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The pernicious doctrine of 'White Privilege' holds back children of all colours: Poor, White children are ALSO being left behind

Calvin Robinson | Daily Mail (https://www.dailymail.co.uk/) (UK) | 15 October 2020

https://www.dailymail.co.uk/debate/article-8841655/The-pernicious-doctrine-white-privilege-holds-children-colours-says-CALVIN-ROBINSON.html

White privilege . . . what an obscene phrase that is.

It is also fundamentally racist in my view, encouraging the bigotry and hatred it pretends to oppose.

If you don't believe me, look at the immense damage it is doing in British schools.

This week, Professor Matthew Goodwin, a politics lecturer at the University of Kent, told the Commons Education Select Committee that the concept of 'white privilege' — societal attitudes that benefit white people over non-white people — is brutally unfair to white working-class boys.

It is nonsensical, he said, to teach white children — many from disadvantaged families — to apologise for their skin colour.


Image: Some teachers feel pressure to actively endorse Black History Month, or BLM protests that spread to Britain, including in Clapham, above, earlier this year

I couldn't put it better myself. For the uncomfortable reality is that, every day, the futures of thousands of white working-class children are being sacrificed on the altar of diversity and political correctness.

As a governor and former teacher at a secondary state school in North London, I know unequivocally that racism is not built into Britain's education system — unless it is shoe-horned in via misguided ideas such as 'white privilege'.

Fortunately, my school has refused to bow to such divisive dogma. But many institutions put up little resistance and feel they cannot ignore it.

Often this manifests itself in their support for events such as October's Black History Month, or the Black Lives Matter protests that have spread from the U.S. to Britain.

I know many teachers who feel pressure to actively endorse them, downloading educational resources from websites that are steeped in something called 'critical race theory' — a fashionable new ideology which, to put it simply, claims that every modern institution is racist.

As a result, many schools now compete against one another in their quest to educate children about concepts such as 'white privilege' and 'white fragility' — the idea that white people can't bear to be told how lucky they are because they are white.

Not only is this damaging to white pupils, who are told that they have been racist all their lives and never realised it, it also has an equally pernicious impact on black children, who probably never considered that the colour of their skin was the most important thing in their lives.

Why are we telling children that, based on who their great-grandparents were, they will face barriers and hurdles that other classmates will not?

It is a disgraceful state of affairs and only breeds enmity between young people and breaks up friendships.

Crucially, it also risks harming black lives — telling anyone that they are destined to fail is likely to become a self-fulfilling prophecy. If they are told that the world is against them, black pupils who were doing well might ask themselves whether there is any point in hard work.

And yet, like Professor Goodwin, I believe that the children who are worst affected by this divisive campaign are white pupils from low-income families, especially boys.

Indeed, shocking data released by the Department for Education shows that white working-class boys from poor backgrounds are by far the most underprivileged youngsters in Britain.

Only 13 per cent of white boys who are eligible for free school meals, because their families are on benefits, go on to higher education — yet that figure rises to 51 per cent for black British boys. That's almost four times as many.

In fact, the only groups that have a worse educational outcome than working-class white males are boys from the gypsy, Roma and Irish traveller communities — who often are not in school at all.

All of which makes the failure of our politicians to speak up for this silent majority even more shameful.

In particular, the Labour Party, which was established to speak for the working class, seems to have turned its back on white Brits, even though it constantly professes to care about 'diversity' and 'inclusion'.

A few voices are now speaking out — not only Professor Goodwin, who himself came from a struggling single-parent family, but notably the Tory MP Ben Bradley, who earlier this year convened a Commons debate on the plight of young working-class boys.

Yet few dare to join them, and a deep-rooted taboo surrounds the whole topic.

Today, saying anything in defence of white boys from lower-income backgrounds is seen as tantamount to rewarding and fostering racism.

This distorted world view can be traced back to the passing of the Equality Act of 2010, which introduced the concept of 'protected characteristics' — that idea that minorities merited support and majorities did not.

But my skin is brown, and I find it deeply offensive that anyone should look at me and make the patronising assumption that I need extra help or support.

There's something inherently Victorian, not to say superior, in the very notion. It is, quite simply, racist.


Nor am I aware of any research that says this approach results in any benefits for children from ethnic minorities. But there is clear evidence of the damage done by fabricating racial differences and assigning non-existent blame.

Of course, privilege does exist. But it doesn't work in the way that 'critical race theory' claims it does. And so when my pupils ask me about it, I tell them that the concept of 'privilege' isn't straightforward.

For example, when I'm in a crowd, I can see over the heads of most people because I'm tall. But my privilege becomes a handicap when I'm in an old pub with low beams, banging my head every time I stand up.

Privilege isn't permanent. We all have talents and advantages, but it's up to us to use them well and pick our timing.

Yet still, the blanket assumption that all white children are born privileged remains difficult to challenge because it is so ingrained.

Thanks to the Equality Act, all help available is automatically channelled to ethnic minorities — and not to the white children who actually need it most.

Look at what happened when 96-year-old Professor Sir Bryan Thwaites last year tried to set up a £1.2million bequest to benefit poor, white, working-class boys at his old schools, Dulwich College and Winchester College.

Unsurprisingly, he was turned down, with both schools rejecting the gifts. The very idea was treated as though it was somehow toxic.

Yet when grime artist Stormzy set up scholarships for poor black children at Cambridge University two years ago, he was hailed as an inspiration.

Of course, what he has done is truly inspiring.

It's just wrong that his example cannot be used to benefit the white children who need help, too.

For the depressing truth is that this disparity continues into adulthood. Indeed, ethnicity pay gap figures released this week showed that workers in their 20s from minority backgrounds were likely to earn more per hour than their white counterparts, by an average of more than 5 per cent.

So much for 'white privilege'.

At my school, we like to tell the pupils: 'Make no mistake, you are privileged to be here. All of you have a great chance at success. We're all British and we're all in this together.'

It's a message our politicians and teachers would do well to heed.

And if they don't, it's Britain's white children who will pay.

White working class boys are the most deprived – and ignored – ethnic group in Britain... Telling them they enjoy white privilege is as laughable as it's dangerous, writes PROFESSOR MATTHEW GOODWIN

Professor Matthew Goodwin | Daily Mail (https://www.dailymail.co.uk/) (UK) | 18 October 2020 | UPDATED: 09:15 AEDT, 18 October 2020

https://www.dailymail.co.uk/debate/article-8850915/PROFESSOR-MATTHEW-GOODWIN-White-working-class-boys-deprived-Britain.html

Last week I gave evidence at the Education Committee's inquiry into why poor white children do so badly at school. It's an inquiry that was long overdue.

The fact that I was there at all was something of a miracle because I am white and come from a single-parent, working-class family where money was always a problem.

Against the odds, I went to university – not Oxbridge or even a traditional Russell Group establishment, but a 'low-tariff' university, at Salford in Manchester.

So, yes, it's a problem with which I'm very familiar. The statistics would speak for themselves, were anyone to pay attention.

Because white, working-class boys from low-income homes are by far the most underprivileged children in Britain in comparison with any other major ethnic group.


According to the Department for Education, just 13 per cent of white boys entitled to free school meals (because their families are on benefits) go on to higher education.

Yet 27 per cent of similar black Caribbean boys go to university, 42 per cent of Pakistani, 51 per cent of black African and 66 per cent of Chinese boys.

It is a staggering fact that only two per cent of white, working-class children get into the most prestigious universities, yet we fall over ourselves to help other groups make it.

The only groups with worse educational outcomes than white, working-class boys are their peers from gypsy, Roma and Irish traveller backgrounds. So will we see a campaign on behalf of Britain's poor white children? I'm confident the answer is no.

These boys and girls are treated as if they are invisible by politicians and by universities, as I know all too well.

Today I am a professor, lecturing in politics at the University of Kent, yet my own upbringing still marks me out as an outsider, particularly if I dare to show support or understanding for working-class views.

Brexit is a particular case in point. There are times when I've been made to feel a pariah thanks to my support for the outcome of the referendum (although I was by no means a Brexiteer myself).

It is my opinion that the British working class had every right to stick up two fingers to the Establishment and I've not been afraid to say so.

But that's not a popular view in the rarefied world of universities, where children, especially boys, from poor backgrounds have been shoved to the margins. It is simply not fashionable to talk about white, working-class kids.

There is now a strong push among academics to promote diversity and inclusion, to unleash what some refer to as the 'untapped potential' of children from minority ethnic backgrounds.

It is understandable and laudable. As part of this, staff at universities are frequently asked to take tests to establish whether they are unconsciously biased or racist. Yet the conversation is all about multi-culturalism and almost never includes the role of class. Why?
Nobody wonders aloud why there are so few white, working-class students in higher education.

Our universities seem oblivious to the problem of raising educational standards for the white working class, despite the fact this is the biggest single social group in Britain – in fact, precisely because they are the biggest group.

These boys who underachieve so badly do not come from a minority, let alone a fashionable one. They are too unfashionable to have a hashtag.

This does not explain the shocking failure of politicians to recognise and support them. In particular, the Labour Party, which was set up to speak for the working class, seems to have turned its back.

Its narrative is now dominated by race and gender discrimination. It speaks volumes that it was a Labour MP at the Education Select Committee who linked the underachievement of these kids to their so-called 'white privilege'.

But as I explained in reply, telling working-class boys they are suffering from white privilege is nonsensical. What do we even mean by that?

If we're going to start teaching them in school that, not only must they overcome the existing economic and social barriers but that they must now start apologising for being white, that's only going to compound their problems.

They are falling through the cracks as it is.

The suggestion that these and other groups of boys are infected with 'toxic masculinity' is another modish criticism which is likely to make things worse, not better.

It is another way of suggesting they are to blame for their own plight, that they should somehow make amends simply for being who they are.

This is a very dangerous state of affairs, the more so as few in authority show any understanding.

Just 1.5 per cent of MPs have ever worked in blue-collar jobs. In fact, Labour MPs are even more likely than Tories to have gone to university. The party that was supposed to fight hardest for the workers has been taken over by middle-class professionals and careerists.

How can they relate to these children? They're from a different galaxy. Grasp that, and you begin to understand why we are not talking more about these problems.
This has been exacerbated by divisions over Brexit. Ten years ago, concerned that I met so few people like myself in higher education, I turned my research to communities in regions that had suffered a continual lack of investment for decades.

Britain's economy was increasingly centred on London and the South East and many people were either withdrawing from political engagement altogether – because they felt that, however they voted, nothing would change – or they were shifting to the marginal parties such as Ukip.

When the Brexit vote happened, I wasn't surprised. Nor was I surprised when Boris Johnson's pro-Brexit Tories won the biggest Conservative majority since 1987 at the last General Election.

The middle-classes from the big cities and university towns were comfortable talking about the rights of trans-sexuals and ethnic minorities but preferred to ignore the white working class.

So it is no surprise that academics have largely dismissed the Brexit vote as xenophobic and racist.

Today, attempting to do anything on behalf of white boys from lower income backgrounds is seen as tantamount to fostering racism.

When Professor Bryan Thwaites, the 96-year-old mathematician and philanthropist, tried last year to set up a £1million bequest to benefit poor working-class boys at his old school, Dulwich College, he was turned down. Winchester College also rejected the gift.

The very idea was treated as toxic. Yet when the grime artist Stormzy set up scholarships for poor black children, he was widely praised.

Not to put too fine a point on it, this is crackers. We seem to be talking about how every other group in society is victimised and left behind, yet when the figures show how badly young white males are being let down, we shut our eyes and ears.

We ignore them, deride them, look down on them and treat them as failures – and then we wonder why so many people in these communities are rebelling against the status quo.


After winning the Election, Boris Johnson promised he was going to 'level up' the country.

The obvious place to start is by levelling up the life prospects for WHITE boys.