Will the UK prevail in the war on wokeness?

It is simultaneously one of the most ridiculous and important cultural and political conflicts developing in the western world right now, having rapidly infected the UK polity with Republican American brain-worms, with dozens of moves and counter-moves now being made every week by the bitterly divided combatants. To be sure, one side is clearly more wrong than the other, but which side shall prevail? Who is more righteous? Who is better armed, with facts and arguments? Who has the support of the law, and who should have it? What should bystanders do? What has actually happened, and why? It's a messy issue in great need of clarity—about the facts, if nothing else.

Can you let us know what you're talking about? What war on wokeness?

Quote:

---

Originally Posted by RandBlade

Can you let us know what you're talking about? What war on wokeness?

---

https://www.express.co.uk/news/polit...ritish-history

https://www.politico.eu/article/uk-g...story-culture/

Twitter Link

And so on!

You read the Express? :haha:

I think I found your problem.

Will read the others later on when I have the time to do so, busy now, but I'm not reading the Express. Ignore that shit. Next you'll be telling us that Diana is aliving and living with Madeleine McCann :haha:

Quote:

---

Originally Posted by RandBlade

You read the Express? :haha:

I think I found your problem.

Will read the others later on when I have the time to do so, busy now, but I'm not reading the Express. Ignore that shit. Next you'll be telling us that Diana is aliving and living with Madeleine McCann :haha:

---

I provided the link to the express for your benefit, and the other two links for the benefit of people who are not you. The least you could do is express some gratitude for the wholly unearned consideration I have shown to bigoted Little Englanders.

I don't read the Express TYVM.

Read the Politico and Telegraph pieces. Seems a few sensible little changes but much ado about nothing, I wouldn't call it a war and I don't know who does since that phrase wasn't accredited to anyone.

On the issues mentioned:
1: Free Speech at Universities is important, everybody should value free speech.
2: Charities are not supposed to get involved with politics not related to their charitable status. Doing so is illegal and the government is responsible for that so reminding them of that fact is not really shocking.
3: Statues represent history, both good and bad. Historically significant buildings already are 'listed' and can't be removed without consent, it makes sense for statues to be the same.
4: TV channels like Channel 4 have a legal responsibility in this country to be impartial, unlike the press, though Channel 4 is rather unabashedly leftwing.

As for the idea that this distracts from the pandemic this is absolutely nonsense. The pandemic and especially the vaccine rollout is the #1 story in this country and will be for months to come - and the vaccine news over the weekend that the target of offering to vaccinate the first 4 priority groups (all clinically extremely vulnerable, all over 70 year olds, all health and social care workers) has been completed days early was great news so the idea there's an attempt to distract from that is pathetic spin that its ridiculous to quote or take seriously. However the Communities Secretary is not especially involved with this stage of the health response compared to eg the Health Secretary or the Vaccines Minister.

It's hysterical, bad-faith right-wing culture-war nonsense, intended to placate xenophobes, racists and puffed-up Little Englanders who're mad about their waning social & cultural clout. That is the context for these developments, and I realize context is not something that exists in your universe.

It is also blatantly hypocritical; a lot of public money will be expended on this overtly political and anti-intellectual project to ensure Britain isn't made to look as bad as it was (and is)—"to defend [Britain's] culture and history from the noisy minority of activists constantly trying to do Britain down," or, in reality, to defend history from... historians.

Changing perspectives on history is an inherent feature of history as an academic discipline. For a body such as the National Trust to engage with and respond to modern scholarship is not an example of illegally "getting involved with politics not related to their charitable status" requiring a "reminder" from some sniveling crony; on the contrary, it is a perfect example of what they're supposed to do, as a part of responsibly fulfilling their mission. The poorly-disguised efforts to deter them from pursuing that mission, however, is a fantastic example of stifling freedom of speech for political ends—and it will have a chilling effect.

Quote:

---

Originally Posted by Aimless

It is simultaneously one of the most ridiculous and important cultural and political conflicts developing in the western world right now, having rapidly infected the UK polity with Republican American brain-worms, with dozens of moves and counter-moves now being made every week by the bitterly divided combatants. To be sure, one side is clearly more wrong than the other, but which side shall prevail? Who is more righteous? Who is better armed, with facts and arguments? Who has the support of the law, and who should have it? What should bystanders do? What has actually happened, and why? It's a messy issue in great need of clarity—about the facts, if nothing else.

---

Well, according to an article I was reading last week, the French academics are siding with those fighting wokeness. It is apparently just more US cultural imperialism.

Quote:

---

Originally Posted by LittleFuzzy

Well, according to an article I was reading last week, the French academics are siding with those fighting wokeness. It is apparently just more US cultural imperialism.

---

Are these the same ones who seem to have a soft spot for incest and pedophilia?

Quote:

---

Originally Posted by LittleFuzzy

Well, according to an article I was reading last week, the French academics are siding with those fighting wokeness. It is apparently just more US cultural imperialism.

---

They'll have to wait until their government is done fighting "Islamo-Leftism".

Thread about the government's evidence base/reliance on creepy dingbats:

Twitter Link

Twitter Link

Been reading through the report on institutional racism, and it is a load of scientifically illiterate—and sloppy—garbage. The BMJ has now published an uncharacteristically sharp criticism of the scientific incompetence demonstrated by the report:

https://blogs.bmj.com/bmj/2021/03/31...ies-in-health/

The govt. continues to clown itself through its ill-conceived war on wokeness.

Lolololol

Twitter Link

A sensible and balanced report from the sound of it by independent and credible people from different walks of like. Almost 100% non white.

But then seeing people online referring now to Tony Sewell and others as "Uncle Tom" characters I'm unsurprised to see you on here wanting to make this a "war".

Your attempts at fanning culture wars are absurd. The UK is not America thankfully.

Is there a commonly used and agreed upon definition of the terms 'institutional' and 'systematic' in the context of racism?

It doesn't surprise me that there are racist people. It does surprise me if there are laws, policies and processes that discriminate based on skin colour or ethnicity embedded in our businesses and governmental institutions.

But I will admit to being largely ignorant on the matter. I've not read the report.

Gogo, here's how institutional racism was defined in the Lawrance report back in the 90s "The collective failure of an organization to provide an appropriate and professional service to people because of their colour, culture, or ethnic origin. It can be seen or detected in processes, attitudes and behaviour that amount to discrimination through prejudice, ignorance, thoughtlessness, and racist stereotyping which disadvantage minority ethnic people."

In general, the first step is to stop thinking of racism as just skinheads shouting slurs at people in the street or people consciously deciding to discriminate against someone explicitly because they're non-white.

Quote:

---

Originally Posted by gogobongopop

Is there a commonly used and agreed upon definition of the terms 'institutional' and 'systematic' in the context of racism?

It doesn't surprise me that there are racist people. It does surprise me if there are laws, policies and processes that discriminate based on skin colour or ethnicity embedded in our businesses and governmental institutions.

But I will admit to being largely ignorant on the matter. I've not read the report.

---

Well that's precisely the point made in the report, which is quite sensible and moderate but extremists on both sides want to just scream abuse at each other to fan culture wars.

Quote:

---

Originally Posted by Steely Glint

Gogo, here's how institutional racism was defined in the Lawrance report back in the 90s "The collective failure of an organization to provide an appropriate and professional service to people because of their colour, culture, or ethnic origin. It can be seen or detected in processes, attitudes and behaviour that amount to discrimination through prejudice, ignorance, thoughtlessness, and racist stereotyping which disadvantage minority ethnic people."

---

Cool - thanks.

So, the issue of names on CVs comes up a lot in this debate. Under that definition could it be argued that by allowing names on CVs an organisation is failing to provide an appropriate service because we, as silly human beings, suffer from unconscious (and conscious) bias that is shaped by our own prejudices and elements of society?

That makes an assumption of course that we are all a little bit racist, because it can be difficult sometimes to disassociate stereotypes or past experiences with names. It assumes we're all a bit weak and the only way to help overcome this weakness is to protect us from it. Therefor by allowing names on CVs, we enable bias, and thus the institution could be deemed as racist.

Thoughts?

Quote:

---

Originally Posted by gogobongopop

Is there a commonly used and agreed upon definition of the terms 'institutional' and 'systematic' in the context of racism?

It doesn't surprise me that there are racist people. It does surprise me if there are laws, policies and processes that discriminate based on skin colour or ethnicity embedded in our businesses and governmental institutions.

But I will admit to being largely ignorant on the matter. I've not read the report.

---

There is no single agreed-upon formal definition, but most definitions boil down to the one Steely cited. Discussions of structural racism tends to concern interactions between various types of societal institutions, whereas "systemic racism" is a broader catch-all term. None of these concepts require institutions to be explicitly, overtly racist in the sense of eg. an official apartheid system; the discriminatory effect of laws, policies and processes does not need to be caused by overt racial animus. I've mostly focused on the health aspect of the report, and I agree with most of what the authors of the BMJ piece said about those parts: https://blogs.bmj.com/bmj/2021/03/31...ies-in-health/

The report itself is long but many of the issues I have with it are touched upon in this thread: https://twitter.com/nathanoseroff/st...39287193911296

I don't think this report would pass muster in a first-year sociology course, and the level of sloppiness and amateurishness is a little embarrassing from a govt. commission on such a high-profile issue. Many of the primary sources draw—or strongly suggest—conclusions that are the diametric opposite of the report's conclusions (see eg. discussion of cannabis as a "gateway" drug), and no real justification is provided for those discrepancies. By and large, it looks like they neglected to read many of the sources they cite—and they make the classic academic parody error of adjusting away the very issue they're investigating (if you adjust for structural racism, there is no structural racism). It's really not very good—hence the uncharacteristically sharp tone of the BMJ piece.

Quote:

---

Originally Posted by gogobongopop

Cool - thanks.

So, the issue of names on CVs comes up a lot in this debate. Under that definition could it be argued that by allowing names on CVs an organisation is failing to provide an appropriate service because we, as silly human beings, suffer from unconscious (and conscious) bias that is shaped by our own prejudices and elements of society?

That makes an assumption of course that we are all a little bit racist, because it can be difficult sometimes to disassociate stereotypes or past experiences with names. It assumes we're all a bit weak and the only way to help overcome this weakness is to protect us from it. Therefor by allowing names on CVs, we enable bias, and thus the institution could be deemed as racist.

Thoughts?

---

If you can't pronounce a candidates name would you attempt to reach out to that person? Who is ultimately responsible for that decision?

Quote:

---

Originally Posted by Ominous Gamer

If you can't pronounce a candidates name would you attempt to reach out to that person? Who is ultimately responsible for that decision?

---

I've reviewed hundreds of CVs and interviewed more candidates than I can remember. I've never been concerned by my ability to pronounce somebody's name. It's never been a reason to reject somebody. That's my decision as the hiring manager.

Looking back I probably have let unconscious bias or even some conscious bias influence a decision before. I wish it hadn't and it's not something I'm proud of, but bias is one of the hardest things to battle; especially when you've had no training or awareness of such things.

Quote:

---

Originally Posted by gogobongopop

I've reviewed hundreds of CVs and interviewed more candidates than I can remember. I've never been concerned by my ability to pronounce somebody's name. It's never been a reason to reject somebody. That's my decision as the hiring manager.

Looking back I probably have let unconscious bias or even some conscious bias influence a decision before. I wish it hadn't and it's not something I'm proud of, but bias is one of the hardest things to battle; especially when you've had no training or awareness of such things.

---

To be clear I wasn't attacking you, as I had no idea of your experiences. Are you able to agree that your ability to tackle names from around the world may not be all that common? Separately, should hiring managers be concerned with assumptions concerning how a person's name may affect the ability of a person to do their required job duties?

Quote:

---

Originally Posted by Ominous Gamer

To be clear I wasn't attacking you, as I had no idea of your experiences.

---

:up:

Quote:

---

Originally Posted by Ominous Gamer

Are you able to agree that your ability to tackle names from around the world may not be all that common?

---

I honestly don't know. I'm not sure I could say either way.

Quote:

---

Originally Posted by Ominous Gamer

Separately, should hiring managers be concerned with assumptions concerning how a person's name may affect the ability of a person to do their required job duties?

---

I don't think they should, no. I'd be perfectly happy to have nameless CVs; although I guess the argument against that though is that you'll probably need to know their name at some point in the interview process e.g. telephone or face to face, so it doesn't entirely remove the risk. But then how far do we go? Do we interview behind a blind screen and talk to each other through a voice changing m'jooey? Complicated. Shrug.

Complicated, agreed. I'm not even sure if I'm comfortable with saying names are meaningless. Having taken my daughter to work a few times, every conversation she had with a customer started with them questioning her name.

I hire 2-4 people a year, typically from screening CVs all the way through interviews and reference checks. I am also involved in the screening and interviewing of several more employees each year, though I'm not the hiring manager; I'm typically interviewing at least 1 candidate a week, and interface with other hiring managers and HR functions to see their evaluations.

I can say without hesitation that bias exists even in the most well intentioned reviewer or interviewer. It's true that the applicant pool I review tends to be more white and male than the general population given the nature of the work, but there's all sorts of biases that creep in. Sometimes it might technically be good - when I'm reviewing resumes, if a candidate is on the bubble and I notice they're a woman or a minority I'll actually give it a second look to see whether I'm being unfairly harsh in my review. But that added scrutiny itself is a bias, and it's not guaranteed to result in a more generous perspective - maybe on second thought I'll decide they really aren't worth moving into the next round. I'm doubtful that removing names will fully get rid of this bias, though, since I can normally tell just by looking at the formatting and phrasing/typos whether the candidate is a woman or not a native English speaker.

Furthermore, while I haven't found that names tied to ethnic or racial backgrounds have as strong as an effect on resume review (and much less effect on the interview stage), national origin is a big source of bias. I get a lot of Chinese and Indian nationals applying to positions, and I guarantee that they are viewed a bit more skeptically both because of the quality of post-secondary education in those countries and the risk that they will require sponsorship. The absolute top of that crowd gets a very respectful hearing, but the bar is higher.

I've also seen some bias creep in on the basis of post-secondary education. My boss' boss is very well disposed to people who have attended top schools in the US - she believes in a correlation between the prestige and reputation of a school and the general quality of its graduates. I tend to be much more egalitarian (I have attended three of these so-called prestigious schools and have met any number of people who I wouldn't want to hire, so I'm rather more skeptical). Even so, I'll definitely notice if they have a sterling academic background, especially for more junior positions. This, of course, is heavily correlated with race (less so gender), so favoring fancy academic backgrounds is by nature selecting a whiter and more Asian candidate pool.

I should also note that the jobs I'm screening for are highly technical with very specific skill sets we're looking to fill. That makes the screening process a lot more objective than other positions with softer requirements, where there's a lot more latitude for judgment calls that clearly exclude a well qualified candidate.

I guess my point is that even in an environment that explicitly values diversity and hiring by merit (and, in my case, that has a mostly female leadership and an adequate record of diversity hires), there are still biases that exist, unspoken or not. They're not the really obvious kind of stuff like 'oh I can't pronounce that name I won't talk to them', but the biases still exist and still favor a whiter (and occasionally more male) candidate pool advancing to later stages of the hiring process.

Quote:

---

Originally Posted by gogobongopop

So, the issue of names on CVs comes up a lot in this debate. Under that definition could it be argued that by allowing names on CVs an organisation is failing to provide an appropriate service because we, as silly human beings, suffer from unconscious (and conscious) bias that is shaped by our own prejudices and elements of society?

---

Although name-change/anonymization experiments conducted all over the west show—conclusively—that certain ethnic/racial (and gender!) cues are associated with severe penalties at the initial application stage, the evidence for being able to mitigate the negative impact of this on the key outcome—whether or not you get the job—by anonymizing applications is less conclusive. But yeah, I'd argue that public institutions at least should always use anonymized applications for the initial selection steps. Such institutions also tend to have clear, well-publicized and somewhat more "objective" criteria.

There is some evidence eg. from Sweden suggesting that it's def. easier once you get to an interview—and esp. if you get a trial run—but non-white employees remain at a disadvantage at almost every stage. Important to bear in mind that most people get new jobs through contacts or via internal recruitment processes, which tends to favour applicants/employees belonging to the white majority population (and esp. men), due to a host of structural and social issues.

Anecdotally, I know many non-white men and women with distinctly non-Swedish names who've been encouraged to change their names to generic western names after struggling to land an interview, and all have found much greater success after the name-change. They weren't any less Swedish before the name-change, but it may have removed a threatening marker of otherness—typically an Arabic, Persian, Kurdish or "African"-sounding (= overtly Muslim/foreign) name.

Quote:

---

Originally Posted by gogobongopop

[...]

That makes an assumption of course that we are all a little bit racist, because it can be difficult sometimes to disassociate stereotypes or past experiences with names. It assumes we're all a bit weak and the only way to help overcome this weakness is to protect us from it. Therefor by allowing names on CVs, we enable bias, and thus the institution could be deemed as racist.

[...]

I've reviewed hundreds of CVs and interviewed more candidates than I can remember. I've never been concerned by my ability to pronounce somebody's name. It's never been a reason to reject somebody. That's my decision as the hiring manager.

Looking back I probably have let unconscious bias or even some conscious bias influence a decision before. I wish it hadn't and it's not something I'm proud of, but bias is one of the hardest things to battle; especially when you've had no training or awareness of such things.

---

Racial/ethnic animus notwithstanding, most people tend to perceive a greater distance to people who are different from them on any of a number of different dimensions—perceived gender, perceived race, perceived religion, perceived political leanings, age, etc—along which we unconsciously rate one another. Ie. even without being an out-and-out brownie-hating Islamophobic BNP-voting racist, you might find it considerably more difficult to establish the same rapport with Somalian-English Abdulkadir that you might instantly develop with Andrew from Leicester—who looks, talks, and behaves more or less just like you. That can lead you to feel like you have a much better sense of who Andrew is as a person, which, in turn, can lead you to like Andrew—and trust him!—more than Abdulkadir, even though you don't have any particularly negative feelings about the latter. Sadly, there is reason to believe that non-white applicants/employees—as well as female-presenting ones—are also at a significant disadvantage when it comes to how they're perceived and how people feel about them, both wrt. soft qualities—eg. how personable they are—as well as wrt their competence.

I don't remember whether I've mentioned it to you before, but I really think you might enjoy the book Mindwise, by Nicholas Epley. It's a genuinely lovely—and constructive—book, and it discusses some of this stuff.

Quote:

---

Originally Posted by Aimless

Although name-change/anonymization experiments conducted all over the west show—conclusively—that certain ethnic/racial (and gender!) cues are associated with severe penalties at the initial application stage, the evidence for being able to mitigate the negative impact of this on the key outcome—whether or not you get the job—by anonymizing applications is less conclusive. But yeah, I'd argue that public institutions at least should always use anonymized applications for the initial selection steps. Such institutions also tend to have clear, well-publicized and somewhat more "objective" criteria.

---

I agree.

Coming back to the report then, I guess the big question then is is an institution racist (or is there institutionalised racism) if it allows names on CVs?

I'm not sure it does.

What I -do- know is that the UK government scrapped it's own unconscious bias training, claiming it was ineffective. I know that the unconscious bias training I undertook a few years ago was very useful.

Is an institution racist if it allows names on CVs -and- poo poos the idea of unconscious bias?

Perhaps.

Complicated.

Quote:

---

Originally Posted by Aimless

Anecdotally, I know many non-white men and women with distinctly non-Swedish names who've been encouraged to change their names to generic western names after struggling to land an interview, and all have found much greater success after the name-change. They weren't any less Swedish before the name-change, but it may have removed a threatening marker of otherness—typically an Arabic, Persian, Kurdish or "African"-sounding (= overtly Muslim/foreign) name.

---

The last person I hired changed his name. Indian chap. Kept his surname but changed his first name to Steve. Said he more luck getting interviews that way.

Quote:

---

Originally Posted by Aimless

Racial/ethnic animus notwithstanding, most people tend to perceive a greater distance to people who are different from them on any of a number of different dimensions—perceived gender, perceived race, perceived religion, perceived political leanings, age, etc—along which we unconsciously rate one another. Ie. even without being an out-and-out brownie-hating Islamophobic BNP-voting racist, you might find it considerably more difficult to establish the same rapport with Somalian-English Abdulkadir that you might instantly develop with Andrew from Leicester—who looks, talks, and behaves more or less just like you. That can lead you to feel like you have a much better sense of who Andrew is as a person, which, in turn, can lead you to like Andrew—and trust him!—more than Abdulkadir, even though you don't have any particularly negative feelings about the latter. Sadly, there is reason to believe that non-white applicants/employees—as well as female-presenting ones—are also at a significant disadvantage when it comes to how they're perceived and how people feel about them, both wrt. soft qualities—eg. how personable they are—as well as wrt their competence.

---

Absolutely. Well said.

Quote:

---

Originally Posted by Aimless

I don't remember whether I've mentioned it to you before, but I really think you might enjoy the book Mindwise, by Nicholas Epley. It's a genuinely lovely—and constructive—book, and it discusses some of this stuff.

---

Thanks, I'll have a look.

Tackling institutional racism has quite rightly been a priority for decades now.

While the problems identified by the Laurence report a quarter of a century existed then, there is no reason to presume that they must still exist now.

Doesn't mean that we shouldn't be vigilant in ensuring that institutional racism can't creep back into the system, nor to take our foot of the gas in tackling racism within wider society with the problems the report did identify, but simply wishing to insist that problems exist regardless of evidence is not science and not accurate.

Nasty little racist Britain.

Twitter Link

This story needs to be verified and there needs to be a public inquiry into wtf happened.

Twitter Link

Quote:

---

The Observer has been told that significant sections of the report published on 31 March, which were criticised and debunked by health professionals, academics, business chiefs and crime experts, were not written by the 12 commissioners who were appointed last July.

The 258-page document was not made available to be read in full or signed off by the group, which included scientist and BBC broadcaster Maggie Alderin-Pockock and Samir Shah, former chair of the Runnymede Trust, nor were they made aware of its 24 final recommendations. Instead, the finished report, it is alleged, was produced by No 10.

Kunle Olulode, an anti-racism activist and director of the charity Voice4Change, is the first commissioner to condemn the government publicly for its lack of transparency. In a statement to the Observer, Olulode’s charity was scathing of the way evidence was cherrypicked, distorted and denied in the final document.

“The report does not give enough to show its understanding of institutional or structural discrimination … evidence in sections, that assertive conclusions are based on, is selective,” it said. “The report gives no clear direction on what expectations of the role of public institutions and political leadership should be in tackling race and ethnic disparities. What is the role of the state in this?”

One commissioner, who spoke out on condition of anonymity, accused the government of “bending” the work of its commission to fit “a more palatable” political narrative and denying the working group the autonomy it was promised.

“We did not read Tony’s [Sewell] foreword,” they claimed. “We did not deny institutional racism or play that down as the final document did. The idea that this report was all our own work is full of holes. You can see that in the inconsistency of the ideas and data it presents and the conclusions it makes. That end product is the work of very different views.”

The commissioner revealed that they had been privy only to the section of the report they were assigned, and that it had soon become apparent the exercise was not being taken sufficiently seriously by No 10.

“Something of this magnitude takes proper time – we were only given five months to do this work, on a voluntary basis,” they said. In contrast to the landmark 1999 Macpherson report, an inquiry into the death of Stephen Lawrence, or the 2017 Lammy Review, both of which took 18 months to conclude, the report by the Commission on Race and Ethnic Disparities (Cred) was not peer reviewed and was published just seven months after the group first met on a videocall.

The group, led by Sewell, was set up by Samuel Kasumu, No 10’s most senior black special adviser, who resigned from his post on the day the report was published, aghast at its final findings.

---

If that's true, the saddest thing about it is that I'm not remotely surprised.

Scandalous, if true.

Rooting for wokeness over here.

Quote:

---

Originally Posted by Steely Glint

Rooting for wokeness over here.

---

Quote:

---

Originally Posted by Timbuk2

Scandalous, if true.

---

Quote:

---

Originally Posted by gogobongopop

If that's true, the saddest thing about it is that I'm not remotely surprised.

---

This govt. isn't keen on accountability and integrity so I really hope other commissioners go on the record about wtf actually happened, even though that might jeopardize their relationship with the govt.

The War on Wokeness continues apace, with this sneak attack:

Twitter Link

To be clear, LGBA is an anti-trans organization, represented by actual bigots. Excluding and obstructing trans people—not charity—is the organization's raison d'être. The Commission's reasoning has strong "democratic people's republic" vibes.

Absolutely disgusting bigoted language from a Labour MP here.

Twitter Link

Who's really stoking a culture war with such terrible language?

Twitter Link

Previously:

https://www.pressreader.com/uk/the-s...82054804787832

I mean we're talking about a country that has something called Non Crime Hate Incidents that they tabulate, like leaving a burger on someone's driveway

https://www.dailymail.co.uk/debate/a...RY-MILLER.html