As the US’ first black presidential couple were being toasted across Europe two weeks ago, a study released by Harvard and Tufts universities suggested that, rather than embracing a “postracial” era, growing numbers of white Americans see themselves as victims of discrimination. Progress toward racial equality is, they believe, “linked to a new inequality — at their expense” — a notion that the Tea Party movement has developed into a political platform.
These findings resonate with a 2008 British government survey that suggested 29 percent of white Britons felt themselves to be discriminated against on grounds of race. Although Britain has no race-based quotas for education or employment, perceptions that ethnic minorities get “preferential treatment” at the expense of whites have gained traction. The statistics still show there are proportionately twice as many low-income ethnic minority households as white ones; and unemployment is much higher for black, Pakistani and Bangladeshi communities.
Myths of white marginalization tend to be dismissed as right-wing bigotry, but the danger is that they can exert a wider appeal and stoke conflict, particularly in troubled economic times. Deployed by the far right British National Party (BNP) in impoverished Oldham in 2001, they fomented white rage and violence. On the 10th anniversary of the riots last week, a BBC Newsnight film showed that some white Oldham residents still believe that ethnic minorities get better schools and housing.
The nonsensical idea that “racism cuts both ways” is peddled by the English Defence League (EDL), which has escalated violent campaigns of intimidation in the name of “indigenous” Britons. While the BNP has met electoral disaster and the EDL remains a street-fighting fringe, we must stay alert to the uses of “reverse racism” — which, along with increasingly acceptable anti-immigrant discourse, provides false explanations for worsening economic conditions.
Most white Britons are not unthinking racists, so we must ask what accounts for the tendency to believe that migrants and ethnic minorities, rather than a blatantly exploitative economic order, are to blame for increasing unemployment and falling wages.
The answer lies less with the far right than the self--serving rhetoric of the political mainstream, which would have us believe that individual or cultural attitudes rather than systemic failures explain economic woes. We are exhorted to self--improvement through bland panaceas like “raising aspiration” and “greater community cohesion.” It’s easier for politicians to invoke an “aspiration gap” than to acknowledge an -opportunity deficit. Or to insist that an ill-resourced social background does not matter if you work hard.
That tired “social mobility” mantra emphasizes piecemeal individual advancement over more fundamental steps toward fairness. Last week it was reported that a token handful of the brightest youth with parental income under ￡26,000 (US$42,682) would be given “highly selective” admission to a new east London college to enable them to go to top universities, while primary schools face cuts. Even this minimal proposal elicited the victimized headline: “Middle class excluded from elite school.”
Race and class are pitted against each other when British Prime Minister David Cameron denounces “separate lives” and “failed multiculturalism,” now an influential cliche. Handily obscured in the process is an economic system that inflicts deprivation across ethnic communities. As the poor blame the poor, the culpable elite are shielded from legitimate anger.
The truly worrying “reverse” action of our times is that which shifts responsibility for improving living conditions from government to citizens, a central plank of Cameron’s “big society,” endorsed this week by David Miliband, of the opposition Labour party. Even as the wealthy tighten their fiscal grip, the onus of “making change happen” is shunted on to the shoulders of the disempowered.
It may be inspiring for a group of inner-city girls to be told by US first lady Michelle Obama that they need only believe in themselves and work hard to make it to Oxbridge, but this flies in the face of institutional realities stacked against the economically disadvantaged — particularly black, Pakistani and Bangladeshi Britons, who are under-represented in top universities. Only 50 professors out of 14,000 across the UK are black Britons. These statistics point not only to institutional racism, but also to the failures of an educational system skewed in favor of the economically advantaged, and which — through tripled university fees and -creeping -privatization — has moved further in that direction.
Without redressing an economic system that enriches a minority by disadvantaging many, promoting social mobility through “aspiration” foments division, not cohesion. When some communities are accused of failing to integrate or receiving preferential treatment, the economic order of our times — with its obscene income differential between the top earners and the rest — is let off the hook. Britain is sleepwalking not into a failed multiculturalism, but to a profound and damaging economic segregation.
Priyamvada Gopal teaches in the faculty of English at Cambridge Uuniversity.
As strategic tensions escalate across the vast Indo-Pacific region, Taiwan has emerged as more than a potential flashpoint. It is the fulcrum upon which the credibility of the evolving American-led strategy of integrated deterrence now rests. How the US and regional powers like Japan respond to Taiwan’s defense, and how credible the deterrent against Chinese aggression proves to be, will profoundly shape the Indo-Pacific security architecture for years to come. A successful defense of Taiwan through strengthened deterrence in the Indo-Pacific would enhance the credibility of the US-led alliance system and underpin America’s global preeminence, while a failure of integrated deterrence would
It is being said every second day: The ongoing recall campaign in Taiwan — where citizens are trying to collect enough signatures to trigger re-elections for a number of Chinese Nationalist Party (KMT) legislators — is orchestrated by the Democratic Progressive Party (DPP), or even President William Lai (賴清德) himself. The KMT makes the claim, and foreign media and analysts repeat it. However, they never show any proof — because there is not any. It is alarming how easily academics, journalists and experts toss around claims that amount to accusing a democratic government of conspiracy — without a shred of evidence. These
The Executive Yuan recently revised a page of its Web site on ethnic groups in Taiwan, replacing the term “Han” (漢族) with “the rest of the population.” The page, which was updated on March 24, describes the composition of Taiwan’s registered households as indigenous (2.5 percent), foreign origin (1.2 percent) and the rest of the population (96.2 percent). The change was picked up by a social media user and amplified by local media, sparking heated discussion over the weekend. The pan-blue and pro-China camp called it a politically motivated desinicization attempt to obscure the Han Chinese ethnicity of most Taiwanese.
On Wednesday last week, the Rossiyskaya Gazeta published an article by Chinese President Xi Jinping (習近平) asserting the People’s Republic of China’s (PRC) territorial claim over Taiwan effective 1945, predicated upon instruments such as the 1943 Cairo Declaration and the 1945 Potsdam Proclamation. The article further contended that this de jure and de facto status was subsequently reaffirmed by UN General Assembly Resolution 2758 of 1971. The Ministry of Foreign Affairs promptly issued a statement categorically repudiating these assertions. In addition to the reasons put forward by the ministry, I believe that China’s assertions are open to questions in international
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