How to be gaslit
Anger is an insufficient response to the Sewell report, argues Paul Demarty. The left needs its own critique of liberal anti-racism
Among the many evils of the Commission on Race and Ethnic Disparities, there is the trivial matter that it released its report as the
Weekly Worker was going to press last week, leaving me with my name against an article on anti-racism which barely mentioned it.
But that may be a blessing in disguise, since ours is a society obsessed with hot takes - ie, shallow gut reactions - and the takes on this report burn with the fire of a thousand suns. They are also, on the liberal side at least, overwhelmingly dreadful, and testify to the brittleness of liberal anti-racism far more than the ‘racism’ of Tony Sewell and his colleagues on the commission (if the report seriously breaches a rule of liberal political decorum, it is surely by being explicitly patriarchal rather than racist).
Read online at https://workersliberty.org/node/37079
Class inequality and racism: the travesty of the Sewell report Submitted by AWL on 6 April, 2021 - 5:18
Author: Sacha Ismail
The government-commissioned Sewell report into “race and ethnic disparities” (which can be read at bit.ly/sewellreport) has been widely panned as minimising the reality of racism and racial disadvantage in the UK, and rightly so.
I don’t know to what extent the report reflects the honestly held views of the Sewell commission’s members, and to what extent they were just keen to ingratiate themselves with the Tory hierarchy and get ahead. Though overwhelmingly black or Asian, they are a privileged and conservative bunch even by the standards of such things, including six holders of MBE or CBE “honours”, a corporate executive and former banker, the head of a large academy chain, a department store owner and chamber of commerce worthy, a former police superintendent and a full-ti
Class inequality and racism: the travesty of the Sewell report workersliberty.org - get the latest breaking news, showbiz & celebrity photos, sport news & rumours, viral videos and top stories from workersliberty.org Daily Mail and Mail on Sunday newspapers.
Read online at https://workersliberty.org/node/33050
The Satanic Verses, thirty years on Submitted by AWL on 10 October, 2018 - 11:31
Author: Matt Cooper
The Satanic Verses.
Rushdie’s sprawling novel defies summary: interlinking stories meld scurrilous fantasies, dark humour and cutting political satire directed not only at Islam, but British racism and Indian immigrants’ attempts to adapt. It is an honest attempt to deal with the warping pressures of racism, religion and cultural dislocation.
When it was published in September 1988 there was no spontaneous grassroots opposition. According to Kenan Malik in From Fatwa to Jihad, one early move against the book was in India, where pressure from Jammat-e-Islami led to the book being banned there in October. (Jammat is an Islamist organisation with the main goal of bringing in Islamic states in Pakistan and Bangladesh.)
Myths of Asian privilege fuel a brutal and cartoonish bigotry msn.com - get the latest breaking news, showbiz & celebrity photos, sport news & rumours, viral videos and top stories from msn.com Daily Mail and Mail on Sunday newspapers.