Thread by @gameoldgirl

A thread...
The “we’re not racist” drums are beating loudly and proudly today. If we’re truly making progress, that’s great.(1)

I’m particularly struck by what has been identified as the key cause for this celebration:

'Education is the single most emphatic success story of the British ethnic minority experience'

(2)

'The Commission notes that the average GCSE attainment score for Indian, Bangladeshi and Black African pupils was above the White British average.'
(3)

This success, which was down to “aspiration and hard work”, meant these ethnic minority workers were getting better jobs, which was creating “fairer and more diverse” workplaces.

So that’s all positive then. Let us relish this educational success.
(4)

Except…the report also “uncovers” how “stuck” some groups from the white majority are. It’s a “revelation”.

(5)

If you’d been reading the Daily Mail over the past 15 years, it wouldn't be a revelation. You’d know that poor white boys have been trailing. It’s a disgrace. A betrayal.
(6)

It’s certainly a worry that white boys are under-achieving. But for today, it is apparently fabulous news that students of colour are doing better. Because it proves we’re a “beacon for the world”.
(7)

Instead of trumpeting yet another illusory “world-beating” achievement, how about we actually do something about the deprivation that causes division?

(8)

Meanwhile, with impeccable timing, I have been asked by @pressgazette to examine whether sections of the Press are bigoted, as Prince Harry alleged.

(9)

It is intended as a dispassionate analysis and I leave you to draw your own conclusions from the evidence presented, but here are some things that struck me:
(10)

1: Of 805 faces that appeared on the front of the Mail last year, only 80 were non-white. 40 of those belonged to Meghan and 10 were crime-related. Models in the puff and generic families were exclusively white. (11)

2: : Of about 130 columnists who have a fixed slot in the general comment pages that are the beating heart of our national daily papers, only eight are not white. There are more in specialist areas, like sport and showbiz. Others make less regular appearances on the opeds.
(12)

(sorry, that should be nine - but still too few.
3: We need more diverse voices and fewer old white folk like me blundering all over the place. Thank you.