TRIGGERnometry - Munira Mirza on Multiculturalism, ＂Institutional Racism＂, ＂White Privilege＂ and Diversity

00:00:00.000 hello and welcome to trigonometry i'm francis foster i'm constantin kissin and this is a show

00:00:11.660 for you if you're bored of people arguing on the internet over subjects they know nothing about

00:00:16.780 at trigonometry we don't pretend to be the experts we ask the experts our fantastic expert guest this

00:00:23.800 week is the former deputy mayor of london for education and culture who now works in the arts

00:00:28.820 Munir Mirza, welcome to Trigonautry.

00:00:30.760 Hi, thank you.

00:00:35.360 It's so good to have you here. Thank you so much for coming on.

00:00:38.000 We met at the Battle of Ideas and we'll get into talking about some of the stuff you were talking there.

00:00:41.840 But before we get into the show itself, tell us a little bit about who you are, how are you, where you are,

00:00:46.620 what's been your story through life and if there's maybe something that's influenced the beliefs and views you now have,

00:00:51.980 tell us a little bit about that as well.

00:00:53.180 Okay. Well, first of all, thanks for having me on. I grew up in a town called Oldham in the

00:01:00.000 northwest of England. Splendid area. And very nice area. And my parents are immigrants from

00:01:07.440 Pakistan, or they came over from Pakistan. And I guess it was a fairly ordinary upbringing. I

00:01:13.860 went to a comprehensive school. And in many ways, you know, my family is an immigrant success story.

00:01:20.700 we went to university I was very lucky I got to Oxford I was quite an academic student and I think

00:01:27.460 when I was at Oxford and then since I became interested in politics I met people from

00:01:32.680 different backgrounds left and right and I became particularly interested in the relationship

00:01:38.620 between culture and politics and I studied English literature I was interested in the arts

00:01:42.380 and I've always I suppose been curious about how culture defines us and reflects our values what

00:01:49.940 we think of society, what it means to be human, and conversely how our values and ideas shape

00:01:56.900 the arts and shape the culture that we produce. So I've always been interested in how our

00:02:00.900 identities are shaped by the culture around us. In terms of my politics, I suppose I started

00:02:07.140 off, I've called myself left-wing, although over the years I've found that my arguments

00:02:13.240 with people tend to be stronger with people on the left, and maybe that's because the

00:02:18.240 world has changed a great deal but I guess I've always been suspicious of consensus and norms

00:02:25.840 and wanted to question what I see as orthodoxies around certain things and in my 20s I became

00:02:32.360 particularly interested in the discussions around multiculturalism and quite early on in the 2000s

00:02:38.980 I started writing critically about multiculturalism back before it was really I think being debated a

00:02:45.820 lot I you know I wrote a series of essays and articles challenging what I thought was in some

00:02:51.580 ways a kind of ideology that was meant to be about equity and fairness and liberating people from

00:02:58.780 oppression and what has become I think quite a rigid and oppressive ideology in many ways which

00:03:06.660 has tended to box people into categories and I've always been worried and maybe I am partly

00:03:12.860 influenced by my own background I'm you know I'm from an ethnic minority background but I've never

00:03:16.320 felt that I am just defined by that but I think that increasingly we tend to think of people

00:03:21.520 as being defined by these characteristics and almost assuming that some of them are good

00:03:29.600 inherently good and some of them are inherently bad and we tend to make judgments which are

00:03:34.580 prejudicial and not not really fair not really seeing people as individuals and to me whatever

00:03:40.420 was progressive and positive about multiculturalism a large part of that has evolved into something

00:03:44.440 which I think is holding people back and and I've always thought that that was very counterproductive

00:03:49.440 for ethnic minorities it's not a you know it's not a popular mainstream view I think more I think

00:03:55.700 more and more people are challenging it but um and you know we can talk about that I know now

00:04:00.320 quite a lot of ethnic minority people who sympathize and who agree that something that

00:04:05.880 was meant to be in their interest is actually starting to work against them and working against

00:04:09.720 you know proper relationships in society really harmonious relationships is becoming quite divisive

00:04:15.700 well a lot of our viewers of that actually when we went to the battle of ideas where we met as i

00:04:20.520 said there were loads of people coming up to us and i'll be honest with you deep down inside i was

00:04:25.160 like oh i wasn't expecting you to be from this background you know even though it makes perfect

00:04:30.160 sense and people from different backgrounds they don't have a monolithic way of thinking

00:04:35.420 But you talk about multiculturalism, and it's interesting that we actually don't talk about it anymore.

00:04:40.180 It's almost like we've kind of accepted that Merkel and David Cameron both came out and said that it's not working.

00:04:47.780 And kind of we've moved on to something else, which is identity politics.

00:04:51.240 It's kind of morphed into this thing, isn't it?

00:04:54.060 Yeah. Essentially, I see them as similar things. They're different words for a similar trend.

00:04:58.920 So even if the language has changed because the language has stopped being fashionable or, you know, politicians like Cameron and Merkel have recognized that there's a kind of groundswell against some of these ideas.

00:05:10.420 They still continue. They're perpetuated, but they come in different words and different languages.

00:05:15.100 So you've now got concepts like white privilege and, you know, identity politics and protected characteristics.

00:05:21.540 And this is the new, the evolution of the same kind of approach.

00:05:26.020 and I'm always clear when I talk about multiculturalism

00:05:29.060 I'm not against a multi-ethnic society

00:05:31.420 when we live in a multi-ethnic society

00:05:32.880 there are people with differences

00:05:34.300 I come from a background which is obviously

00:05:37.060 ethnically different to the mainstream majority

00:05:39.300 in this country

00:05:40.000 and I don't want to live in a society where there is intolerance

00:05:43.700 I want to be somewhere where

00:05:45.180 we recognise that people have differences

00:05:47.660 and that's part of what it is to live

00:05:50.000 in a kind of cosmopolitan place

00:05:52.420 particularly in somewhere like London

00:05:53.740 where I live now

00:05:55.260 But I think the idea that our differences define us, that they should be things that determine policy, that we should treat people differently because of those cultural differences.

00:06:06.540 I think that can lead us into all sorts of dead ends and it can be quite divisive.

00:06:10.440 It ends up, I think, making something which is a fact in society, we are different, but it makes it much more rigid, makes it much more difficult for people to transcend those identities.

00:06:21.560 You know, I am an Asian woman from the north.

00:06:25.020 I have a working class background, but there are lots of things about me

00:06:28.720 which cannot be contained by that, that, you know, are different.

00:06:32.320 And I suppose, again, you know, going back to my own background,

00:06:36.480 I never thought when I was growing up that I only wanted to read writers

00:06:39.900 who were Asian women from working class backgrounds.

00:06:43.100 You know, the things that I was interested in.

00:06:44.240 That might be a bit of a limited reading call there, I'll be honest.

00:06:46.260 Exactly, yeah.

00:06:46.980 I mean, there are great writers who, you know, all that.

00:06:49.260 But, you know, I sort of subscribe to the sort of famous line by the Roman playwright Terence, nothing human is alien to me.

00:06:57.700 And I think the idea that, you know, we are human, we can empathise with each other through culture, through the arts,

00:07:03.400 that that's one of the great things about the arts and the things that I'm drawn to.

00:07:09.220 When you read a book, you're seeing the world through somebody else's eyes.

00:07:12.380 And that ability to transcend, that universal impulse, I think, is a very powerful one.

00:07:17.220 And we've become, I think, as a society in the arts and in academia, we've become quite sceptical about the idea that there is such a thing as great art that everyone can enjoy and relate to.

00:07:27.440 It's that seen as, you know, the sort of thing that they would have said in the past, very old fashioned notion that's for dead white men.

00:07:34.560 And really what we need now is to teach young ethnic minority people about their culture.

00:07:40.860 They need to see themselves reflected in the art that's in the galleries or in the books that they read in school.

00:07:45.940 and I just think it's very limiting

00:07:47.520 and I'm sure that I'm not the only person who feels that way

00:07:52.100 you speak to artists actually

00:07:53.540 and they're sometimes the most worried about this kind of categorising

00:07:58.100 the way that often funding works in the arts

00:08:01.400 I've seen it, there's a sort of designer

00:08:04.080 we've got to have more BME people in the arts

00:08:06.460 but then that becomes quite limiting

00:08:08.280 because you end up ghettoising black artists

00:08:10.560 and saying well we're giving money out for people who are creating art

00:08:13.360 that's about diversity

00:08:15.320 and they're saying, well, you know, we're artists first and foremost

00:08:17.660 and the kinds of subjects we're interested in might be science,

00:08:20.460 they might be, you know, climate change, it might be anything

00:08:23.260 and why do you assume that the thing I'm obsessed about is my identity?

00:08:27.460 But we do that all the time, we perpetuate that.

00:08:30.100 And do you think as a trend it's getting worse?

00:08:32.860 And because to me, and I mean, I used to be a drama teacher, I'm in comedy,

00:08:37.640 it seems to me that we're progressing ever more down this path

00:08:40.960 where it seems to be, oh, you know, this person is getting this opportunity,

00:08:44.600 not because of the art they create but because they go oh because they are x y and z blah blah

00:08:49.620 blah therefore they are here and you just think but surely we should just be judging the art

00:08:55.020 ultimately isn't where the artist is from irrelevant because when you go and look at a

00:08:59.640 michelangelo you it doesn't really matter that apparently man though isn't he dead white man

00:09:04.460 dead white gay man so you know oh yeah gay doesn't count anymore man okay fair enough right um so

00:09:10.340 we've lost our six gay audience members but in many ways it doesn't matter who the artist is

00:09:18.280 what matters is the art surely well yeah i mean i think what i would say is for a lot of artists

00:09:24.240 their identity is part might be part of the art that they make and that's perfectly fine you know

00:09:29.080 it's hard to imagine someone like um you know benjamin zephaniah you know his his background

00:09:34.500 his cultural background his experience is a part of the the poetry that he writes and that's fine

00:09:38.460 but I think at the end of the day when you're you know when you're making judgments you're

00:09:42.340 judging the quality of that work and how well he communicates that experience and there's

00:09:46.380 something about that which is more than just he ticks a box and it's patronizing to someone like

00:09:51.540 him to say well the reason that he's considered a you know a great poet and you know significant

00:09:56.780 is because he ticks the box it's because he's telling us something about the human experience

00:10:00.500 and he's he's bringing a different perspective so um I think you're right that we we've forgotten

00:10:06.380 in a way that the artist the individual artist is bringing all their personal experience to bear

00:10:12.220 and that that can be very wide-ranging it's not just about their ethnic experience although that

00:10:18.820 might be part of it it's it's lots of things and in fact the one thing we don't talk about in the

00:10:23.080 arts as much in terms of diversity is political diversity and certainly class diversity is an

00:10:27.940 issue although that's more of a conversation now but but people do bring different perspectives

00:10:34.020 And we shouldn't sort of pretend that we're all atomised individuals

00:10:38.120 that don't have shared experiences or shared cultural identities.

00:10:42.200 It's just, if we're starting to judge that as more important than other things,

00:10:47.160 then we get into trouble.

00:10:49.580 I don't know if I've explained that well enough.

00:10:51.520 I'm trying not to say culture is irrelevant, ethnicity is irrelevant,

00:10:55.220 because I think it matters to a lot of people.

00:10:56.920 We're just going to clip that bit and make it go viral.

00:11:01.680 Carefully edit me down.

00:11:02.780 Culture is irrelevant.

00:11:04.020 ethnicity is irrelevant fam there you go off into the internet no i know exactly what you're saying

00:11:09.580 i think the thing between the two of you is basically you're saying culture and ethnicity

00:11:13.940 can be important but what he's saying is that shouldn't be the basis on which we evaluate

00:11:18.040 exactly who should be advanced promoted etc yeah and and you know sometimes it you know sometimes

00:11:23.600 it can be as crude as that you know and i've you know i won't name names but i've been involved in

00:11:28.380 meetings and conversations and organizations where you know they think oh god well you know

00:11:31.800 we need to increase the the proportion we need to increase the target and they're responding to a

00:11:38.240 very real pressure because you know there are that many by comparison ethnic minorities in the art

00:11:43.000 sector or in parts of academia or in the media in publishing and there are there are reasons for

00:11:49.080 that there are long-standing reasons I don't think it's about racism as it happens in the way that

00:11:53.700 is commonly described i think there is a reason why you know people from poorer backgrounds tend

00:11:59.660 to not go into insecure employment in the cultural sector you know there's you know these are not us

00:12:05.020 you know jobs that um you know a lot of families will aspire for their children to go into because

00:12:10.320 they would worry about you know so so we could talk about low pay in the arts or in publishing

00:12:15.420 or in comedy let's talk about low paying comedy let's talk about you know the deprived comedians

00:12:20.560 of the country um but but you know to have a meaningful conversation we have to get away from

00:12:26.060 this idea that they're not getting in because they're black and therefore we have to correct

00:12:30.020 that well let's talk about this because i think one of the most impressive interviews i've ever

00:12:34.280 seen uh online of you and has very few views actually i noticed so go and watch this interview

00:12:39.220 that i'm about to talk about is you talking to the bbc about the government's race order

00:12:43.600 where essentially what they found was that certain ethnic minorities were not very doing very well

00:12:49.660 in certain areas. Incidentally, one of the things they didn't

00:12:51.720 really raise is that certain ethnic minorities

00:12:53.860 are doing incredibly well in certain

00:12:55.780 areas. And, for example, white

00:12:57.660 working class boys are doing

00:12:59.580 incredibly badly in education.

00:13:01.200 The worst, in fact. In education, right?

00:13:03.320 But anyway, they were asking you what you thought

00:13:05.720 about this, and it was all

00:13:07.600 kind of served with the source of

00:13:09.340 racism and discrimination.

00:13:11.600 Lovely tasting source, by the way.

00:13:13.460 Yeah. Mate, you've got to be careful

00:13:15.480 with your voice, I keep telling you.

00:13:17.120 Francis has got a really racist-sounding voice.

00:13:19.460 it's a voice of an angry white man yeah gammon voice i won't say anything

00:13:24.820 uh so uh and you were kind of trying to explain to them this very

00:13:30.120 simple concept which is that not all disparities in outcome

00:13:33.960 reference actual discrimination or racism so let's talk a little bit about that can you tell

00:13:40.560 us for anyone who wasn't aware of it what that race order was and what kind of what you think

00:13:46.000 about it yeah it was about a year ago the government uh well actually it was about two

00:13:50.360 years ago the prime minister Theresa May announced that she was going to tackle and burning injustices

00:13:55.040 in society and she stood on the steps of Downing Street and one of the things she announced

00:13:58.560 when she became prime minister was that she would do an audit of racial disparities in this country

00:14:03.180 so in different areas of the public sector or employment outcomes educational outcomes and so

00:14:09.920 on she would look or her department would look at how ethnic minorities are doing whether they're

00:14:15.140 doing better or worse and why that might be and if it had just been a kind of data collecting

00:14:22.060 exercise I suppose you could say you know it might serve a purpose and it's interesting and

00:14:26.220 important to know but it was driven by this sort of agenda that essentially ethnic minorities are

00:14:32.260 doing badly because of systematic institutional racism that there are structural and systemic

00:14:39.700 problems and they stem from you know racial uh you know racial bias that you know um that somehow

00:14:47.780 white society is doing a disservice to these ethnic groups and therefore that's why that

00:14:52.540 explains why some groups don't do as well as others and so on and what was interesting about

00:14:57.160 the audit um is that it showed that actually the picture is really complex and there are different

00:15:02.400 groups doing differently in different areas and it's not clear-cut that all white people are

00:15:07.900 always doing better and ethnic minorities are always doing worse. So about a third of doctors

00:15:12.500 in the NHS are non-white. They're BMEs, very, very high proportion. About a third of consultants in

00:15:18.180 the NHS are a BME. If you look at the civil service, actually, it's a fairly good proportion

00:15:25.400 based on who was at Russell Group University 20 years ago, who's now done very well in the civil

00:15:30.980 service. So if you look at the stats, actually, it's not clear cut that ethnic minorities are

00:15:34.960 you're doing badly but of course when the audit was was published when it came out the emphasis

00:15:40.420 both from the government and from the media was to focus on where ethnic minorities are not doing

00:15:45.720 well it was the negative story and when I did that interview the BBC I partly came out of the closet

00:15:51.180 as it were to say you know if you look at the stats if we're being honest what was what we're

00:15:56.540 seeing is actually racism has gone into decline it's not eradicated at all there are racists

00:16:02.260 but the kind of racialized system

00:16:04.440 that might have existed in the past

00:16:06.040 has changed

00:16:07.980 I'm really sorry we're going to have to pause

00:16:10.040 our light has died on us

00:16:12.240 for some reason

00:16:13.020 just pause and we'll

00:16:15.060 that's alright I can do that again

00:16:16.780 I was rambling a bit as well

00:16:18.880 no you weren't at all

00:16:20.800 it's gone absolutely brilliantly so far

00:16:23.980 it's a brand new light isn't it

00:16:26.140 yeah it's a brand new light we're going to have to get it replaced

00:16:28.020 just keeps doing that

00:16:30.600 Is there a reason why that happened?

00:16:33.140 It's just like it looks like a faulty connection or something.

00:16:36.180 Nothing's moved or anything.

00:16:37.680 Yeah, is it to do with that?

00:16:39.760 No, mate, it's not, because it's not even hanging.

00:16:41.840 It's this at the top.

00:16:42.480 Yeah, yeah.

00:16:42.980 Right, OK.

00:16:43.660 All right, sorry about that.

00:16:44.760 Yeah, that's right.

00:16:45.660 Shall I start again?

00:16:46.500 Yes.

00:16:46.920 Because then you've got it all, haven't you?

00:16:48.100 Yeah.

00:16:49.360 The government announced, or Theresa May announced when she became prime minister,

00:16:52.640 that she was going to tackle burning injustices in society.

00:16:56.080 And one of the announcements she made was that the government would run something called a racial disparities audit.

00:17:02.680 So it would look at how different ethnic groups fare in British society in the public services, so the NHS and health and education,

00:17:11.640 but also in areas like employment and other kinds of discrimination, policing, criminal justice system and so on.

00:17:20.840 And the report was published last year, or a website was launched that showed these statistics.

00:17:28.600 And interestingly, the audit revealed that the picture is very complex.

00:17:34.040 It's not clear cut that white people always do better and ethnic minorities always do worse.

00:17:39.720 In fact, there are some areas where ethnic minorities are doing really well.

00:17:43.200 So if you look at the NHS, for instance, about a third of doctors in the NHS are BME, the non-white,

00:17:49.300 or a third of senior consultants in the NHS are non-white.

00:17:52.300 So there are some areas where actually there's a real success story,

00:17:55.540 there's something to celebrate.

00:17:56.960 But when the audit was published,

00:17:58.900 all the emphasis from government and from the media

00:18:01.380 was on the negatives, where ethnic minorities are not doing well.

00:18:04.640 And it perpetuated what I thought was a very negative,

00:18:08.620 inaccurate picture, really, of British society.

00:18:12.320 You know, it reinforces this idea that ethnic minorities

00:18:15.400 are being systematically oppressed,

00:18:17.360 that there's a kind of institutional problem.

00:18:19.300 when in fact what we've seen in the last 20 years is a kind of liberalization and opening up

00:18:25.720 for many people and my worry has always been that when you tell that negative story

00:18:31.060 it both you know it skews policy it means that people make bad policy decisions because they

00:18:36.180 think they're trying to correct something that's actually working quite well but it also reinforces

00:18:41.120 for a lot of younger people this idea that they can't succeed and that I think can have quite a

00:18:46.580 big material impact, it can mean that they're not motivated to go out, apply to university,

00:18:52.520 go and be ambitious, seek good jobs, because they'll think that they've always got a kind of

00:18:57.340 white, racist decision maker who's holding them back. And I think that can create a lot of tension

00:19:04.280 and division in this society. If you're constantly telling people from ethnic backgrounds that this

00:19:10.840 society is against you, that's not going to be great for an engendering, harmonious social

00:19:15.880 relations you know they're going to be resentful we've made the point even further actually that

00:19:20.220 for example a black defendant who's suspicious about his lawyer is more likely to make a bad

00:19:28.100 decision for example to plead innocent when in fact they should plead guilty and as a result of

00:19:33.460 that you end up with young black men getting harsher sentences yeah because they don't trust

00:19:39.680 the system and they don't do that what they ought to do kind of in a percentage place situation yeah

00:19:45.780 The criminal justice system report, which was authored by or led by David Lammy, MP, showed that there was this disparity.

00:19:54.720 I mean, in many other areas, many other parts of the criminal justice system, the disparity between ethnic groups can be explained by a number of different factors.

00:20:03.880 The fact that there are proportionally a higher number of black men in the criminal justice system is, you know, there are reasons for that.

00:20:13.720 you know, the higher proportions of arrests, you know, that, you know, you can go into the detail

00:20:20.460 of that. There was one disparity, which was interesting in that report, which is why is it

00:20:24.580 that black men are more likely to receive harsh sentencing? And they found, interestingly, as you

00:20:30.360 say, that they were not pleading guilty because they didn't trust the advice of their solicitors

00:20:36.740 and they didn't trust the system. And that's, I would argue, is partly a result of, not completely,

00:20:43.260 but it's partly a result of their fear that the system is going to be prejudiced against them.

00:20:48.020 So it has this really counterproductive effect.

00:20:50.640 It's damaging to their life chances, really.

00:20:54.120 And the same thing's happened in other areas like mental health, for instance,

00:20:57.220 where we know that there's been a huge amount of debate and discussion

00:21:00.540 about whether there's institutional racism in the mental health system

00:21:03.860 because a higher proportion of ethnic minorities are likely to appear in the system

00:21:08.680 and to be detained, forcibly detained.

00:21:11.660 which is obviously worrying when you look at the statistics

00:21:13.680 and think, well, why is it?

00:21:14.840 Are they more likely to have mental illness?

00:21:17.000 Yes, they are, actually.

00:21:18.160 There's lots of good research to show that for all sorts of reasons

00:21:21.100 they have higher risk factors.

00:21:22.860 But also what researchers have found

00:21:24.920 is that a lot of people from ethnic groups

00:21:28.320 are worried about how the system is going to treat them.

00:21:31.200 So they don't report until it's almost too late,

00:21:33.580 until their condition has worsened

00:21:36.220 to a point where they may end up being violent to themselves or other people.

00:21:39.980 And at that point, they need to be forcibly detained.

00:21:42.280 At that point, the police get involved.

00:21:43.900 And you have a very different, the system has to react differently to you.

00:21:47.940 So the thing that frustrates me is that people use these statistics almost with a political agenda to try and prove a point about systematic racism.

00:21:56.780 But the effects of that is even more damaging.

00:21:59.920 And if we were more honest, if we were looking at the statistics more dispassionately, you would see that it's just a really complex picture.

00:22:07.240 And I think ethnic minorities are the ones who suffer the most often

00:22:11.000 because no one's really thinking about their interests as individuals in the system.

00:22:15.840 They're just thinking, how can we make a political point?

00:22:17.820 How can we show that we're virtuous?

00:22:20.020 I think in the case of the government,

00:22:21.960 I think the government was trying very hard to show that it wasn't the nasty party anymore

00:22:25.000 and that they care about these vulnerable groups.

00:22:28.040 But in doing that, they have perpetuated a lot of these perceptions

00:22:34.120 and this very negative story.

00:22:36.440 Francis, can you say something really loud to Mars?

00:22:38.720 I was going to say, this is going to...

00:22:39.840 There's a fucking helicopter that's just decided...

00:22:41.500 See, we keep telling you at Trigonometry

00:22:45.920 that no one wants us to be having these conversations.

00:22:48.920 There's a fucking helicopter hovering above us.

00:22:52.380 By the way, we forgot to explain at the beginning of the interview

00:22:54.660 that we're on location, as we told you last week,

00:22:58.100 and one of our big fans is...

00:23:00.600 Is it quite literally just above us?

00:23:02.160 Yeah, there's a helicopter hovering above us,

00:23:03.960 just recording everything and reporting us to the police for a hate crime.

00:23:07.640 There we are.

00:23:08.540 Yeah.

00:23:09.440 I think we're going to have to make a run for it.

00:23:11.160 Yeah, we are actually going to have to leave.

00:23:14.200 Yeah.

00:23:14.540 And as the white man, I am going to get off scot-free,

00:23:19.200 so see you all later, guys.

00:23:20.600 Bye-bye.

00:23:21.900 Typical.

00:23:22.820 Typical, exactly.

00:23:23.620 But there's one thing that we didn't cover.

00:23:25.180 When we look at these stats, and I, as a former teacher,

00:23:27.620 I do find it incredibly interesting,

00:23:29.120 um is working white working class boys all we're always at the bottom when it comes to stats and i

00:23:36.820 sometimes think that if it had been you know working class black boys working class asian

00:23:40.420 boys there'd be a massive outcry about it rightly so but because it's working class white boys we

00:23:45.880 tend just to shrug our shoulders and go oh well what can you do let's crack on and they do tend

00:23:52.040 to be forgotten almost yeah i think i think that has changed actually i mean in the last few years

00:23:57.620 there's been more awareness of the fact that it's not just a racial thing.

00:24:03.480 And what we don't want to get into is this idea that somehow white working class boys are being failed

00:24:07.320 because of their whiteness either.

00:24:09.400 There are problems with our education system.

00:24:11.620 Actually, I think what's happening is that a lot of immigrant families are correcting and are intervening

00:24:17.560 and are getting their kids to go to private tutors to correct for faults in the system.

00:24:23.240 and you know it's not unusual if you're going you know if you're driving around south london

00:24:27.980 you will see in shop windows adverts for maths and english tuition for immigrant groups you

00:24:34.640 know there are saturday schools there's a very strong culture of supplementary schools in the

00:24:37.840 afro-caribbean community for instance these are all to try and correct for what they perceive to

00:24:41.780 be problems in the education system and that hasn't been the case for a lot of white working

00:24:46.980 class communities um but yeah you know we have to i think we should focus our education system on

00:24:54.040 you know supporting the people who are struggling whatever their ethnic background and for too long

00:24:59.120 we've racialized a lot of these problems this is the point where it's like what france's question

00:25:04.920 reveals and your answer is that we we think in terms of race all the time now and this way of

00:25:10.400 thinking encourages white people to think about well well if you're talking about these ethnic

00:25:14.700 minorities what about us we are victimized in this area or that area and it's just like and

00:25:19.300 even if you don't agree with it as i don't like i was driving home the other day and there was a

00:25:23.700 girl waiting to cross the road and it was like one of those choice situations i could have driven or

00:25:28.180 i could have let her pass and i swear to god i looked at her and she was black and i went oh

00:25:32.360 she's black i gotta let her through you know this is how we start to think and it's crazy isn't it

00:25:37.400 this is absolutely mental that we've we've been encouraged to think in this way well done for not

00:25:42.100 even laughing about it um yeah i think people change their behavior and um they're on guard

00:25:53.520 there's a sort of sensitivity about it and it in a way the the the end result is that you end up

00:26:00.360 treating people differently because they're racist and they know it so um i remember um i think i may

00:26:05.920 have said it even at the battle of ideas session that i was at that um there was one writer um i

00:26:10.840 book name as she wrote a blog um who complained that white people would come up to her and say

00:26:17.480 how articulate she was and she felt that this was an insult because really they weren't expecting

00:26:22.180 her to be articulate because she's a black female and i thought you know even when when compliments

00:26:26.380 are treated as some kind of you know expression of racism you know there's literally nothing you

00:26:33.660 can do everything you say and it could be that they just thought she genuinely was articulate

00:26:38.000 and they were congratulating her for it.

00:26:39.880 But people then become very defensive and afraid.

00:26:43.680 I remember reading a report a long time ago.

00:26:47.060 I think it was a report of the Met Police.

00:26:51.440 It must have been about 10 years ago.

00:26:53.140 And they noted that black police officers were more likely

00:26:57.200 to be formally disciplined than white police officers in the Met.

00:27:01.300 And there was a discussion in the paper about what was the driver behind this.

00:27:06.280 and it turns out one of the reasons was because their superiors were so worried about having

00:27:09.980 informal conversations with them about problems that they felt they had to go through the formal

00:27:14.240 means and that's what happens we don't trust our instincts we don't trust how people will perceive

00:27:19.880 that we don't think that they will give us the benefit of the doubt so we do everything in a

00:27:23.500 much more formally formally regulated way so in the workplace people are afraid of interacting

00:27:30.280 with their colleagues in a particular way you know a word said incorrectly or a slightly

00:27:34.920 insensitive remark you know where do you come from uh that kind of thing is now regarded as

00:27:41.360 racism could get you disciplined you could end up in a racial grievance situation you know the

00:27:46.220 workplace is a you know essentially it's still a workplace you know you have a boss they have the

00:27:50.640 power to sack you so the kind of informal social relationships that you need to be healthy in

00:27:56.660 order for a civic society to be strong are being weakened by you know people's you know kind of

00:28:03.080 desperation to jump onto anything as being potentially offensive um and and often people

00:28:08.700 self-censor which you know it's terrible you can't you can't have warm human contact with people you

00:28:16.480 know proper social interaction if you're constantly worrying that they're going to be upset by what you

00:28:20.780 say you made the great point just one final thing on this francis uh you told the story about your

00:28:26.860 dad's colleague to tell us that because I thought it was such a great story about the power of

00:28:32.840 interpreting things in different ways like do you interpret something as an offence or do you

00:28:37.760 interpret something as as a you know as a way to connect as an attempt to connect yeah my dad

00:28:43.160 worked in a car parts factory for about 20 years of his at the end of his working life and a lot

00:28:50.440 of his colleagues were white working class oldeners and every year one of them called Tom would ring

00:28:56.640 up on christmas day and wish you know wish him and the family happy christmas and he knew that

00:29:01.320 we were a muslim family but yeah he rang up because it was the nice thing to do you know

00:29:05.720 he wanted to make an effort and um and even when my my dad passed away he would ring up you know

00:29:09.780 um in the years that followed um and just just to say that and it the way that i interpreted it is

00:29:15.740 a very kind gesture and he wanted my dad to feel welcome you know we were an asian family in old

00:29:21.440 and it to me you know it felt like a kind thing to do a very human thing to do whereas now you

00:29:26.420 know you think about it and you listen to so-called anti-racists talking about white privilege and

00:29:31.560 they would say well you know it was a bit insensitive to ring up a Muslim family and

00:29:36.000 wish them happy Christmas and you can imagine that a comment like that would be regarded as

00:29:41.520 insensitive rather than you know a humane and kind thing to do and that's the sort of madness

00:29:47.460 that we're in that the people's intentions are misinterpreted willfully misinterpreted often

00:29:54.240 And I think that something is going on in anti-racism today where I think there is a kind of, as well as a political agenda, I think there's a sort of, you know, really kind of almost corrupt tendency amongst some people to see a problem, to see a system in a negative light because it gives them something to have a grievance about.

00:30:18.740 And there is a currency to victim culture.

00:30:21.980 I'm not saying that people aren't victims.

00:30:23.680 You can be a victim of racism in this country today.

00:30:26.640 And I personally experience racism.

00:30:28.560 It's not a nice thing.

00:30:29.880 I think, on balance, I've been fortunate enough

00:30:33.200 that the vast majority of my interactions with white people

00:30:35.920 have not been racist.

00:30:37.080 You know, they've been good ones.

00:30:38.180 I've disinterested.

00:30:40.320 Apart from the casual racists here on my left, it's been boring.

00:30:44.640 It's casual because I'm not smart.

00:30:46.280 but you know joking aside is a serious thing it's a horrible thing when it happens and um you know i

00:30:53.340 i'm my family have personal experience with that so well so do i looking the way i look in russia

00:30:58.660 and actually in this country as well you know but the question always for me my my parents were

00:31:03.840 always very clear with me that those are just stupid people they're not representative of a

00:31:08.860 group of people or of society someone being racist to you isn't representative of that group of

00:31:14.700 people just in the same way that you are not representative of the group of people that you

00:31:19.460 come from you're just an individual right yeah and and i think something has changed in the last

00:31:24.300 sort of 30 years when i was growing up there was more racism um even you know even then it wasn't

00:31:30.140 as you know as um dramatic as it was 20 years before that you know britain was a more racist

00:31:36.460 society in the 50s and 60s and you would see people being much more offensive but i think

00:31:41.040 the difference was that it was a broader social phenomenon and it was more acceptable and you

00:31:47.620 could get away with saying things which were deeply offensive and you know there were people

00:31:52.080 in senior positions of authority who could say things but something changed in the 70s and 80s

00:31:57.240 and some of that has to do with anti-racism campaigning and people on the left and progressives

00:32:02.280 as well um uh and and and you know the lot of credit should be given to them but also there

00:32:08.400 was a liberalisation more generally in society. In the workplace, and I think, you know, that

00:32:14.060 ironically, the sort of the changing workplace relations with regards to unionisation meant

00:32:20.940 that a lot of those jobs that would have been in a more kind of closed way, passed, you

00:32:25.860 know, from father to son or communities, those opened up. So more ethnic minorities had the

00:32:29.840 chance of getting those jobs. I think the kinds of industries and jobs that have opened

00:32:33.980 up in the last 20 years in areas like law, finance, accountancy. They are more open and

00:32:40.160 porous, so you don't have to have known someone in that family to go and get a job in a bank.

00:32:45.520 If you think about some of the bigger industries like the printing industry around Fleet Street,

00:32:51.400 they were very white, male dominated. It was not an easy place to get into. And that has changed a

00:32:57.100 lot. With that has come the hollowing out of a lot of working class white communities. And that

00:33:03.600 has had a you know has had a negative effect on them but it's meant you know we've opened up as

00:33:08.100 a society we are less racist but it's almost like anti-racists don't really recognize that

00:33:12.540 anything's changed and you'll hear people and there are academics people like Kehinde Andrews

00:33:17.340 or writers like Afua Hirsch or Renier Delodge who try and uh argue that you know racism is still

00:33:24.360 there it's just more polite and you know people's prejudices are hidden but really they you know

00:33:30.120 they don't want their children to marry someone from a different ethnic background.

00:33:36.700 I mean, if you look at all the surveys, that's completely untrue.

00:33:41.660 Racial prejudice has declined.

00:33:43.180 People are far more accepting and willing to have an ethnic minority boss

00:33:47.340 or a person marrying their son or daughter from an ethnic minority background.

00:33:51.680 You know, there is, I would say that with Muslims and Islam, there is more of a prejudice.

00:33:58.160 And that is different. That's an outlier.

00:33:59.420 But in these other areas, that seems to be...

00:34:02.040 Actually, the thing that hasn't gone down,

00:34:04.660 it's probably gone up, is inter-ethnic tension,

00:34:07.740 which we never talk about in this country.

00:34:09.600 You know, the fact that there is tension between Asians and blacks

00:34:12.920 in some parts of the country,

00:34:14.920 that there's a lot of prejudice amongst those groups,

00:34:17.660 both against whites but against each other.

00:34:21.820 That's almost ignored,

00:34:23.840 because the narrative we have now is white versus black.

00:34:26.640 Well, white people are evil, we know.

00:34:27.840 yeah i mean it's fascinating that you talk about that i used to teach in south london and one

00:34:34.120 thing that i never realized was the tension between some african communities and caribbean

00:34:39.700 communities and the fact they they some they didn't get on they didn't like each other there

00:34:44.420 was a tension there and i'd never really been aware about that but one thing i wanted to talk

00:34:48.800 about because the quickest way for me to start an argument with anyone is mention the two words

00:34:53.580 white and privilege where do you stand on it and does it exist first of all in your opinion and

00:35:00.900 if so how big a factor does it play in the life in the UK I mean it's such an ahistoric term it

00:35:10.300 doesn't mean anything really anymore I mean you could talk about a white privilege in the context

00:35:15.060 of 1950s Alabama where being white had a material impact on your life compared to being black you

00:35:22.760 You know, you had laws that regulated where you could go,

00:35:27.680 what kind of job, you know, who you could marry.

00:35:30.120 You know, that kind of deep racial divide.

00:35:34.340 Then, in that kind of context, white privilege makes absolute sense, yeah.

00:35:38.040 White privilege.

00:35:38.800 Yeah, it makes sense in that context.

00:35:40.840 To an extent, although, you know, I'd say everything is more complex.

00:35:44.720 But today, it doesn't make sense.

00:35:46.560 You know, I think about, you know, I mentioned my dad's friend.

00:35:49.340 And I'm not quite sure, you know, a white working class guy who works in a factory alongside Asian people,

00:35:54.040 does he really have that much more of a privilege than, you know, the people that the Asian people that he's working alongside?

00:36:02.680 And I don't think that it stands up as a meaningful term.

00:36:07.400 Well, the example that people might give for a white privilege where there might be some credibility to, for example, to drivers doing the same thing on the road, right?

00:36:18.620 Like people would argue black person is more likely to be pulled over or something like that.

00:36:25.060 I mean, the whole stop and search thing is quite an interesting discussion.

00:36:28.240 I've written about it a bit.

00:36:29.460 I mean, the disparity between ethnic groups and the white population in terms of how often they get stopped is largely explained by what we call presence on the streets, whether they're available to be stopped.

00:36:45.480 So how many people, rather than just looking at the population at large, numerically, you know, how many people there are in the population, how many black people is proportionate, you're looking instead at how many people are in a particular area on the street at night.

00:37:00.380 So younger people tend to be disproportionately searched.

00:37:04.920 Men tend to be disproportionately searched as well.

00:37:07.740 And there are ethnic minorities disproportionately, particularly in areas where there are high crime rates.

00:37:11.360 So once you take all those factors into account, the disproportionality comes right down.

00:37:18.180 So I think that argument that, well, it's because they're black or it's white privilege is far too simplistic.

00:37:24.300 Yes, as we said before, there are disparities in outcome.

00:37:27.600 But the explanation behind it is more complex than, well, a white police officer just sees a black person driving a car and stops them because they're black.

00:37:37.100 and that's that's the kind of i think that's a very crude discussion that we're having now about

00:37:42.000 policing which is you know and and then you know that what that does is it means that we are um i

00:37:48.780 think not policing well enough we're not you know we're not uh uh looking at crime particularly in

00:37:57.400 areas like london um and and dealing with some of the consequences um of knife crime because we're

00:38:04.820 afraid of stop and search because we're worried about you know the police are worried about being

00:38:09.420 regarded as racist or politicians are and the impact of that is that we're not doing proper

00:38:14.420 policing and that has an impact on the victims of crime who tend to be disproportionately black

00:38:18.760 so if we were having an honest conversation it would be about whether you know whether

00:38:23.820 we need policing to be you know targeted in areas of need and whether that means that you know this

00:38:30.220 disproportionality is not the most important issue is it effective policing and we could have an

00:38:35.620 interesting argument about how liberal and libertarian we should be how you know when the

00:38:40.220 police should stop what kind of information they should have but too often we don't have that honest

00:38:44.260 conversation because of this fear of racial disparity and do you think it's almost the way

00:38:52.020 we're talking about it's just become a form of censorship hasn't it really where people will

00:38:56.320 have an opinion an idea but they don't dare say it because of the fear that they're going to get

00:39:02.060 smitted and doesn't that that must create resentment surely and anger and bitterness

00:39:08.800 doesn't does it not yeah i mean there was a there was a very interesting report in the harvard

00:39:13.360 business review about diversity training in businesses and so you know the one the one way

00:39:19.120 in which you don't improve racial relationships in business is you introduce diversity training

00:39:22.420 because white people feel very, very pissed off, really,

00:39:27.980 that they get told all the time that they've got white privilege

00:39:30.600 and they have to be more sensitive.

00:39:33.240 And it creates resentment.

00:39:35.100 But also, you know, it just creates the sense

00:39:37.520 that you've got to treat people differently.

00:39:39.640 And it just stops people from thinking for themselves.

00:39:42.100 I think that's the thing that has always aggravated me

00:39:45.820 about the sort of anti-racism,

00:39:47.560 that it's essentially telling people, no, your instincts,

00:39:50.580 your general instinct to kind of treat everybody equally and the same there's something wrong with

00:39:56.600 that and you have to think carefully about before you speak and it's a form of policing which is not

00:40:03.100 really in the best interest of people it's a it's a and it's also about shaming people you know

00:40:07.920 you're shamed into silence um and even where the statistics are clearly uh telling a different

00:40:14.900 story. Everybody goes along with the narrative that prevails. You know, and I've seen, I've seen

00:40:21.480 statistics, it happens in the arts all the time, where we talk about, you know, unless there are

00:40:24.820 13% ethnic minorities working in arts organisations, you know, there's a, you know, there's systemic

00:40:31.120 racism. You think, well, hang on, that 13% is probably based on the proportion of BME people

00:40:36.100 in the wider population. But half of those people, proportionately, are people who were born in

00:40:41.880 other countries so a large number of them will you know will have come from a very different

00:40:46.180 background we wouldn't expect them to necessarily be running a theater but that kind of you escape

00:40:52.640 from the polity in bangladesh to come here and pursue an unpaid korean comedy it's not likely

00:40:57.640 some people will be you know successful and you know but it's the idea that you just take a

00:41:02.360 blanket figure and that will tell you whether there's uh systemic racism it's i mean it is

00:41:08.620 crazy but nobody will really challenge it and you know most people have got day jobs they're busy

00:41:13.400 life's too short i don't want to be the person in the room that complains about i don't look

00:41:17.620 like the racist so i won't say anything um and i my view is that the only people really who can

00:41:23.300 challenge this who have a vested interest in challenging it are ethnic minorities who see

00:41:28.060 that it is not in anyone's interest to perpetuate this so i set up a blog actually which i'd like

00:41:34.000 to plug oh brilliant with some friends called all in britain all in britain.org um and we're a group

00:41:40.340 of writers from different ethnic backgrounds and we write more critically about identity politics

00:41:44.440 basically and um we try and show that there are different ways of thinking about these issues not

00:41:48.800 every black person has to take the kind of progressive anti-racist line um there are other

00:41:54.240 types of anti-racism there are other ways of being against racism which do not have that kind of

00:41:59.420 tinge of grievance and that kind of reveling in victim culture um and and that's you know i think

00:42:05.920 there needs to be a genuine plurality or a genuine diversity of views amongst ethnic minorities and

00:42:10.640 um i i think you know everyone um uh lots of people in ethnic communities feel ashamed of

00:42:18.540 kind of speaking out because they don't want to be seen as dissing their own group or somehow not

00:42:23.400 being on the side of people in their ethnic background and and because you're going to get

00:42:28.120 Called bounty or coconut or whatever, right?

00:42:31.100 Yeah, and people are afraid of being, you know...

00:42:33.200 And, you know, we know senior ethnic minority politicians

00:42:35.840 have, you know, used the term Uncle Tom.

00:42:38.260 Yeah, yeah.

00:42:38.940 And, you know, you've seen this happening with, you know,

00:42:41.060 candidates like Sean Bailey, who was a conservative candidate,

00:42:43.280 he's black, and he's being attacked

00:42:45.520 because he dares to go outside, you know,

00:42:49.020 the left-wing consensus and say,

00:42:50.960 well, I'm not going to define myself in that way.

00:42:53.420 And that's the sort of...

00:42:55.260 I think that's just the very restrictive kind of culture

00:42:57.400 that ethnic minorities face.

00:42:58.860 And it's much more inhibiting than white oppression, frankly.

00:43:02.400 In many ways, it's very interesting,

00:43:04.800 especially you see with ethnic minorities.

00:43:08.140 And when they come out as being a conservative,

00:43:10.340 it's almost seen as a portrayal of their people and their culture.

00:43:13.940 I was talking to a black comedian,

00:43:15.440 and he was talking, and he sort of alluded to the fact

00:43:19.000 that he wasn't left-wing and he wasn't on the left.

00:43:21.760 But when he told me, we're in a green room,

00:43:23.940 and he actually literally checked over his shoulder

00:43:26.220 and then started the discussion

00:43:28.520 because that's how uncomfortable he felt about it.

00:43:32.400 And you just think that, you know,

00:43:34.020 surely isn't that the antithesis of what the left is about?

00:43:38.640 Surely isn't the left about being liberal,

00:43:40.060 about being accepting, of saying, you know, we are different,

00:43:43.420 but we can come together and we can have a society

00:43:45.660 which works and functions.

00:43:47.140 It's not about pointing fingers and demonising people

00:43:49.660 just because they have a different idea politically.

00:43:53.060 Yeah, I mean, I don't have a problem with people disagreeing, even disagreeing very stridently, you know, that's, that's what politics is. And I fully expect, you know, I've spent, you know, most of my adult life, you know, having, you know, a minority opinion in a room, you know, and, you know, particularly in the, you know, in the art sector, kind of typical kind of what you would see as a sort of metropolitan liberal elite, I guess, you know, I'm very much part of that.

00:44:21.320 That's my world. Those are my friends. And yet, you know, we disagree. But you're right.

00:44:26.500 The thing that is, you know, baffling is that people will talk about wanting to be open-minded

00:44:35.020 and tolerant and welcome diversity. But political diversity is the one thing that they will

00:44:39.540 not tolerate. And, you know, it means that you never really challenge your own views.

00:44:46.780 you never question um and you know i i i know why it's easier for people to live in that way

00:44:54.100 i know you know how hard it is to go against the grain um but i you know i think society can't

00:45:00.800 progress unless we do have people who are saying well you know i think differently about that

00:45:04.740 and that moves brings us really nicely on to uh the topic that brings everybody together

00:45:09.700 all around the uk which is brexit well before we get on to brexit i just wanted to point out

00:45:14.920 how skillfully you're weaved in a story

00:45:16.560 by your one black friend.

00:45:17.660 Yeah, I know.

00:45:18.600 I know.

00:45:19.320 I know, he's brilliant

00:45:20.080 and I would never, ever mention his name.

00:45:22.280 I'm going to do it.

00:45:23.000 I'm going to drop him in and he's going to tweet.

00:45:24.320 Is he real?

00:45:26.000 Well, he's real to me.

00:45:29.800 But, I mean, Brexit,

00:45:31.200 now we have the stereotypical image

00:45:33.340 of the Brexiteer,

00:45:34.240 which is a large...

00:45:35.740 Yeah, basically me in about 10 years

00:45:37.760 getting a bit more bitter and angry,

00:45:41.240 slightly pink around the jowls,

00:45:42.860 waving his finger,

00:45:43.660 talking about immigrants um and however you are a brexiteer yeah yep i looks can be deceiving yes

00:45:51.940 there are some people like that yeah yeah on my side yeah um uh yeah i'm not i don't i don't think

00:45:59.840 of myself as a particularly angry person um i um i but you know i've been neurosceptic for a long

00:46:06.900 time i made my decision um you know after weighing up the pros and cons you know i'm not some kind of

00:46:13.000 you know, mad zealot. But I, I just think we are, it's better to leave. I would like to have left

00:46:20.600 in a better, more orderly way, frankly, it's not going, you know, as well as one would hope. But I

00:46:25.660 still think in the long term, it's the right decision. Because in the long term, I, you know,

00:46:29.960 for reasons I've said publicly in many events, that I've spoken, you know, I think democracy

00:46:34.800 and sovereignty are, you know, paramount in society. And, you know, decisions that are made

00:46:40.940 in a country must be accountable to the people and increasingly so many decisions are no longer

00:46:46.740 accountable. People feel disconnected from decisions about the economy, about law, about

00:46:52.380 immigration and what's happened I think since the vote which I think is very interesting is how much

00:46:59.300 anti-democratic feeling there is and how uninhibited people are about expressing that

00:47:05.020 and I think that's extraordinary. Interestingly in the arts, I've worked in the arts for a long

00:47:10.660 time how as a sector we really want to engage I think it's sincere we want to include people we

00:47:17.360 talk about bringing more people into museums into theaters you know discounting tickets reaching out

00:47:22.880 and then when the Brexit vote happened it was almost like the light went off and suddenly for

00:47:28.020 a lot of people you know those people are thick they're not educated they they were lied to they

00:47:35.180 didn't know what they were voting for their opinions their views no longer counted and I

00:47:40.640 I don't think that's the case for all the people who work in the arts.

00:47:42.920 I think there are a lot of people in the middle, like many of us.

00:47:46.760 But unfortunately, those voices are very loud and very strident.

00:47:50.120 And they appeared in the newspapers the next day.

00:47:53.180 And I think the one thing this referendum has done is it's revealed that anti-democratic sensibility.

00:48:02.400 And I'm glad it has, because I think we have to confront that as a society and what that means.

00:48:08.740 And, you know, I think it's outrageous the way that, you know,

00:48:12.380 people were talking about, you know, working class people,

00:48:15.120 older people, people in the north as if they were subhuman.

00:48:19.540 It was almost like we were in the Victorian era

00:48:21.560 and we were saying essentially these people shouldn't be allowed to vote

00:48:24.980 because they didn't know what they were voting for.

00:48:26.780 And we know what's in their best interest because we have all the facts.

00:48:31.700 I thought it was incredibly patronising.

00:48:33.500 And, you know, I'm glad that came out because, you know,

00:48:36.260 we have to see it for what it is.

00:48:37.620 and challenge it.

00:48:38.540 It's amazing, this attitude.

00:48:39.880 Look, both Francis and I voted Romain.

00:48:42.100 Because we're good people.

00:48:43.600 Not again.

00:48:44.560 He keeps doing that fucking joke

00:48:46.300 and every time he does,

00:48:47.380 we get out of the way.

00:48:49.020 Oh, you're a fucking smug.

00:48:50.420 Yeah.

00:48:51.740 You're a pretty smug.

00:48:55.220 I'm going to do it every single time.

00:48:57.360 He just does it every time

00:48:58.660 we bring up that vote.

00:49:00.180 It's the trolling maker.

00:49:01.660 It's OK.

00:49:02.280 We know you're a nice person.

00:49:04.120 No, we don't.

00:49:04.840 so but yeah the anti-democratic feeling about it it's just like uh like i said we both voted

00:49:11.920 remain and i was talking to a comedian friend of mine and his wife we were having dinner and i said

00:49:16.200 you know what if there's a second referendum now i would vote to leave because we had a vote and

00:49:20.300 we have to respect people's vote otherwise you're going to have you're going to have trouble on the

00:49:23.760 streets otherwise in my opinion right and they looked at me like i just said that sacrificing

00:49:29.500 Babies is the best

00:49:31.480 Government policy and Theresa May

00:49:33.300 Should adopt it immediately

00:49:34.460 And I just don't understand

00:49:37.360 How these people think, it's like

00:49:38.580 You had a democratic vote, you lost

00:49:41.380 And when that happens

00:49:43.020 You accept it and move on, that's democracy

00:49:45.180 If you don't accept the result of a vote

00:49:47.040 That's what we do in Russia, or we do in Ukraine

00:49:49.500 Or we do in Azerbaijan or whatever

00:49:51.120 Which countries which don't have democracy

00:49:53.360 So it's amazing

00:49:55.540 To me that the people are in this position

00:49:57.460 Now where it's like, well who gives a shit

00:49:59.440 what the vote was, we'll just do what we want.

00:50:01.780 Yeah, yeah.

00:50:03.120 And also, I mean, I was amazed after the referendum,

00:50:05.840 people who were not particularly political

00:50:08.600 or knowledgeable about the EU

00:50:09.760 suddenly developing this all-consuming love for the EU

00:50:12.800 and talking about it in terms of, you know,

00:50:15.440 it's, you know, that it was this kind of vehicle

00:50:20.060 of peace and prosperity and full employment

00:50:23.920 across the whole, you know,

00:50:25.000 it's almost like they didn't even realise

00:50:26.580 that Greece and Italy and Spain, all these countries are really suffering in the Eurozone

00:50:31.780 and that it's been deeply anti-democratic, that it has, I would argue,

00:50:37.580 it has undermined workers' rights in many of these countries.

00:50:40.260 In this country, there used to be quite a strong left-wing tradition against the EU

00:50:45.880 because it was seen as anti-democratic.

00:50:47.400 This was a sort of Tony Benn, Jeremy Corbyn worldview.

00:50:51.540 And Britain is very unusual and it's probably the only country in Europe

00:50:54.600 that doesn't have still a strong left-wing opposition to the EU.

00:51:00.300 And, you know, my views on the EU, you know,

00:51:02.700 most of my views are not kind of easily packaged into left or right.

00:51:05.980 You know, I'd probably, you know, I'd call myself a liberal.

00:51:08.600 But I have a very strong view that, you know, people's votes should count.

00:51:12.720 And I would have thought that that was a fairly natural, obvious point

00:51:16.640 for, you know, most people somewhere in the middle, on the left and the right.

00:51:20.080 That that should be kind of given.

00:51:21.060 and I you know it's amazing how many people think that you know and and believe that if you have a

00:51:27.060 second referendum that all the other stuff will just go away the people's views on the EU will

00:51:32.480 just dissipate they'll give up and then we'll be back to normal and everything can carry on

00:51:36.340 you know the genie's out of the bottle you have to understand why people voted that way and you

00:51:42.300 know I I think you know if we're if people more intellectually honest they would look at it and

00:51:46.600 say, well, you know, maybe our worldview, it does not encompass the full range, doesn't

00:51:51.920 recognize that the EU has not been an unalloyed good for everybody in this country. And one

00:51:59.120 of the things that I'm interested in, in the research that I've done about multiculturalism

00:52:02.260 is the importance of culture in creating connections between people and the sense of solidarity.

00:52:09.680 And I thought, when people talked about leave voters and people outside London after the

00:52:14.400 referendum you could see that there was no sense of solidarity with any of those people and they

00:52:19.040 would i remember having a conversation with someone who said well you know these people

00:52:22.040 they don't even work you know he what you know he was angry because he felt you know these are

00:52:27.180 pensioners that you know um uh people who are unemployed who are on you know welfare and

00:52:32.980 therefore they're not my people and i it's depressing because if a you know if a country

00:52:38.820 is to survive and to be cohesive it needs to have a sense of solidarity despite your differences

00:52:45.100 and and and you know maybe that's the you know that's something we have to start looking at

00:52:50.040 how do we build that sense that your interests what what happens to you in your life you know

00:52:54.660 if you suffer that's my that's my responsibility too and that you know that's where the welfare

00:52:59.740 state came from in a way it's this idea that we're all we are all living together you know

00:53:02.960 we have to look after each other a bit and we can have disagreements within that context but there

00:53:07.760 has to be kind of basic recognition that you know these people are our people we have to look after

00:53:12.780 them absolutely listen it's been an absolutely brilliant interview thank you so much for coming

00:53:17.520 on two questions before we let you go uh one thing i just remembered we had chloe wesley on a couple

00:53:22.320 of weeks ago uh who said that we shouldn't have any public funding of art because it's a waste of

00:53:26.840 money and i thought you might be slightly triggered by that and i wanted to give you an opportunity

00:53:31.440 to respond well i respect chloe very much i think she's you know she makes lots of good points and

00:53:36.420 but on this I disagree because I think that you know there are times when the state does fund

00:53:42.280 institutions and it funds things which the market is not particularly good at funding you know I

00:53:47.300 don't believe that the market is always the best arbiter of truth or judgment and in the arts and

00:53:52.480 in culture you know what's popular is not always what's good and we have to I think it's good to

00:53:59.500 create other types of funding other kinds of disinterested funding it's one of the reasons

00:54:04.480 why i do believe in a publicly funded health system i mean we could have a conversation about

00:54:08.200 how the nhs works and um a degree of marketization i like the mixed model because i think it's there's

00:54:14.060 a certain check and balance about how funding works so in the arts i you know and there are

00:54:18.420 certain types of institutions certain types of art which um would just you know wither i think

00:54:23.940 without market fund with if it was just relying on the market for funding um i have a vested

00:54:28.820 interest i'm on the board of arts organizations so i you know you could say that i'm conflicted but

00:54:33.740 you know it's not a huge amount of money but it's about protecting something which is important to

00:54:41.260 a civilization as well and particularly in areas like heritage where it's just expensive and it is

00:54:47.140 really hard to sustain some of our great heritage assets through you know private donations and

00:54:54.720 ticket prices and you know we owe it we're responsible for you know looking after our

00:54:59.300 past as well as our present so that's my answer on that brilliant do you want to do the last

00:55:03.800 question uh yes uh so um the last question we always do incidentally i did not everything

00:55:09.140 popular is good that's a justin bieber argument that is the uh that's the way not everything

00:55:13.700 popular is good but um the way man profound thinker

00:55:16.900 and the last question we always ask is what is not you

00:55:25.360 you're neither mate

00:55:27.440 we're both neither

00:55:29.080 what is the thing that we're not talking about

00:55:31.920 in society that we really should be

00:55:33.660 in your opinion

00:55:34.320 well this might sound a bit left field but there is a

00:55:37.800 reason why, when I was looking at stop and search

00:55:40.180 and I was looking at

00:55:41.340 the disproportionate number

00:55:44.000 of BME men in the

00:55:45.820 prison system, I was thinking a lot

00:55:47.900 about why that is and essentially I think

00:55:49.820 a lot of that has to do with the drugs

00:55:51.900 industry, it is an industry in this country

00:55:53.980 it's an unregulated, unpoliced industry

00:55:56.900 and drug legalisation

00:55:58.980 and I don't have

00:56:01.500 I haven't got a strident view

00:56:03.660 on either side

00:56:04.720 about whether we should have legalisation or not

00:56:07.040 but I think it's one of those issues

00:56:08.600 where politicians run a mile from it

00:56:10.220 because it's very, very contentious

00:56:12.240 they think they'll lose votes

00:56:13.720 and it's a very difficult argument to have

00:56:15.780 but I think we need to have it

00:56:17.960 clearly something is not working

00:56:20.580 we have criminal gangs

00:56:23.600 in this country who target vulnerable groups particularly amongst the black community

00:56:26.900 and a number of those very young people are dying they're being injured and it is because they are

00:56:34.200 you know they are foot soldiers in a bigger war and um i you know i think the idea that you can

00:56:39.760 just kind of and you know people take drugs recreationally and they enjoy it and that's

00:56:44.060 not going to stop so something's got to give and you know if policymakers and politicians could

00:56:50.080 look at it honestly and rigorously we might have a different conversation about it and that i think

00:56:55.080 would be a healthy thing so it's a slightly left field no it was brilliant we keep trying to get

00:57:00.620 a few people on to talk about drug decriminalization i think it's really important conversation

00:57:05.020 with so many different repercussions i used to work in newham and the children that were involved

00:57:10.620 were 10 and 11 years old and there'd be children who lived in newham and then all of a sudden they

00:57:15.320 turned up in aberdeen what they're doing in aberdeen obviously they were just runners and it's tragic

00:57:20.400 Absolutely heartbreaking.

00:57:21.540 Good note to end the show on.

00:57:23.780 Just a bit of tragedy for Francis.

00:57:25.960 Alyssa Minera, thank you so much for coming on.

00:57:27.480 Thank you. I enjoyed it.

00:57:28.560 Your blog, just to remind everybody again, is?

00:57:31.680 Allinbritain.org.

00:57:33.300 Are you on Twitter or other social media?

00:57:35.200 Yeah, the Twitter handle is just allinbritain.

00:57:38.840 Allinbritain, perfect.

00:57:39.920 There's a Facebook page and Instagram.

00:57:41.820 You yourself, do you have a Twitter account yourself?

00:57:44.340 I don't. I'm not on Twitter.

00:57:45.800 Wow.

00:57:46.640 I don't.

00:57:47.500 Jealous, jealous.

00:57:48.600 I don't tweet.

00:57:49.100 you don't tweet

00:57:50.060 that's why you're happy

00:57:50.940 well done

00:57:51.660 you're not on social media

00:57:53.180 well we are on social media

00:57:55.760 so as always

00:57:56.420 follow us

00:57:56.860 at TriggerPod

00:57:57.580 as you will know by now

00:57:59.020 we have a Patreon account

00:58:00.060 as well

00:58:00.420 at TriggerPod as well

00:58:01.380 we've got a bunch of people

00:58:02.800 already who are

00:58:03.460 subscribers on that

00:58:04.720 so follow us on that

00:58:05.940 subscribe to us

00:58:07.240 and we will see you

00:58:08.820 when we see you

00:58:09.620 as you know

00:58:10.020 season one of Trigger Nometry

00:58:11.080 is now over

00:58:12.080 this has been the bonus

00:58:13.120 episode for you

00:58:14.640 as you've seen

00:58:15.520 we're on location

00:58:16.400 with helicopters

00:58:17.160 and all the bells and whistles

00:58:18.520 that you can expect.

00:58:20.840 This is the last time

00:58:21.900 you'll see Constantine.

00:58:23.100 Yes, I'm being taken away

00:58:24.960 and shot,

00:58:26.540 which will make Francis

00:58:28.140 incredibly happy.

00:58:29.340 So that's been it.

00:58:31.000 We will be back very soon

00:58:32.480 with a bunch of other content

00:58:33.560 for you.

00:58:34.180 We'll keep you posted,

00:58:35.020 especially if you're a patron.

00:58:37.680 We will keep putting out

00:58:39.080 little bits of information.

00:58:40.540 But thank you very much

00:58:41.280 for watching

00:58:41.660 and we'll see you very soon.

00:58:42.980 Bye.

00:58:48.520 We'll be right back.

TRIGGERnometry - December 10, 2018

Munira Mirza on Multiculturalism, ＂Institutional Racism＂, ＂White Privilege＂ and Diversity

Episode Stats

Length

Words per Minute

Word Count

Sentence Count

Misogynist Sentences

Hate Speech Sentences

Summary

Transcript