Main Edition
US
FR
March 26, 2024 - 10:45am
Yesterday, Government adviser Dame Sara Khan published her review on social cohesion and democratic resilience in modern Britain. The review, 150 pages long, calls for a “new strategic approach”, building the analytical framework and operational capacity to assess social-cohesion trends at both a local and national level. It talks at length about conspiracy theories and disinformation. Along with referring to Islamist and far-Right threats, it provides a comprehensive account of “Sikh fundamentalism” (without any mention of the Hindutva ideology supported by activists aligned with Indian Prime Minister Narendra Modi’s Bharatiya Janata Party).
But what is an especially glaring omission from the review is an in-depth examination of the impact of the Black Lives Matter (BLM) movement in the UK, and the import of American racial identity politics. BLM is mentioned only once in the entire review, under a section on “international activity impacting social cohesion”. Considering the level of public disruption at BLM protests and the fact that an Opinium poll in November 2020 found that 55% of the public believed the movement had increased racial tensions, there is a strong case that this should have been a greater feature of the Khan review.
With the emergence of the BLM movement in the UK, there has been a proliferation of American-inspired race theories in both the public and private sectors — the BBC, the NHS, local councils, schools, universities, small businesses and large conglomerates. Young children have been exposed to controversial US-origin race theories presented as fact, such as that racism towards non-white people is entrenched in a white-majority society.
As has been stressed elsewhere, Britain is not America: one is a broadly successful multiracial democracy and the other is a youthful experiment which is still getting to grips with the legacy of slavery and segregation. If anyone wants a quick understanding of how comparatively advanced the UK is on matters of race, reading up on the Battle of Bamber Bridge during the Second World War would help.
The rise of BLM in the UK has brought with it the rise of the radical-progressive holy trinity of diversity, equity, and inclusion (DEI), which in practice has proven to be deeply exclusionary based on “protected characteristics” such as race and sex. A recent inquiry found that the Royal Air Force had unlawfully discriminated against white male recruits in its efforts to fast-track ethnic-minority and female candidates. Leaked RAF emails contained references to “useless white male pilots”. To make matters worse, pro-BLM calls for economic and social neo-segregation have reached the UK, with shoppers encouraged to boycott white-owned businesses in the name of “Black Xmas” and a West End theatre planning to stage shows for black-only audiences to ensure they will be free from the “white gaze”.
Social cohesion in a racially heterogeneous society such as ours rests on meaningful intercultural exchange and developing bonds of mutual understanding which cut across racial identity. It also requires national recognition of the significant strides the UK has made in terms of racial equality over the last few decades — and that life chances here are ultimately shaped by non-racial factors such as family structure and cultural norms in the local community.
Join the discussion
Join like minded readers that support our journalism by becoming a paid subscriber
To join the discussion in the comments, become a paid subscriber.
Join like minded readers that support our journalism, read unlimited articles and enjoy other subscriber-only benefits.
Subscribeit’s the two-tier system of morality. One for European indigenous and European settler colonists (like me as a white South Africa) and another for immigrants to Europe and indigenous POCs. In the battle between barbarism and civilization, they’ve decided to raise the white flag and come up with a different set of values for the barbarous. A more generous and indulgent form of morality, something like: “if they’re doing it, then we must understand it as their natural and justified expression.”
BLM, like Occupy Wall Street and Antifa, are organized and funded by the American intelligence agencies and “permanent Washington” to destabilize society and breathe life into racial division that largely disappeared.
There are really no leaders of these disgruntled units; they are made up of disparate grievance grifter “community organizers” like a younger Barack Obama.
What these “trained Marxists” didn’t count on was their impending replacement by third world invaders being brought to our countries by their own governments.
We should ALL be taking to the streets to fight that.
Seriously? The security state organized BLM? And there’s not a single downvote until me.
Governments fund the NGOs which fund BLM. It is organising with extra steps.
I have no doubt the FBI infiltrates many organizations of this type, often with paid informants. But we know that Patrisse Cullors et al founded BLM. I doubt the FBI has even bothered to infiltrate BLM because its cause is fashionable and considered righteous. Sadly, the bulk of BLM funding comes from corporations. Here are the biggest.
Ford Foundation $1.7 billion
PNC $1.05 billion.
Bank of America: $1 billion
PayPal $530 million
PepsiCo: $445 million
Wells Fargo: $400 million.
Jeff Bezos’ ex-wife chipped in $650 million. Secure in their gated fortresses — Zuckerberg has three or four that we know of — the plutocratic left doesn’t care what chaos rages outside.
Seriously. Just as they began with ACORN. They get organized, funded, reach their peak, and then morph into the next thing, the next thing is currently the pro-Hamas “protests” on college campuses and in major cities worldwide.
The invasion at the US’s southern boarder isn’t spontaneous. It isn’t sad, desperate refugees. It’s a coordinated attack, and our government is working with the Mexican cartels and the Chinese, who have fentanyl labs there to affect it.
There will no doubt be another major terrorist attack as a result of this: Francis Scott Key Bridge in Baltimore seems to fit the pattern.
There’s no doubt the Mexican cartels and Chinese basically own the border. What evidence is there that the American govt is sponsoring this?
Evidence is a thing of the past under the current dispensation.
https://world.time.com/2014/01/14/dea-boosted-mexican-drug-cartel/
This isn’t evidence of the govt trying to create a border crisis. It’s another example of the govt funding one terrorist group to eliminate another terrorist group, in the stupid belief they can somehow control their ally du jour. There’s a long history of the CIA doing this in Central America.
You just answered your own question. I weep.
You need evidence? Sir, open your damn eyes.
This truly is conspiratorial garbage of the worst kind. The US government deliberately working with the Chinese to attack many of its own people?
No, Alison, like so many RW people you just don’t understand what is going on. The US and much of the West are going through a cultural revolution. This isn’t principally a conspiracy to destroy society and to aid a foreign power, but to purge and improve it – in the eyes of progressives. They are true believers, in many ways rather like the unpleasant fanatic 4th century Christians who suborned and took over the Roman Empire.
Do you genuinely think such a group forms organically? The only time a black life matters is if a cop, preferably a white one, is involved. This group was notably absent during the crime wave that followed the rioting.
We know exactly who founded BLM – Patrisse Cullors, Alicia Garza and Opal Tometi.
We also know how well that turned out. BLM went from cause to racket almost instantly. My point is that this group did not spring up from one or three people’s civic concerns. All the billions you cited upthread benefited who beyond those three women?
Don’t mistake my scepticism of the security state organizing and funding BLM for actual support. It was started by what the founders perceived as a noble cause, and turned into a grift once the big money rolled in. Happens all the time with NGOs. The rhetoric becomes ever more hysterical to keep the money flowing.
Yep. Self-professed “trained Marxists” funded by the intelligence agencies. I’m done with taking to you. You’re clearly either paid to distract, or just too stupid for school.
The fact that so many right wing people simply have no idea what is going on is the main reason they are losing in so many areas. This nutty idea that the intelligence services are creating black lives matter protest is just utter nonsense. Provide some damn evidence for your claims.
You have never I would wager been an activist at any cause whatsoever. I have! I was a gay Rights activist and it was not funded by the state!
What does this have to do with right wing anything? I don’t see right wing people running around shouting Defund The Police. That started with BLM.
This is scary stuff AB and is what we typically get from the left – the science is settled (in this case the conspiracy) and anyone who disagrees is either stupid, a fasc!st or trying to kill granny or the grandkids.
A study organized by a black scholar showed that black policemen are slightly more likely to shoot black suspects than their white colleagues. The professor caught hell for it.
Interesting. Any more details you can give?
Google ‘Roland Fryer’, or see eg Coleman Hughes’ conversation with him here: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=tPIYSwTkzzA
Because it is far more morally charged, in the eyes of progressives, when a black person has killed by white person than when black people are killed by other black people. One is a far worse crime than the other, plus the reason that black people kill each other is supposedly ultimately because of racist structures in society etc (in their view).
This is a fundamental belief system – you don’t have to you know invoke conspiracy to explain this. You seem to expect rationalism in fundamental ideological and indeed religious beliefs. When has that ever been in the case in human history, despite the pseudoscientific pretentions of Marxist Leninism.
I downvoted it as well. This is just another parallel of the old theory that the CIA invented crack and distributed it to the black community to keep the black man down or that AIDS was engineered to combat homosexuality. Personally, I can’t imagine the FBI or CIA possessing the competence to set up and execute such elaborate schemes without getting caught or just generally failing due to bureaucratic inefficiencies. I have even greater doubts that they’d have sufficient imagination to come up with such a contrived and roundabout method of ‘destabilizing society’ when the same goal could be easily accomplished by simpler means far more easily concealed.
As I mentioned earlier in the thread, there is a long history of the CIA funding and supporting terrorists in Central America, and the Middle East as well, and it always ends in disaster. But they don’t do it to destabilize the U.S. They do it because of some stupid belief they can create an advantage for the U.S.
Aye, and the evidence overwhelmingly suggests they usually fail and said failures are often so spectacular as to embarrass the US or cause serious repercussions for the local people and for the US internationally.
Our legacy of slavery was, of course, a result of British colonialism. Britain imported more slaves to the New World than any other country, and we were left with the consequences. Britain maintained neutrality in our Civil War to end slavery. Not that BLM has been a universal good, but taking ownership of your past is a good thing.
Ownership was taken. The importation was stopped. In the US, there was a big war that you may have heard of. In Britain, there was an expenditure of blood and treasure to stop the slave trade. Slavery was neither invented by the US/UK nor was it exclusive to America. By the way, when can we expect Africans to take ownership of selling other Africans into bondage? And when can we expect black Americans to take ownership of their lives and futures?
The (uncomfortable if you are woke) truth is that all civilisations were built on slavery, until the British Empire (also built on it) led the way in putting a stop to it.
If we could run parallel universes where there was no slavery then it is highly likely that most descendants of slaves would be in a far worse position in that parallel universe.
Not saying this makes slavery something that should be viewed as good however it should be kept in proportion and both the good an bad aspects acknowledged. Absolutely nobody should beat themselves or be beaten up over historic slavery.
Getting to grips with modern slavery and human trafficking – including all those arriving on Britain’s shores by boat, is a different matter and should be the focus of attention.
“Britain imported more slaves to the New World than any other country”
You are ignorant of history. Brazil had countless more slaves.
Brazil is part of the New World, so your (correct) point is strictly speaking not inconsistent with the claim that Britain transported more slaves there than any other country did. But Appendix 3 of Hugh Thomas’ 900+-page 1997 treatise on the subject, The Slave Trade, does contain the following estimated statistics for slaves transported by carriers from each country participating in the trade, and these figures confirm your rebuttal of Anna’s assertion:
Portugal (incl Brazil) 4,650,000
Britain 2,600,000
Spain (incl Cuba) 1,600,000
France (incl French W Indies) 1,250,000
Holland 500,000
British North America & US 300,000
Denmark 50,000
===
The numbers of slaves delivered to each destination is also broken down. Note the relatively small number for what became the USA – about an eighth of that for Brazil, just as you said, and only a quarter of that for the British West Indies:
Brazil 4,000,000
Spanish Empire (incl Cuba) 2,500,000
British West Indies 2,000,000
French West Indies 1,600,000
British North America & US 500,000
Dutch West Indies 500,000
Danish West Indies 28,000
Europe (incl Portugal, Canary Islands, Madeira, Azores etc) 200,000
It sounds like you’re echoing what was written in the debunked 1619 project.
No-one really cares about slavery unless it was perpetrated by Europeans. It’s still going on today, but doesn’t make the news because it deviates from The Narrative of evil white people. The same way that no-one cares about Muslims unless their struggles are with the evil ‘white’ Jews. It’s massively childish thinking and I’m concerned that supposedly intelligent people are engaging in it. I simply don’t understand how killers who film themselves raping, torturing and murdering civilians get a free pass by the very people who harp on about historic examples of slavery.
We live in a time where we punish people because of crimes committed by their ancestors while celebrating people who are actually committing heinous crimes today.
This is a Marxism for insufficiently wealthy educated whites who, moreover, received higher education in specialties that do not bring any money. AOС is a typical example
It might better be called a higher indoctrination, since its entire point is to render the recipients wholly unable to think critically about any of the bogus narratives they have been drilled in.
Of course, BLM gets a pass. Just like antifa is treated as “an idea” by people who should know better. How ironic that all the well-meaning white folks in the US who thought voting for Obama would end race as a point of division engineered the opposite result. The half-white guy needed credibility from the race hustlers and grievance mongers who masquerade as ‘leaders’ in the black community, and stoking division was the way to gain it. And here we are, not just more racially divided than we were 20 years ago, but actively exporting this toxin.
Journalist of Swedish State Television @ElafAli__ (Elaf Ali) made a joke on air about Ukrainian women arriving in Sweden as refugees “They’re blond & blue-eyed so you don’t notice their presence, apart from in the brothels”.
—-
Christina Hill, editor-in-chief of the IFS, felt it was clear this was a joke as the participants in the program “joke about stereotypes around ethnicity and culture”.
—-
I don’t care about racist stereotypes. I just have one question – Have these two ever joked about Muslims, Arabs, Africans? Of course not, because it’s racist.
But making jokes about white women, especially when they are in dire straits, is perfectly acceptable..
In a one week period in 2020 BLM activists graffiti’d the Cenotaph and the Winston Churchill statue in Parliament Square. Their omission from the report makes it utterly worthless.
So another no doubt vastly expensive taxpayer-funded ‘review’ which turns out to be as useless as the so-called ‘Cov*d Inquiry’.
The solution to the problem of ‘social cohesion’ is apparently the creation of yet another quango to ‘establish a framework’ and publish ‘annual reports’ which will enable us to monitor how little social cohesion we have left.
More jobs for the boys (and girls) and more snouts in the trough. How depressing.
Dame Sara Kahn is the daughter of immigrants who attempted to integrate but at 13 she decided against the wishes of her parents to adopt the black veil which she wore until she was in her 30s when she got bitten by feminism western style and started a campaign to discourage Muslim girls from joining ISIS and was supported in this by Theresa May.
She is regarded by many in the Muslim community as a creature of the Home Office and not an authentic representative of Muslims. As a “moderate” Muslim her focus is on reducing extremism and presenting Muslims as mostly moderate. In this context BLM is not regarded as extreme. The opposition leader, the England football team and plenty of corporations and NGOs are happy to bend the knee and get into bed with BLM (to mix metaphors). The result is that BLM gets a free pass despite the divisive nature of its message. Like Stonewall it is off limits for official condemnation.
I can agree with this … except for the statement that Britain is a successful multicultural society. We deluded ourselves for years that this was the case but the recent past has conclusively demonstrated that it is not.
We will always fear and hate The Other. It’s in our DNA. As for DEI, those initials more properly stand for Didn’t Earn It.
The USA’s global power makes it inevitable that the domestic culture will be spread far and wide, particularly in close allies or those who speak the same language, and the UK is both. That goes for both the positive and the negative, and these days the latter is commoner by far. I can see why the author is upset. Your nation doesn’t need critical race theory or the 1619 project or DEI departments in every business and government institution. Frankly our country doesn’t need them either, but thanks to the legacy of slavery, we’re stuck with a bunch of anti-racist nonsense which will trigger a resurgence in white racism (and it’s already started). The cycle will continue into the foreseeable future because the black population will still be around, still be poorer on average than every other group, and they’ll still be correct in asserting that slavery does have consequences that carry through to the present.
The activists aren’t even wrong. Being white does give one an advantage. Most of it is a result of the familial wealth/income gap that holds for everyone across racial lines. Children tend to reach levels of achievement and wealth similar to their parents. Still, there is some small portion attributable to the natural tendency of people to self segregate into like minded and homogeneous communities, which technically is racism. People are basically racist, and whites are privileged in the USA are statements both both true and completely irrelevant, because there’s nothing we can do now to fix it that we haven’t already done. What could be done already was done during the civil rights movement or since. There are already plenty of programs to get blacks out of poverty, improve inner city schools, encourage home ownership, etc.
The sad part is that by exporting its racial issues, America’s anti-racism crusaders are actually causing racism in other nations where it didn’t even exist at the same level. I didn’t know about the Battle of Bamber Bridge so I thank the author for the education. That illustrates the point. If anti-racism and critical race theory seep into other societies, it’s only going to create the same racial dynamic that exists here, and nobody should aspire to that.
This is why you don’t let children mark their own homework.