In a 363-page report published last week, Baroness Casey concluded that there is “institutional racism” in the Met. Sounds very serious, doesn’t it? After all, “institutional racism” makes you think of Jim Crows laws in the southern United States – of bathroom signs that say “Whites” and “Coloureds”.
But there’s a problem: nowadays, almost everything is “institutionally racist”.
• The London Fire Brigade is institutionally racist, according to an independent review.
• British policing is institutionally racist, according to a senior British police officer.
• UK universities are institutionally racist, according to a leading vice-chancellor.
• UK research is institutionally racist, according to a group of black scientists.
• British schools are institutionally racist, according to a Guardian journalist.
• Yorkshire County Cricket Club is institutionally racist, according to its former chairman.
• Cricket Scotland is institutionally racist, according to an independent review
• The Judiciary in England and Wales is institutionally racist, according to a major report.
• The NHS is institutionally racist, according to a senior black nurse.
• The Conservative Party is institutionally racist, according to a majority of black Britons.
• The Labour Party is institutionally racist, according to a black Labour MP.
• Google and Big Tech are institutionally racist, according to a black AI researcher.
• The BBC is institutionally racist, according to a group of current and former black employees.
• The UK itself is institutionally racist, according to a group of UN experts.
If these claims are to be believed, then essentially every major institution in Britain is “institutionally racist”: the NHS, the BBC, the judiciary, the emergency services, schools, universities, sports clubs, political parties – the list goes on. All this despite the fact that attitudinal measures of racism are at all-time lows, and that on such measures Britain scores lower than most other European countries.
Do we really live in such a pervasively racist society? I’m sceptical.
The term “institutional racism” goes back to the 1999 MacPherson report (also known as the Stephen Lawrence inquiry), which defined it as “the collective failure of an organisation to provide an appropriate and professional service to people because of their colour, culture, or ethnic origin”.
You may have noticed that this is rather vague. Does one instance of racism (say, an employee overhearing the use of racial slur) mean there’s been a “collective failure” to provide “an appropriate and professional service”? Arguably not. What about two, or three? What if the employee informs her manager, and he tells her that it’s not worth looking into?
Obviously, no one should have to put with racism (or any other kind of abuse) at work. And indeed, large organisations have mechanisms in place for dealing with such abuse. But it stretches credulity to believe that incidents of racism are so common that even leftist organisations like the BBC and universities qualify as “institutionally racist”.
Of course, this is not to say that there is no racism in these organisations; just that “institutionally racist” is an exaggeration. The BBC has even advertised jobs that are only open to “black, Asian and ethnically diverse candidates”. Does this mean it is “institutionally racist” against whites? After all, this is explicit discrimination.
Another issue is that, aside from racist incidents (some of which can be debated), claims of “institutional racism” are often based on the finding that non-white people are less represented in some category (e.g., senior police officers) than they are in the general population. Yet disparity does not imply discrimination. Black Britons are over-represented in the England football team. Does this mean that England Football is discriminating against non-blacks? Obviously not.
To most people’s ears, “institutional racism” is a serious allegation. Yet the term has been applied to practically every major institution in Britain, which suggests it’s being thrown around far too lightly.
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There has been a fair bit of criticism of the term “institutional” in the context of that report, by interviewees on some recent GBN programmes. It could be that the term will become meaningless, if it is overused. After all, in any large organisation, all policies are institutional (by definition), and as some said, the use of the term as Casey did was meaningless. Just “racist” on it’s own would be enough, rather than attempting to add a word to emphasise a pejorative attitude to something.
“The War on the West”———-Not with tanks but with Wokery.
I love the idea that the NHS is “institutionally racist”.
It has to be the most ethnically diverse employer on the planet.
One wonders HOW “Instituional xxxxxism” is measured, and what metrics are used to assess this? Is every member of the institution/service interrogated? Or? Ref John K below, the use of the “term” institutional in this context is indeed entirely meaningless now. Just another means of telling us how awful we all are.
Jam and marmalade are institutionally racist. Jury’s out on Marmite though!
“Jam and marmalade are institutionally racist.”
But they got rid of the golliwogs.
The human race is institutionally racist.
And thats natural !!!
Indeed, though it depends what exactly is meant by “racism”. The term is now IMO meaningless as it’s used to mean so many different things. I tend to think it gets used to mean “noticing there are differences between races”, “thinking race is not just a social construct”, “by default tending to prefer certain races over certain others, while still judging people by their actions”, “making assumptions based on race (even if you freely admit they are just provisional assumptions which you may need to revisit)”. All of those things seem natural, generally neither negative nor positive, and things that almost everyone does and has done since time immemorial. But the reaction it’s mean to trigger is more like you’re advocating for the return South African apartheid, slavery, mass deportations, lynching. It’s similar to any criticism of Israel or comment about Jews is construed as you want to return to the Holocaust.
Yep, look at any schoolyard. Birds of a feather flock together.
What I find surprising is that fact that some expected something different to the content of this report, from the person who wrote it. We have seen before when balanced reports are published what an abundance of wailing that causes, this will be accepted because it is what they wish to hear.
Lets face it, the primary purpose of all these reports is some kind of declaration of sin and the accompanied self-flagellation. It is absurd…
“the collective failure of an organisation to provide an appropriate and professional service to people because of their colour, culture, or ethnic origin”
All government and public sector organisations are inefficient, frustrating and annoying and so fulfil the first part of that definition. Tell ethnic minorities they are victims and you are ensuring they will always infer the “because” part of the definition. Also of course you have made it in the interest of all who can make the claim to perpetuate the “because.” It provides a bit of additional power for free. They are not going to give it up. Given the standard for making the assertion need be based on nothing more than feelings, this is a doom loop hurtling towards arrant absurdity and all politicians are too weak to escape it. Every. Single. One.
All government and public sector organisations are inefficient, frustrating and annoying and so fulfil the first part of that definition.
The same is true for pretty much all organisations which are sufficiently large that individual performance or rather, lack thereof, tends to get lost in the general hullaballo if it isn’t consistently abysmal. It seems to be especially true in England where everything must always happen in accordance with some rule book and what’s not in the rule book doesn’t happen.
Anecdote illustrating that: Once upon a time in the past, I was in the Reading M&S and saw a loaf of bread in passing I wanted to buy. But it was too large for me to eat it all before some of it would have gone bad, hence, I asked the lady behind the counter if I could buy half of the loaf. To me that was something perfectly normal which can be done in every German bakery. They’ll just cut the loaf in half, you’ll pay half of the price and someone else will buy the other half. Here, the reaction was a bit as if I had just proposed to marry her underage daughter. The woman was completely taken aback and seemed to be genuinely shocked by this unspeakable transgression. It took her maybe half a minute to regain enough of her composure to tell me – with a voice clearly bereft of air – We have no labels for somthing likes this! Thus, I was dismissed in disgrace.
A more serious example would be the Grenfell tower fire. A lot of people died avoidable deaths. That’s too bad. But everything was done according to the letter of the regulations and nobody is responsible for anything.
Yes I agree with this, though I do think civic services such as those provided by the local council are consistently worse, central government services a little better and large companies, such as banks or telephony providers a little better again (though still pretty abysmal). I personally like Apple devices. Not everyone does. Apple are a large company and far from perfect. In my estimation they are just mediocre. Just acceptable. But this is paradoxical because they are, compared with other companies a similar size, top of the table. Nearly every large company has simply abysmal customer service as compared with, for example, the service you would get from a good small local bike shop. So a large company being mediocre means you are in the top 1 percent.
Recently, our local waitrose had no sandwiches on offer that I wanted to have with my coffee. There were prepacked sandwiches in the chiller counter in the store.
I said to the waitress, I will grab one of those and have it with my tea.
Apparently that was impossible. It couldn’t go through her till and I couldn’t pay at another till and eat it in the cafe.
It broke the VAT laws. Needless.to say I left with neither tea nor sandwich 🤷🏻♀️
That’s one of Tim Martin’s favorite talking points: Supermarkets don’t have to pay VAT on food but hospitality must. Hence, you can’t legally buy a VAT-free sandwhich in the supermarket area of a supermarket and consume it in the hospitality area. That’s another nice example of bureacracy gone literally cracy.
🙂
Institutionally racist just means It’s racist despite there’s no reason to assume it actually is. That’s just another variant of the original sin nobody can escape. Whatever you are and whatever you do, it don’t matter (to these people). They’re going to keep sticking the label on you in the hope that they can extort more of whatever they’re trying to extort.
The little cafe I am sitting in, drinking my tea and eating a cheese scone, must, by the above definitions, be both institutionally racist and sexist.
All the staff are white, young women.
Mind you, we are in a very rural market town. So maybe it is the town that is the problem!!!
Same goes for a lot of the rural towns and villages in England. We must be institutionally racist by default. Naughty us.
Institutional racism is institutionally racist.
Indian British Prime Minister, a Pakistani London Mayor, an Indian Home Secretary, a Pakistani Scottish First Minister, an Indian Irish Prime Minister.
It’s racism, but not as we know it
Stand in the Park Make friends & keep sane
Sundays 10.30am to 11.30am
Elms Field
near Everyman Cinema & play area
Wokingham RG40 2FE
“Black Britons are over-represented in the England football team. Does this mean that England Football is discriminating against non-blacks? Obviously not.”
Let me correct the last sentence – “obviously not” should read ‘probably.’
Also…
The climate ‘crisis’ is racist
The Wuhan Flu pandemic was racist.
// To most people’s ears, “institutional racism” is a serious allegation. Yet the term has been applied to practically every major institution in Britain, which suggests it’s being thrown around far too lightly. //
Nonsense. The whole “racism” thing is absurd. It does not deserve even such pro forma endorsement as you give it here. Spit it out and get on with living in the real world.
Last time I looked the country was still predominantly white Anglo-Saxon. That is not racist, that is just how it was and, I believe, still is. The term ‘institutionally racist’ is simply another attempt, in my view, to subvert society and destroy it by introducing levels of guilt and blame due to non-inclusion and perceived lack of equity and diversity. Now, almost every advert I see has either mixed race families or black or Asian families in it. This is not the norm by a long chalk. It exists, of course, but it is not the norm although the advertisers would have you believe it is. If you question the authenticity of the portraval, you are deemed racist.
Everyone is falling over backwards to try and deflect any criticism of being a racist. Look what happened to the Queen’s Lady in Waiting of 40 years. A simple mistake in being able to hear properly and an interest in a woman’s ethnic attire attaches a label of racist and suddenly this woman is gone because the snowflake Royals can’t bear the idea of being considered racist – which is Meghan Markle’s entire raison d’être. The same thing is happening everywhere.
We are being played and, I believe, softened up to accept more immigration and not complain about it because to do so would be ‘racist’. If Labour get into power, which I think they will, they are going to open the floodgates. Destruction of Western civilisation is in full swing but of course we are not allowed to say anything about it.
You only have to recall the new SNP leader’s “White” speech, within the context of Scotland being a White Western nation, to see the truly horrible direction civilization is being taken.
The vast majority of people in prisons are male.
Does that mean that the legal and prison/gaol systems are sexist?
Should no more males be put into prison until there is a roughly equal ratio between men and women?
It’s an industry – the victimization industry.
They must find more victims of bigotry (racism etc.) to justify its existence.
Without more ‘victims’ those involved in the industry would be without jobs and grant money.
So there will always be findings of some type of bigotry/discrimination to keep their perks in this never-ending industry.
Some people who sctream racism are the same as those who say that race is a social construct?