Sadly we are not a secular state. We would need that to happen first.
What is white privilege?
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Sadly we are not a secular state. We would need that to happen first.
A lot of racism isn't conscious (most of it, in fact), which also means a lot of it is hard to observe directly. Even when it is conscious, it is often unspoken, guarded when in plain sight.
Which is why I find your 'more likely' a bit arbitrary. 12 of the 794 Lords being black implies a variety of structural issues in play. Boris Johnson is on the record as having various racist or xenophobic beliefs, so it's not a controversial inference to draw in this case.
Caporegime
Wait...You're shocked that in a historically white country, predominantly hereditary positions are occupied by white people.
https://fullfact.org/education/are-white-working-class-boys-least-likely-go-university/
Does anyone believe that this is anything other than a direct result of the anti-racism/anti-sexism reverse discrimination policies we've seen become the norm in recent years?
I'm shocked that many seem to believe you can implement things like workplace quotas discriminating in favour of women and non-whites without there being a fallout from these types of policies. It's almost like some don't understand basic math or just literally don't care so kind as they're given preferential treatment.
Does anyone believe that this is anything other than a direct result of the anti-racism/anti-sexism reverse discrimination policies we've seen become the norm in recent years?
I'm shocked that many seem to believe you can implement things like workplace quotas discriminating in favour of women and non-whites without there being a fallout from these types of policies. It's almost like some don't understand basic math or just literally don't care so kind as they're given preferential treatment.
There was a big fuss in Scottish politics about this recently, not enough minorities in positions of power apparently.
Whites make up something like 96-97% of the Scottish population and there's actually a fair number of 'minorities' within their political parties.
It's just nonsense, not only that but it ignores choice while grouping people into the same categories based upon what we're told are arbitrary characteristics. The idea that people from a certain background/sex/etc might not be interested in X is an impossibility for these people, they want perfect levels of representation no matter what.
The funny thing is we tend to see more disparity in many areas in countries with the most freedom, it's almost as though there's preferences.
Nobody is shocked lol, this is a hilariously disingenous take.
Nope. I also think the vast majority of people going to university would be better off not doing so. If they come up with something like white working class males being deliberately excluded from STEM courses where a degree is far more valuable, then it would be a worthy discussion point.
If they're going straight into a vocation, trade or profession where a university education adds little value then I'd make the argument they're far better off not saddling themselves with a student loan debt.
I wasted 3 years and £30k going to uni after being sold the dream that my earnings potential would be so much higher. I just cut the final cheque for my student loan last month at the age of 30 (my contemporaries still have at least a few years left of repaying theirs) and my earnings in the last two years have soared by requalifying to a profession that requires no university education. University was the single most financially irresponsible choice I have ever made.
Fun fact: the largest pension scheme in the UK by assets is the Universities Superannuation Scheme.
Not shocked, nice strawman.
However the proportions are not great and Boris Johnson is on the record with numerous racist comments (which you sidestepped, perhaps you think a racist PM, and hardly the first, couldn't possibly have a bearing on who receives a peerage).
But as you're playing clever: I bet the new appointments have been disproportionately white, relative to the population, relative to most if not all years they were appointed. Would you disagree?
Caporegime
I don't think you know what a straw man is.
Why don't you present the figures and we can decide?
There's not enough representation or promotion for alternative educational choices post school in the UK, there's a lot of schemes but they're barely advertised and have a stigma attached as being 'lesser' than getting a degree. Becoming a tradesman or even entrepreneur is frowned upon in many circles. University if you're 'smart' is the be all and end all, and if you don't spend tens of thousands doing it you're doing it wrong.
Living in the north of England, and while anecdotal I admit, the people I know who earn the most are either tradesmen or people who went their own way in business related ways. I'm talking £50-60K + as a minimum here and in some cases 100k +. On the other hand I know multiple people with laughable degrees who are working in call centres, a friend of mine I was chatting with earlier has some sort of degree in Spanish for some god forsaken reason and laments the time he wasted getting it and the debt he's in given he can't find work that's worth the investment.
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I can't say that I have noticed that "anti-racism/anti-sexism" is entirely apparent on this forum
Quelle surprise
What a complete non-sequitur. For a start the house of Lords is mostly hereditary, and secondly something like 2-3% of the population is black so they are pretty well represented.
The vast majority of those 794 Lords were appointed by people other than Boris Johnson. So are they all racist too? Two people that would normally get peerages do not. What do they have in common? Is it the colour of their skin or is it their outspoken views opposing Brexit? Perhaps the unconscious bias is your own? When all you have is a hammer and all that.
36 Peers made, 3 from BAME backgrounds. ~8%
33% female, so less than May, about the same as Cameron and more than Blair and Brown.
I can't say that I have noticed that "anti-racism/anti-sexism" is entirely apparent on this forum
I won't let another opportunity to shame companies taking part in reverse discrimination go to waste!
Perhaps more of us should adopt " cancel culture" and vote with our wallets/licence fee to boycott and shame companies discriminating against their customers in the grounds of skin colour!
Soldato
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You've been groomed into a cult, and racism is your intangible yet omnipresent evil spirit.
Fair play for finding those figures, genuinely.
So we've got 8% BAME vs 14% of the population being BAME (as mentioned the hereditary aspect is structurally racist).
33% being women isn't great either.
Comparing vs May, Cameron, Brown, Blair is interesting, but it's been a long time since Labour were in power (e.g. Cameron legalized gay marriage, vs Labour only doing civil partnerships, but societal attitudes changed a lot and Cameron would have failed without the large Labour/Lib support). You can contrast it with Major's government, to emphasize the point.
But in this particular case, we'll never be able to prove it either way. So the substantive discussion can only be about the existence of systemic issues and bias. If you reckon acknowledged racist Boris Johnson is using a special, not-racist part of his mind for these appointments, then that's a generous view I won't share.
It's actually observable, just not directly. A bit like gravity. But if you reckon believing racism is real should be equated to spiritual ruminating then I'll leave you to that enlightened view. Nothing to be gained.
Soldato
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I wonder if angry white right wing men constantly going on about teachers and places of learning are all trying to make them left wing transexuals might have something to do with it aswell.
Why?
I genuinely mean this, why is it bad that only 33% of women are in those positions?
There's this assumption that it should be perfectly equal between men and women, why exactly is that?
I'm not saying that should not be the case, but surely there's preference? Men and women tend to want different things from life. The people who argue for perfectly equal representation are often pushing the theme of perfect outcome rather than opportunity and can never qualify why things should be perfectly equal in outcome.
Do hold in mind that should women not be interested in certain jobs, the push for equality of outcome means that certain women might be forced to do work they're not interested in but also that those less qualified might end up in said positions. This works the other way around, what if we pushed and enforced 50% of nurses being male?
I take your point in the abstract. There's a bigger conversation about how people pick careers, how empowered they are to do that, how they're encouraged and supported to do that, how industries treat their minority members (e.g. men in primary education, women in construction).
But for politicians it's more straightforward: I believe politicians should represent their constituents (roughly, nothing is perfect). Democracy is one way to do that (although candidate selection is not a perfect process, people have limited choices in the ballot box) where people vote for candidates who purport to believe in certain things, to understand certain issues... but the lords are a long way from democracy.
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