So that's all right then.
The Prime Ministers race commission proves categorically that there is no institutionalised racism in British Society. The cream will always rise to the top - its just a coincidence that it is mostly thick and white and educated at Eton and Oxbridge.
Institutionalised classism? That's a different story. Boris is surely not to blame for the fact that many members of the aristocracy came over with William the conqueror, or curried favour during the Elizabethan Age by informing on their neighbours. After all, what could be more British than the Royal Family?
How many fingers am I holding up, Winston?
People THINK that they are being diverse. But if you don't actively reach out outside your comfort zone, you are going to have institutionalised bias.
You simply are.
This is why policies like affirmative action existed.
We have CHOSEN our hobbies as a non political identity. Most of us when entering that identity erase everything else. When people say "I don't see race" or "I don't see gender" they are being slightly disingenuous, because obviously we do see those things - humans had two hundred thousand years as hunter gatherers before we built the first cities, and recognising difference is just something we do.
The us versus the them.
But hobbies overlay your political identities. They rewrite your interpersonal code.
As Robert says, fox hunting is still 'a thing'. Because the Upper Classes know this and they actively don't want it to happen. They don't WANT people to mix, so they set up ways to keep people apart. Hobbies, pastimes, schools, universities - things DESIGNED to widen the intersectional wedge and prevent cross class intercourse.
It makes sense. If you want to consolidate power - traditionally in the form of land - you want to make sure every bond is formed between people of the same ruling class. Upstairs and no downstairs.
My school was designed to breed middle managers for empire long after we had one. A relic of the beforetimes.
But it all is, isn't it?
We all want to live and love and game with people who share our interests, and yet here we are - forced to play the Downton Abbey LARP
Lots of people standing around with only one life experience between them. People don't actively seek out people outside their own worldview to challenge them... I mean, challenge is the wrong word and who wants to be the person being sought out to be a challenge, right?
But it means they don't have any idea what it is like to live a different life.
Like, when I was listening to the excellent Shelf Stories video series, I was struck by the fact that for many people, entering a non coded space - a space not actively coded for them to enter - is its own gatekeeper. I thought back to the times I went into spaces that weren't coded for me, and the sudden dawning realisation that I was Not Like The People Here. The first time I took my kids to the Holywell Green Parent and Toddler group, where I was the only guy.
The first moment I opened the door, everyone looked at me like they were unsure whether I belonged. whether I was in 'the right place'. Speaking to them later it was obvious this was subconscious.
Unconscious.
It's why we call it unconscious bias.
And if we don't constantly consciously challenge unconscious bias, then bias creeps in. It's baked in to the human condition. This happens in all clubs, in all stores, in all institutions.
Institutional bias.
And the worst thing you can do is say you are not institutionally biased. Of course you fucking are - because you are a fucking human.
Now, government by its nature - the nature of a two party state - is biased. Every member of the Tory party chose Tory over whatever intersectional tag they gained by dint of birth. The Tories look after their own. Lack empathy? Love money and status, earned or unearned? Want to feel superior? We have a party for you. Now that party means 'Brexit Free Marketeer and Nepotist'.
...and nepotist is the opposite of unbiased. These people are so biased the only people they can imagine holding top jobs are their wives and husbands. The only people who should have their nose in the public finance trough? Wives, husbands, mistresses, and the landlord of their favourite boozer.
And THESE are the people who say 'we are not institutionally racist'.
No. They are far far far worse than that. There's not even a word for the government we now have. How can you be ideologically pure to a lie? How can you be a kleptocrat if you are giving other people you know money (rather than stealing it for yourself)? This isn't fascism, because its not the government of the strong. There's no pretence at strength. Its not an oligarchy because a lot of these people aren't rich per se - they are on the make. Grant Schapps style.
Chumocracy? These people are not friends. Each one would stab you in the back soon as look at you. This isn't Cameron and Osborne. These are the chancers and the greasy pole climbers.
The desperate and the deranged.
I often felt that the flaw with intersectionality was the lack of a percentage based system.
Like, In Britain a class system is a nested series of intersectionality - under, working, trades, lower middle, middle, upper middle, lower upper, aristocracy, royalty. Each division sees itself in a bubble with the other classes at extremes, both above and below. When looking up you see the other classes seemingly attainable. All it takes is a job or to use doilies under you teacups, but from above the gulf is massive and everyone in the classes below you is like an alien.
You simply cannot understand their world.
Yet I can understand the classes above me. Like me, but with more money. Like me, but with a bigger house.
Class distinctions however aren't just about money. Most people in the trades earn far more money than I do, and upper middle has become a runaway managementocracy. It used to be The Professions - Doctors, Lawyers, Accountants, Bank managers. Some people in that class bracket now earn a billion pounds in four years.
The UK class system no longer makes sense. It hasn't for a while. But we are still forced to play the game performatively