Is Britain a white supremacist society? - Bradley Strotten
The notion of white supremacy used to pertain to beliefs promulgated by fringe far-right, neo-Nazi groups and beliefs that are predicated on the now-discredited doctrine of scientific racism. Today, however, the term is also used to explain a societal system in which white people are structurally privileged over other ethnic groups, notwithstanding any formal (legal) equality.
It is widely purported by supporters of Black Lives Matter that white people are at a systematic advantage in employment. In a study conducted by the UK Office of National Statistics (ONS), researchers found that employees in the Black African, Caribbean or Black British, Other (Asian, Latin American) and White Other (European) ethnic groups on average earned 5% to 10% less than their White British counterparts between 2012 and 2018. The gap narrowed once other characteristics such as education and occupation were taken into account. However, significant gaps still remained - particularly for those born outside the UK.
Furthermore, whilst many of the UK-born pay gaps were smaller than those of the groups born outside of the UK, statistically significant differences in average pay remained between UK-born ethnic minorities and the White British control group. For instance, UK-born employees in the Black African, Caribbean or Black British ethnic group were estimated to earn 7.7% less than their UK-born White British counterparts. But is it enough to infer from such an income gap the existence of a system rigged in favour of white British (narrowed to fit the narrative) people?
A proponent of such a claim would then need to account for why employees of Chinese, Indian and Mixed or Multiple ethnicity all had higher median hourly pay than White British employees in 2018. And, in addition, why Chinese employees earned 30.9% more than White British employees. Perhaps we should broaden our ontology of whiteness to include certain Asian ethnicities as well? Or, perhaps we should be cautious before creating homogenous distinctions and endorsing blanket theories?
Looking at education in the UK, finding evidence to support the existence of a white supremacist society is even more doubtful. Attainment 8 measures pupils’ performance in 8 GCSE-level qualifications. Using eligibility for free school meals as an indicator of deprivation, out of six broad ethnic groups eligible for free school meals, white pupils scored lowest on their Attainment 8 performance in 2017/18. These results are consistent with the findings from 2015/17 and from earlier in the century. Furthermore, white children from state schools are the least likely out of all ethnicities to enter into university. These findings indicate that there are cultural differences in the value of education between ethnic groups and classes. One could, alternatively, infer that poor white people are inherently lazy or that the education system is rigged in such a way that burdens poor white children; but I’m not sure how far this kind of thinking will get us.
Claims which invoke systemic racism as a monocausal narrative ignore factors such as class,
and cultural values, which contribute to statistical discrepancies. This is not to deny, however, that racial disparities exist in Britain. For example, children in Bangladeshi households were the most likely out of all ethnic groups to live in low income and material deprivation (at 29%). Nonetheless, we miscategorise the problem by utilising broadly construed taxonomies of race (namely, white and black) and identifying these classifications as the sole determining (or the largest driving) factor of inequality. In actuality, life is more complicated than black victimhood and white privilege. This is evident because children in Indian households were the least likely to be living in material deprivation and low income (5%) out of all ethnic groups in the UK. If we accept the proposition that a racist, or white supremacist, society would be unlikely to discriminate between people from various places across the Indian subcontinent, then this evidence suggests that cultural values – such as the emphasis placed on enterprise or education - determine outcome to a larger extent than institutional racial prejudices.
If we are keen, then, to understand causes of racial discrepancies, we must be rigorous in our own investigations before mindlessly supporting facile narratives.
Bradley Strotten