Tokenism, Dirty Money, Anxiety, Letters, Black Coffee

The Golden Stairs
Edward Burne-Jones (1833-1898)
Photo Credit: Tate Britain [CC BY-NC-ND]

"I have a dream that my four little children will one day live in a nation where they will not be judged by the colour of their skin but by the content of their character." 

Martin Luther King's dream is not shared by the Academy of Motion Picture Arts and Sciences. Organisers of the Oscars have decided that they do in fact want to judge artists by the colour of their skin. A new rule decrees that the best picture award will only go to films that meet strict diversity criteria; films with at least one significant character played by someone of an ethnic minority, films with at least 30 per cent of the secondary cast being female, LGBTQ+, disabled or racially diverse; films with at least a third of the crew being from under-represented groups.

... In the hotly contested field of politically correct madness this reaches new heights of lunacy, and it is perfectly illustrative of the way some "champions of diversity" have become the enemies of those they wish to support. Far from being some great progressive leap forward, the Oscars rule will only trample over the hopes of black, Asian, female, gay and transgender talent. Not their hopes of starring or working in the movies - award-hungry studios will of course be rushing to recruit more from these groups - but their hopes of being esteemed on the basis of their own merits... to know that you as an individual have been recognised  as truly brilliant, not you as a representative of a minority. The Academy's decision will undermine this pride and, alas, it is part of a growing trend.

... Diversity quotas reinforce the racist (and sexist and homophobic) notion that those who are being given a leg up weren't good enough to rise on their own... Forcing more diversity into sports organisations, parliament, business or films doesn't help erode prejudice. Quite the opposite. It allows the slur of "tokenism" when many excellent talents succeed.

... Positive discrimination is an oxymoron. It is never positive to promote people according to identity not ability... All this is not to suggest that we throw up our hands and do nothing. The status quo points to some glass ceilings that are still shatterproof as granite. But the interventions must not happen at the point that senior jobs are handed out or Oscars awarded but much further upstream: in schools, universities, the lower rungs of the career ladder. Could companies wishing to increase their representation send more inspiring figures into schools? Could the police run a cadet-style programme in under-privileged, inner city areas?

... We will have achieved Dr King's dream when the colour of people's skin, their sex or sexuality is irrelevant, and when the only criterion for advancement is ability.

(Clare Foges, The Times, 2020) 

Forcing diversity quotas on groups or fostering positive discrimination will not help to erode prejudice.

Conscious prejudice can only be changed by a prejudiced person having a different outlook than the one he/she had before - almost a conversion of thought. That can be a very difficult process as 100 years of research on the subject has shown. 

Dirty Money

Tartar Robbers Dividing Spoil
William Allen (!782-1850)
Photo Credit: Tate [ CC BY-NC-ND]

... It may be too sweeping to say that foreign sleaze-mongers have Britain in their grip. But it is undeniable that even the modest efforts made by David Cameron's government after an "Anti-Corruption Summit" in London in 2016 have largely fizzled.

Britain is nudging its overseas territories and crown dependencies towards more transparency. But these places are just a conduit. Few people retire to mansions in the British Virgin Islands or Nauru. They splash their cash onshore: notably in Britain, where they vigorously protect their wealth and privacy.

Kleptopia: How  Dirty Money is Conquering the World, a new book by the investigative journalist Tom Burgis ... unpicks the filthy flipside of globalisation; the overlap between international crime, abuse of power and our supposedly respectable financial system. The stories it tells are exotic: brave Kazakh strikers being raped in prison, gullible Italian officials colluding in a state-sponsored abduction, dodgy Swiss bankers smuggling diamonds to America in toothpaste tubes, phoney malaria diagnoses covering up murders in Missouri. But in each case the trail leads back here.

We should be ashamed of this and fearful of its consequences. Dirty money is soaked in blood and stinks of misery. By laundering it we corrupt ourselves. Our bankers, lawyers and accountants, who should be our system's gatekeepers, earn fat fees by flinging open the doors. The next line of defence should be the regulatory and supervisory bodies. But here the book paints a dismal picture of timidity and inaction.

... Britain is not the only culprit. Donald Trump is an archetypal denizen of this world of dodgy property deals, dud loans, and spooks-turned-crooks. It is hardly surprising that as president he has become the kleptocrats' champion. But the American criminal justice system still takes white-collar lawbreaking seriously. Ours does not.

... Are we a democracy, run by and for its citizens? Or a nicely camouflaged kleptocrats'  paradise? Let us hope that we still have the choice.

(Edward Lucas, The Times, 2020)

We, as a country, have known about this for years and years and still no radical solution has been highlighted by those in power.

*The US Treasury labelled Britain a "higher-risk" country for money laundering, likening it to notorious financial centres "such as Cyprus", according to the leaked Fincen files.

More companies registered in the UK were named in the "suspicious activity reports" sent by banks to the US Financial Crimes Enforcement Network than for any other country. In total, 3,282 British companies, including 100 at a single address in the home counties, were cited in the documents.

The leaked reports appear to confirm long-held suspicions that Britain is awash with dirty money as underworld groups and corrupt politicians from around the world use UK companies to launder the proceeds of crime.

... The leaked reports, which cover the years 2000 to 2017, show that British banks allowed companies they suspected of fraud or money laundering to move millions of pounds. They also show that leading City institutions had inadequate systems for monitoring suspicious activity and failed to take concerns seriously when challenged.

(Andrew Ellison, The Times, 2020)

Justice
unknown artist
Photo Credit: Torquay Museum [CC BY-NC]

*As soon as the government knew this week's leak of suspicious banking transactions - the so-called FinCEN Files - was on the way, it rushed out proposals to reform Britain's wild west company law. These would, said business minister Lord Callanan "enhance the UK's global reputation as a trusted and welcoming place to do business" - which it certainly is for kleptocrats.

But plans to make the ultimate owners of shell companies verify their identity are yet another minor tweak for a problem of international political proportion. They fit  a pattern that has persisted as long as the Eye has been exposing money laundering: action in appearance only. Thus British banks continue to wash corrupt money with abandon. Since new rules arrived in 2007, just 12 banks have been fined for money laundering - by piddling amounts compared to their profit from it. None has been prosecuted.

(Private Eye, No 1531, 2020)

Can't the Chief Executives of the banks in question be put on trial and jailed, if found guilty? If not, why not?

Anxiety

A Girl of Trinidad
Edwin Long (1829-1891)
Photo Credit: Bury Art Museum [CC BY-NC-ND]

There has been an "explosion" in anxiety in Britain over the past decade, research shows, with the financial crash, austerity, Brexit, climate change and social media blamed for huge rises in the condition. The debilitating mental illness has trebled among young adults, affecting 30% of women aged 18 to 24, and has risen across the board among men and women under 55.

... The 2008 crash was characterised by unemployment. Young people who were just starting out in adult life had the rug pulled out from under them.

Asked to identify other factors which may help explain the big increase, Freemantle (Professor and lead researcher) added: "During this period [2008-2018] we had a recession, a vote to leave Europe, which was not popular among young people, social media became ubiquitous, there was increased concern about the climate, and there was a change of attitude towards [people disclosing that they have] anxiety disorder."

Some of these events may well have "contributed to feelings of hopelessness and powerlessness, coming as they did after years of financial insecurity", added Freemantle, director of the comprehensive clinical trials unit at University College London.

... But there is a clear generational divide when it comes to anxiety, which has not risen among those aged 55 and over. That is probably because they tend to be less affected by economic factors and uncertainties faced by young adults, such as in housing and job prospects, Freemantle said.

(Denis Campbell, The Guardian, 2020) 

Could it also be that some of those aged 55 and over take a more pragmatic view of life in general believing it is completely normal to be anxious sometimes? They grew up when the term anxiety was seldom mentioned, when it wasn't considered a health condition and that if you were anxious you just put up with it until it passed.  And don't some of the drug companies have a level of responsibility for this "explosion of anxiety"? Shyness, for example has been pathologised and is sometimes known now as 'social phobia' or 'avoidant personality disorder'. The so called cure, in some cases - drugs, of course.

Letters

Sir, The University of Edinburgh has decided to rename the David Hume Tower because there are "sensitivities around asking students to use the building named after the 18th (century) philosopher", and that asking students to work in it is to promote "distress".

I studied in this building 50 years ago and remember having a quiet sense of satisfaction that such a landmark should bear such an illustrious name. The experience was not so damaging to my psyche as to inhibit me from a lifetime's study of Scottish culture in its Golden Age or from editing Hume's autobiography (I had guardianship of Hume's papers in both my roles as principal curator of manuscripts in the National Library of Scotland and curator of the Royal Society of Edinburgh).

Much as I condemn racism and the history of slavery, I would nevertheless encourage all those who are disappointed by the university's craven collapse into political correctness, and who are alarmed at the trend for judging the past by the virtue signalling of the present, to join with me in referring in future to Snowflake Tower in Woke Square.

(Dr Iain Gordon Brown, FRSE, Edinburgh, The Times,2020)

Sir, The University of Edinburgh's "cancelling" of David Hume shows that the hysterical attempts to suggest that everybody before 1960 should hold the same opinions as we do continue. The opinion of Felix Waldmann that "anyone possessed of Hume's talents would recognise the obvious enormity of slavery" encapsulates this. I see Dr Waldmann is now at the university of Cambridge how does his assumption square with Isaac Newton being one of the largest shareholders in the South Sea Company? The Scottish establishment is very soon going to have to face up to Robert Burn's history. He accepted a job as a slave overseer on a Jamaica plantation and was only kept from sailing because he could not raise the money for his passage.

(Jeremy Tyrer, London SW19, The Times, 2020)

Matthew Parris, from The Times had this to say:

This takes my breath away. That just 2,000 signatures from random agitators can push the University of Edinburgh into "cancelling" the greatest English speaking philosopher in history.

Am I losing my grip on Britain, or is Britain losing its grip on reason? The university has renamed its David Hume Tower "40 George Square". This is because he thought "the negro race" was inferior to the white race (almost everyone in Europe did then) and because he sponsored a friend whose plantation in the West Indies owned slaves. I dare say he also took sugar in his tea.

Nobody has exerted greater influence over modern Anglo-Saxon philosophy than this brilliant polymath. He was a sceptic and "empiricist" who argued that human knowledge can derive only from experience.

... Should we try to organise a counter-petition? I'm unsure. David Hume was cheated of the chair of philosophy at Edinburgh because a religious faction agitated against him and I'd like to think he is smiling not frowning this week to note that nothing changes in the spinelessness of academics. I'd like to think he's smiling but, of course, he isn't. Any idea of an afterlife, Hume wrote, "is a most unreasonable fancy."

Quite extraordinary that some  academics capitulate to the politically correct mob.

Black Coffee

 

Coffee and Liqueur
Samuel John Peploe (1871-1935)
Photo Credit: Glasgow Museums [CC BY-NC-ND]

The head of the organisation representing black police officers has said that political correctness has gone too far and is not furthering the cause of ethnic minorities.

Inspector Andrew George, the new president of the National Black Police Association, said that moves such as banning people from referring to "black coffee" did little to promote equality.

Mr George, who is of mixed race,... said he believed that increasing opportunities and ending poverty would do more to promote equality than attempts to change language...

He said that campaigners pushing political correctness had the right intentions but had created a distraction from the issues facing officers from black, Asian and minority ethnic communities.

(Neil Johnston, The Times, 2020)

Thank goodness for some common sense at last.