Why the Left needs ‘institutional racism’

[Borchester]

https://unherd.com/2021/04/why-the-left-needs-institutional-racism/

Poor little cow.

She is vaguely pro Palestinian, pro remain, pro immigration and pro union and strongly pro Lisa Nandy as PM. So she knows that to retain her soft left support she has to be in the fore front of the fight against racism, even while having the sense to realise that the country at large has run out of guilt.

[Thomas]

Why the Left needs 'institutional racism'

The law of the instrument — or "Maslow's hammer", as it is sometimes known — has become an indispensable tool for negotiating the current world. It holds, as Abraham Maslow said in 1966, that "it is tempting, if the only tool you have is a hammer, to treat everything as if it were a nail".

In recent decades, this law has held firm nowhere so much as in the business of "race relations", where one hammer in particular has been on very public display: the casual accusation of "racism". Allegations of racism have for decades been among the most serious accusations that can be made against a person; likewise, since the publication of the Macpherson report into the murder of Stephen Lawrence, an allegation of "institutional racism" has been the most serious accusation that can be made against an organisation.

With this in mind, it was perhaps inevitable that, by virtue of their potency, such accusations would end up being wielded as a substitute for evidence. And so for years, to set up an investigation into an institution on matters to do with race was to pre-ordain the outcome: the institution always had to be found guilty.

https://unherd.com/2021/04/why-the-left-needs-institutional-racism/