The government’s propaganda race report cites academics that had nothing to do with it

protest
Support us and go ad-free

The government’s widely criticised report from the Commission on Race and Ethnic Disparities fell into more disrepute today.

A number of academics are on the list of “Stakeholders” even though some have had no contact with the commission. The report says:

The Commission heard evidence from many during the course of its work. It would like to thank the following for their participation

The problem

However, writer S.I. Martin, whose name is on this list at the end of the report, told The Canary that he only discovered his name was included in the report this morning:

I’ve had no contact whatsoever with the commission, nor would I. Anyone who knows me knows that I would never speak to them

Martin explained that:

I understand the government has admitted that my name was entered in error – we’ll never know whose error it was. In future editions my name will be excluded.

Read on...

Support us and go ad-free

Stephen Bourne also took to Twitter once it emerged that his name was in the list of stakeholders:

The report itself

You don’t need to be a genius to see that the report’s claim that Britain is not institutionally racist is at best false and at worst an insult to the concept of reality.

Indeed, a commenter on Twitter said the report could well be a distraction:

We’re not going to start listing all the reasons Britain is institutionally racist, as we’d be here forever. But we can say that labels of racism don’t need the consent of the people and institutions who are racist.

Approval

There are a handful of people of colour who have been involved in the production of the report. However, as Martin told us, that means very little:

The presence of people like Sewell and Kasumu are there to give it a stamp of decency or approval by some parts of the communities that they do not represent. To find my own name thrown into that mess initially caused hilarity. But, this is indicative of how this administration operates, there will be no explanation or apology. 

Tony Sewell, the chair of the commission, was sharply criticised by Dr Shola Mos-Shogbamimu:

Meanwhile, advisor to the prime minister Samuel Kasumu has quit:

His exit is allegedly not linked to the landmark report by the Commission on Race and Ethnic Disparities (Cred), which faced heavy criticism over its findings, although the timing is proving uncomfortable for the government either way.

Warning

Concerning the outcry against the report from many angles, Martin told us:

We should prepare ourselves collectively for dealing with a government that are genuinely crooks and liars, and cannot apologise and be accountable.

The government investigating into its own institutions then finding them not racist doesn’t have much weight to it.

What does have weight, however, are basic errors in citation that show the lack of care taken with the report from a callous and ineffective government.

The Cabinet Office had not responded to a request for comment at the time of publication.

Featured image via Unsplash/James Eades

Support us and go ad-free

We know everyone is suffering under the Tories - but the Canary is a vital weapon in our fight back, and we need your support

The Canary Workers’ Co-op knows life is hard. The Tories are waging a class war against us we’re all having to fight. But like trade unions and community organising, truly independent working-class media is a vital weapon in our armoury.

The Canary doesn’t have the budget of the corporate media. In fact, our income is over 1,000 times less than the Guardian’s. What we do have is a radical agenda that disrupts power and amplifies marginalised communities. But we can only do this with our readers’ support.

So please, help us continue to spread messages of resistance and hope. Even the smallest donation would mean the world to us.

Support us
  • Show Comments
    1. Stop it. It isn’t exactly news these days but all you socialist utopians really have lost the plot on race and racism in western democracies.

      For a start, your half-baked neoMarxist analysis is all wrong.

      It is economic disparities that truly shape inequality, not factors such as race. As the great American sociologist Thomas Sowell has pointed out, there are literally hundreds of variables that effect life outcomes and race is just one possible and much less significant factor.

      When it comes to the re-emergence of racial issues in the modern age, the most tragic thing of all is that millions if you are being duped.

      Ask yourselves this: where was all this racial alarmism ten, even five, years ago? It barely dented the news agenda but the Democratic Party in the US needed a stick to beat President Trump with and racism was their chosen wood.

      Suddenly race was front and cente of a myopic news agenda that wanted to get the bad orange man out of the White House at any cost.

      What followed was manufactured mass hysteria, a moral panic on a scale never seen before, the absurd black lives matter movement playing the role of the lunatics at the head of this hysterical new asylum.

      And you useful little Communist drones fell for it all, based on no evidence whatsoever.

      It will almost certainly come as news to you but America’s police do not kill black people, African-Americans do.

      In 2019, just nine unarmed black men were shot dead by law enforcement, the other ten thousand or so were the victims of a black crime wave that is higher than all other ethnic groups combined.

      Here’s an idea, stop resisting arrest.

      1. “In 2019, just nine unarmed black men were shot dead by law enforcement,… ”

        Isn’t that 9 too many? How many others died in custody or as a result of custody in the US and the UK? How do these compare on a proportional basis to the number of white men similarly killed?

        Your reactionary argument is short on detail and long on prejudice.

    Leave a Reply

    Join the conversation

    Please read our comment moderation policy here.