/labour-racism-john-denham

Sunny I expect you want to move the discussion on from race to class because you think this will deal with the threat of the BNP more. But when it is almost impossible to define working class, comments that we should move away from asian and black victims to white working class concerns essentially means: “dropping concern for the wogs and going to help the whites”. Class is absent from your analysis.

the criticism that is flying through the office today is that Denham’s hubristic comments will be met with headlines that describe an over-zealous politician at the end of his straw

I think Carl is right about this. Saw a BBC headline earlier that said Denham was saying this only because the BNP was on the rise.

Which is completely stupid. One of the main reasons I started writing about race was because I got annoyed with people like Lee Jasper who lumped all minorities together.

Sunny, get yourself over to the Guardian’s Comment is Free and take Joseph Harker to task, please, as he’s written some very peculiarly blinkered guff on this (basically, because you can’t exactly pinpoint class, then it’s not a factor, whereas race always is: Aye, right, Joseph, and what’s the definitive meaning of race,then?)

@3 Ed: “Labour has so far attempted to force social mobility upon the country with headline grabbing stunts such as compelling Oxbridge to take candidates with lower grades.”

1. The government has not compelled Oxbridge or anywhere to take candidates with low grades. (It could be argued that by operating admissions figure targets across universities, the government has allowed more lowly qualified students into higher education, but that is not to the exclusion of those with better grades.)

2. Many universities have noted that the current A Level examination system, UCAS form and university interview does not meet their admission requirements. The mechanisms exaggerate the talents of those who are bright and eloquent at the age of 17/18, underestimating the potential of others. The mechanisms are poor predictors. So changes, voluntarily adopted by universities and pre-empting government meddling, are not about enforcing social mobility but about finding the best students.

3. It is not in the interest of universities to recruit students who may not fit into their environments. Highly ranked universities only admit students who are likely to succeed in order to maintain their place in league tables. Lower ranking universities (predominantly post-1992 institutions) have to accept students with a lower probability of success, and adjust their practices accordingly.

“The reality is that racial disadvantage is alive and thriving. Have a look at the race disproportionality in our prisons, youth custody centres, mental health institutions, stop-and-search policing, health outcomes, unemployment, comparative earnings and low pay. Look, too, at the under-representation of people of colour in senior positions in public authorities, as elected representatives in local and central government and in the corporate world, especially where big bonuses are dished out to those who are already obscenely rich.”

from Herman Ouseley, chair and chief executive of the Commission for Racial Equality from 1993 to 2000
http://www.guardian.co.uk/commentisfree/2010/jan/14/john-denham-race-equality

Sunny, original post: “The question is: why should a person’s race be used as a determinant on terrorism / crime related offences unless they think that being brown automatically makes you more likely to commit terrorism and being black automatically makes you a psychopathic murderer.”

True enough. I’ll ignore the terrorism aspect, because there are many fine explanations why race based profiling is not just immoral but stupid.

I think that we need to be a bit more probing about why non-white people are more likely to be questioned on the street by the police. Racism (deliberate or unconscious) and unconscious racial profiling are almost certainly factors. But there are other (potential) reasons why, and aggregate figures about how many people are questioned fail to provide clues.

Black and Asian kids may hang out on the street corner where they live in the evenings. If they live in an inner city area or even a small town ghetto, they’ll probably be in a higher than average crime area with more police activity. So owing to their presence at the wrong time, wrong place (insufficient to be defined as profiling), they are more likely to be questioned.

The same thing happens to white kids on the street corner. But there are more of them and they blend into the numbers. Perhaps they do not live in a high crime area with active policing.

In a city as big as London, reporting street interview statistics across the capital as a whole is simply misleading. The data needs to be much more discrete.

I fear that the Telegraph headline has it correctly:

“Britain is no place for the white, working-class male”
http://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/newstopics/politics/labour/6990777/Britain-is-no-place-for-the-white-working-class-male.html

Compare this analysis:

“Though white children in general do better than most minorities at school, poor ones come bottom of the league (see chart). Even black Caribbean boys, the subject of any number of initiatives, do better at GCSEs”
http://www.economist.com/world/britain/displaystory.cfm?story_id=14700670

And despite that call, I don’t believe anyone has so far come up with an effective prescription for the malady.

Denham’s speech was simply expressing what any rational politico has known for years, if not decades.

As I explained on my blog this morning, he contributed nothing to the debate over opportunity and social inclusion and merely pointed out that Labour have failed white working-class boys through their endless obsession with promoting the interests ‘minorities’ instead.

Bob B,

it might all add up. Suppose the sole determinant of life chances, or whatever, is class … or socioeconomic status, to avoid debates about what counts as working class.

now, suppose ethnic minorities have on average lower socioeconomic status. That means they’ll be disproportionately represented in crime states (relative to population proportion, versus whites) and also that policies targeted at helping ethnic minorities have some validity from statistical discrimination even if they suffer no particular direct disadvantage from racism (I don’t suggest that’s true).

However, while lower than whites on average, not all ethnic minorities occupy the lowest socioeconomic status, so if you specifically select the group of white from the lowest socioeconomic status, you would expect this group to perform worse than the ethnic minority average.

This story “fits the facts” without any policy maker neglecting any particular racial group, like white working class (all that’s happening is the working class are doing badly relative to others).

27

John Booth is Right!

The Chinese, Japanese and Jews MUST make more of an effort to grab their fair share of prison space instead of letting Muslims grab three times their statistically fair entitlement.

And as for the amount of prison space the Afro-Caribbeans grab, words fail me! They grab at least four times their fair share in the U.K. and in Canada, France, Belgium and Holland, too! Greedy fellows!

It’s just not fair!

How about the polo-paying chum addressed by the Bigears of Highgrove as ‘Sooty’ then?

Is HE racially disadvantaged, do you think ?

Why isn’t Sooty writing a bitter chip-on-my-shoulder piece in ‘Comment is Free’ then?

Oh BOY You guys will like this!!

http://ithp.org/articles/obamatruecolors.html

Martin Sullivan believes that “the police” and “the judicial system” have nothing to do with who gets put in prison, thinking that prisoners are there voluntarily.

Martin Sullivan, obviously, is incorrect.

One wonders why Martin Sullivan is allowed out of the house without a hard hat and a minder. But, this being the internet, there is a possibility that he is not.