by
Les May
A
COUPLE of weeks ago
Kirsty Wark,
the presenter of
the BBC
Two
news
and current affairs programme Newsnight,
introduced an item which
was supposed to deal with the question of
discrimination in Britain
using as an example the fact that there ‘weren’t
many black CEOs’
(Chief Executive Officers). This
intro told
us little about whether there really
is discrimination, and
a lot about Wark’s priorities.
The
assumption that you can lump all black, brown, Asian
people together and label them BAME is a favourite modus
operandi of armchair
sociologists and media pundits. This
lazy approach to avoid thinking more deeply is akin to what has been
called the ‘ecological
fallacy’.
One example of this is
the assumption that
if one group is found to have, say a higher
average income than another, then all
members of the first
group will have higher
incomes than anyone
in the second
group. This is clearly nonsense. Some individuals
in
the second
group will be doing very nicely thank you and have incomes which are
much higher than many of the people in either
of the groups. I have
little doubt that Wark is significantly more wealthy than a very
large number of white and non-white people alike. She
certainly has more power and influence.
By
concentrating on single issues the questions raised by the huge
inequalities in income, wealth, power and status we experience in the
UK get ignored. People like Wark give no sign of wanting to disturb
the status quo
and
the
hierarchies it fosters. Without
exploring the variation in income etc within
BAME and white population we can never be sure that we are not
mistaking
differences caused by inequality
as
being
caused by discrimination.
Is
the observation, and
at the moment it is
just an observation,
that people in the BAME population seem to be disproportionately
affected by Covid 19 disease due to the factors which also
disadvantage many
of the
white population, such as huge differences in income, wealth etc?
Asking this does not exclude the possibility that it results from
discrimination,
cultural
norms
or
the prevalence
of morbidities caused by so
called ‘lifestyle’
factors such
as diet and exercise,
which in turn may
themselves be
a reflection of differences in wealth.
There
is little appetite in the UK for recognising the effects of our very
unequal society on the lives of our citizens, irrespective
of their skin colour.
Even when studies to
examine the
impact
of
inequality
are
done, their findings are ignored. And
it’s not just the Tories
who
are wilfully blind.
In February two of the candidates for the Labour
leadership felt that a Jewish pressure group and a ‘trans’
pressure group needed their public
support,
but when the Marmot
review
which
looked at differences in health outcomes appeared
later in the month it had zero impact on
the campaign.
The
media gave prominence to only one finding; that ‘Female
life expectancy declined in the most deprived 10 percent of
neighbourhoods’
and ignored both the large
disparity in life expectancy (LE)
between people of higher and people of lower economic and social
status,
and that,
irrespective of economic status women
tend to live longer than men.
(see
page 18, Figure 2.4)
reported
in
the review.
(my
emphasis).
These
disparities also exist with regard to the disability free life
expectancy (DFLE),
i.e. the number of years of life someone will have free from
disability. The
review referred to these differences as forming a ‘social
gradient’.
What
the review showed was that in England, the difference in life
expectancy at birth between the least deprived 10% of the population
and the most deprived 10% was more
than 9
years for men
and more
than 7
years for women.
Life expectancy at birth for men
living in the most deprived areas in
England was 74
years, compared with 83 years in the least deprived areas; the
corresponding figures for women
were 79
and 86 years in 2016-18. (see
pages 15-17, figures 2.1, 2.2 and 2.3) in the review.
With
regard to disabilities in later life the review said, ‘The
social gradient in disability-free life expectancy is steeper than
the gradient in life expectancy. As
a result, people living in areas with more disadvantage not only
expect to live a shorter life, but also to spend more of that shorter
life with a limiting long-term illness.’
(my emphasis)
The
effect of ongoing and future rises in the age at which people become
eligible to receive a state pension (SPA) will be felt most strongly
by those of lower economic status (aka ‘the
least well off’).
Only people
in the least deprived 20—30% of areas will reach SPA before they
can expect to develop a disability. Those in the more deprived areas
will spend years with a disability before they reach SPA.
The
Marmot review simply referred to ‘people’; not
‘black’ people, not ‘brown’ people, not ‘minority ethnic’
people, just people. There
seems to be no data on differences in life expectancy between these
groups and ‘white’ people which are free of the influence of the
socio-economic characteristics of the areas in which they live, i.e.
the
‘social
gradient’.
It
is not unreasonable to assume that the differences in life expectancy
(LE) and disability free life expectancy (DFLE), which show a clear
gradient with socio-economic status, will be equally applicable to
these groups also. Getting a few more ‘black’, ‘brown’,
‘ethnic’ faces around boardroom tables will have no positive
impact on the life chances of the people who happen to have the same
skin colour.
We
have heard a lot in recent weeks about ‘flattening
the curve’.
When we know that there is a socio-economic gradient which means
that women
and men in affluent areas have a life expectancy at birth which is
7-9
years longer than those in poor areas, then I would suggest we direct
our collective effort to ‘levelling
the gradient’.
Obsessing
over ‘race’,
to the exclusion of all other considerations is a form of identity
politics which allows people, who by any reasonable measure are
privileged, to pose and
be seen
as, victims.
This
comment is equally applicable to other forms of identity politics. I
would suggest that it is the inequalities in the UK of income, wealth
and power which should be the main focus of attention for those of us
who see ourselves as being ‘of
the Left’
and not
the
politics of identity. This
would benefit far more people than a narrow focus on skin colour,
sex,
gender or preferred sexual partner.
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