George Floyd copper

Did you loot any Betamax video players?

 

No , but sowewhere in the loft i have some old bettamax videos .

 

Bet you do ya dirty old bugger.

 

No its about villages and cottaging .

 

Whatever floats ya boat m8.

 

Yeah I’d agree, talent should come before colour or gender. Just a shame that all the talent in the country happens to be white and male, isn’t it?

 

Absolute nonsense. The sort of misrepresentation that only serves to create division based on gender and race.

 

Why is it nonsense? Are you arguing that positions of privilege and power don’t overwhelmingly reside in the domain of the white and male?

 

There are numerous people in positions of power and influence across the country which are occupied by non white men. You won't find a football club in the country without a significant portion of non white players. Ditto for other sports and entertainment industries.

I work as part of an executive team which consists of 6. We have a female CEO. 2 of the 6 exec are white males, of which I'm one. On a monthly basis we examine our resourcing profile to look at roles occupied and recruitment decisions on the basis of various categories - I find it uncomfortable to an extent; but our over riding policy is 'best person for the job', in all cases. 48% of our workforce is female- which in and of itself is neither a good or bad thing. And the majority of role grades have a fairly even and proportionate make up of various genders, sexualities and races.

This idea that white males have 'privilege' is horseshit. In this and every other developed country that comes to mind, the success you have in life is based almost entirely on how hard you work, the choices you make, the sacrifices you and your parents make and how intelligent you are . Simple as that.

 

Sounds like your company has a reasonably robust recruitment system.

More than half of FTSE 100 companies don’t have anyone of an ethnic minority on their board. 75% of the UK’s biggest tech firms don’t, either. Why is that?

I’m not suggesting for a moment that society is by default easy to navigate purely by virtue of being a white male, but the bare facts are that - controlling for other factors - being black makes you less likely to succeed in life.

 

So many layers to this event, and points to ponder... A few that get me thinking:

1) the overriding problem that seems insolvable: race relations in America -- slavery might be long gone, but the attitudes of that time and place have not all disappeared

- it may be written that all men are *created* equal, but it isn't specified that they are to be considered as, and treated as, equal *after* their creation

2) as @Faithful Bantam has mentioned above, a disproportionate amount of crime in America is committed by blacks, especially in connexion with gangs and drugs, and the criminals tend to be violent

- it is similar here in Canada, where you may be surprised by how often you will be right in inferring the race or ethnicity of criminals if the news report doesn't specify
- for example, in Winnipeg the order would be Indians - Blacks - South-East Asians - others, whereas in Toronto it would be Blacks - others, and in both places gangs and drugs play major roles (I know both cities very well indeed)

3) which means that even the most well-disposed people, let alone police, tend to be wary, shall we say, of certain other people, and may be predisposed to react to them in ways that are "over-the-top"

- though you would hope that professionals would be trained to identify and counter such predispositions

4) conflicting autopsy results: heart unhealthy / healthy, drugs found / not found in system

- no doubt about cause of death, and in any case, after about 4 minutes of suffocation there will almost certainly be brain damage even if the victim survives
- but, why did the private autopsy not discover the drugs? If the pathologist didn't test for them, why not? He'll be torn to shreds by any competent lawyer in court for that.
- and no competent pathologist should mistake a healthy heart for an unhealthy one -- need to know more about this
- if Floyd was high, how did that affect his behaviour towards the police, and their reactions to him?

5) I've seen a claim (don't know how true it is) that the current governor of the state was once a public prosecutor, who back in the day (2006ish) didn't pursue police brutality charges against some policemen, one of whom was this Chauvin

- in which case we get back to the point made earlier about immunity

6) someone whose opinion I value has argued that not only has there been an increasing militarisation of the police in America, from Reagan's time onwards, but that the various white-supremacist groups have actively tried to infiltrate police forces

- which on the one hand seems a bit conspiracy-theorist but, on the other hand, does provide one possible explanation for the spate of police killings of blacks
- certainly we are seeing too many cases of people who are unfit for the power and responsibility that comes with a badge and a gun possessing both

RCB

 

Why are you limiting the definition of 'positions of power and privilege' to the Board roles of FTSE 100 companies? Why is that the marker of equality? And the UK is 87% white, so if half the FTSE dont have an ethnic minority member then half do, so the proportions need looking at in context. I don't believe that the colour of your skin defines your chances of success in life, and imposing a sense of victimhood is a much bigger obstacle. And you can look across multiple domains- liverpool are about to win the league and are current champions of Europe. More of the first team is non white than it is white. The worlds highest paid actor last year isnt white (Dwayne Johnson). 4 of the 10 worlds highest paid athletes in 2019 weren't white.

The recruitment system at my organisation is not unusual by any means. Have a look at LinkedIn. Today, in this country, things have never been more equal in terms of opportunity.

 

The biggest predictor of success in life, if defined in financial terms, is the wealth and income of your parents. Of course there will be exceptions and outliers to this and I don't doubt that personal drive can have an impact on that.

However, the birth lottery exists in this country and why huge inequality continues to exist and grow.

Honestly, you should spend some time in a school which is in a an area of high deprivation. See what children are exposed to and living with and then ask yourself if working hard will change their lives. For the vast majority, it just won't. They aren't lazy children, or not bright, but they have so many barriers to overcome.

Your work hard example, I agree, can play out on a level playing field. Unfortunately millions of people don't get access to that playing field through no fault of their own.

We, as a society as a whole, are failing these children and allowing inequality of opportunity to perpetuate.

 

My wife works in child vulnerability at a ‘deprived school’ in the area. I hear many stories. My parents were working class. My paternal grandparents were immigrants to this country in the 50s, arriving with the clothes on their backs and nothing else. I won’t go into the detail of what my father endured growing up, but it wasn’t pretty. I’m no stranger to how hard life can be. I do accept the point around the ‘birth lottery’ to an extent - some kids have it harder and are more disadvantaged than others, no question. Some will rise above those challenges, many won’t. But I don’t believe race or gender is any factor whatsoever in that lottery. Not in this country, nor in most developed countries. In fact, to the point above around the ‘stories’ my wife relays to me, every example i can think of, of where a child struggles is because of issues within their own home/family - not because of outside factors, or race, or gender.

On your final point - equality of opportunity I’m a huge fan of. And as much as possible should be done to ensure it exists. In this country I think we’re doing a pretty good job, as far as we’re ever going to be able to.

Enforced equality of outcome is something I detest. And I think its a very slippery and dangerous road.

 

I agree to an extent but I don’t agree with your dismissal of outside factors. What causes those issues within the home or family, surely some of that is the result of external factors otherwise we are all masters of our own destiny? I don’t believe that to be the case.

Further to this, black children and those of Pakistani or Bangladeshi heritage for example, are disproportionately represented in terms of being likely to be classed as living in poverty. There are myriad reasons and explanations for this, however I do believe that the colour of skin does have an influence in the perpetuation of this. Racism does exist. Prejudice does exist.

If you haven’t read it, Why I’m no longer talking to white people about race is a very good read. There are a lot of challenges in there about what it is like to be from a minority group in this country.

 

The problem today is the perception of " poverty , i'm a child of the 60s , we had nothing growing up , having said that nobody round us did . Rare to see anybody with cars , holidays ? a few days in Morecambe if you were lucky . My dad worked 100 hrs a week sometimes longer , my Mum worked ( part time when me and my brothers arrived ) , very little hope of advancement through education ( unless you was very lucky ) . In a nutshell it was a lot worse than todays live now pay later society ,there was very little with regards to a safety net to support the poorest in society , new clothes once a year , hand me down shoes etc , but we felt a sense of pride something sadly lacking today . To talk of "white privilage " is a load of bollocks , you should have lived on the sink estates of Holmewood , Woodside , Canterbury , Ravenscliffe to see poverty . Today people have more opportunities than my generation ever had , education- travel , lifestyles etc . Times may be a little hard at the moment , but they are certainly a vast improvement on what they were .

 

Sometimes you come across that you don't see what is going on around you.

That's the problem why racism is still about. Too many white people just don't look around and think. If you go into work and why are they not enough black people working here.

This isn't a time for people to defend their points. It's a time for people to wake up and understand all isn't right for the black community in this country and in the world in general.

Make a difference!

 

The title of that book alone would be enough for me to not want to read it! I'm not averse to learning, but the title does trouble me. I think the biggest barrier to further progress around equality of opportunity is actually the division that's created by labels and categories, terms like 'white privilege'.

Do external factors exist? Yes, to a point. But they do for everyone. Racism does exist, so does prejudice. Anyone can suffer, of any race or gender. But there should also be a place for a discussion about the internal, cultural factors that might be at play.

Your earlier point around a predictor for success in life being the wealth of your parents is a very pertinent. I made a similar point yesterday; using the US as an example, the rates of single motherhood by race are:

White = 24%
Asian = 15%
Black = 65%

That may well be a key factor in why fewer black kids graduate from high school and more and more turn to a life of crime. And I struggle to think why those rates (above) would be driven by racial oppression. And I think that as a pre-cursor to success in life it's a much bigger factor in your life being miserable than racial oppression.