WHITE ENGLISH WORKING CLASS BOYS ARE THE MOST UNDER
PRIVILEGED BUT ARE ABANDONED BY THE BRITISH POLITICAL ESTABLISHMENT
The article below
is an important article to read, as it does vividly demonstrate the problem
that arises from the fact that the British Political Establishment’s version of
official multi-culturalism is at the expense of our English Nation and of our
People. The article shows why we must
fight back!
I have taken a
small step in that direction by writing to challenge the charitable status of
Dulwich and Winchester Colleges for their disgraceful and spineless cowardice
in refusing to accept Sir Bryan Thwaites’ bequest for scholarships to their
schools. If they are not even prepared
to help in such a way, then they are little more than businesses and should pay
tax as such! My letters are below the
article.
Here is the
article:-
The lost boys: the white
working class is being left behind
These children are the forgotten demographic
You can argue about
the merits of pulling down statues, but it’s hard to make the case that mass
protests serve no useful purpose. At the very least, they provoke debate and
draw attention to uncomfortable topics that it might otherwise be easier to
ignore. The recent protests have forced everyone to have difficult discussions
about race, class, poverty and attainment. Any serious examination of the
statistics shows that we’re pretty far from equal, but what the figures also
show is that it’s wrong-headed and damaging to lump very different groups together.
In these discussions politicians often lazily assume that all BAME (Black,
Asian and Minority Ethnic) people are the same, and that all white groups are
equally privileged. But a proper look at the data shows not just that there are
striking difference within BAME groups, but that the very worst-performing
group of all are white working-class boys — the forgotten demographic.
It might seem divisive
to compare different groups, but attainment in education and in life is
relative and if we’re to help the worst off, we have to know who they are. We
should help everyone who needs it — but it is vital to be able to compare
groups to know who’s falling behind, relative to their peers. Bangladeshi-Brits
earn 20 per cent less than whites on average, for instance, but those with
Indian heritage are likely to earn 12 per cent more. Black Britons on average
earn 9 per cent less, but Chinese earn 30 per cent more. What these differences
tell us is that employers aren’t systematically discriminating between people on
the basis of their skin colour, and that we have to look elsewhere to see the
roots of inequality.
Ucas, the university
admissions service, can provide unique insight into these issues: it is the
only outfit in the world to gather detailed information on all university
applicants, including their age, gender, neighbourhood and school type. This is
collected along with data on who applied for which courses and who was
accepted, and it is renewed in huge detail every year.
Much of the data shows
predictable results: there is a gap between rich and poor, as you might expect
in a UK state system where the best schools tend to be located in the most
expensive areas. But there are surprising discoveries too: nearly half the
children eligible for free school meals in inner London go on to higher
education, but in the country outside London as a whole it is just 26 per cent.
Black African British
children outperform white children, whereas black Caribbean children tend to do
worse. Poor Chinese girls (that is to say, those who qualify for free school
meals) do better than rich white children. But, interestingly, the ethnic group
least likely to get into university are whites. With the sole exception of
Gypsy/Roma, every ethnic group attends university at a higher rate than the
white British and, of the white British who do attend, most are middle class
and 57 per cent are female. The least likely group to go on to higher
education are poor white boys. Just 13 per cent of them go on to higher
education, less than any black or Asian group.
This is a trend that
can also be seen in the GCSE data; only 17 per cent of white British pupils
eligible for free school meals achieve a strong pass in English and maths.
Students categorised as Bangladeshi, Black African and Indian are more than
twice as likely to do so. In 2007, the state sector saw 23 per cent of black
students go on to higher education; this was true for 22 per cent of whites. So
about the same. But at the last count, in 2018, the gap had widened to 11
points (41 per cent for black students, 30 per cent for whites). The children
of the white working class are falling away from their peers, in danger of
becoming lost.
Going to university is
not the golden ticket it once was, but it requires stupefying naivety to
believe that seven out of eight poor white boys take a sober look at the
economics of higher education and choose to set up their own businesses
instead. The trail of hard evidence runs cold once they leave school, but the
prospects for those who can barely read and write are dreadful and we can get
some idea of the consequences by looking at the ‘left behind’ areas where
unemployment, crime and ‘deaths of despair’ are significantly higher than the
national average.
Angus Deaton, a Nobel
Laureate based at Princeton University, came up with the phrase ‘deaths of
despair’ when he looked at the demographics of those suffering from alcoholism,
depression and drug abuse. Suicides among whites, he found, was soaring and
those who took their own lives tended to be poor and low-educated. His
recently-published book on the subject (Deaths of Despair and the Future of
Capitalism, co-written with Anne Case) tells the devastating story of what
he calls ‘the decline of white working-class lives over the last half-century’.
Yet while white
working-class males are the largest disadvantaged minority, their cause is the
least fashionable. In the intersectional pyramid of victimhood, white males are
at the bottom, tarnished by ideas of ‘toxic masculinity’ and ‘white privilege’
despite the fact that in Britain class has always been the most significant
indicator of true privilege. It’s worrying, then, that any who attempt
‘positive action’ on behalf of poor white boys face a hostile reaction. Last
year, Dulwich and Winchester colleges turned down a bequest of more than £1
million because the donor, Sir Bryan Thwaites, wanted the money ring-fenced for
scholarships for white working-class boys. Peter Lampl, founder of the Sutton
Trust, a charity whose stated mission is to improve social mobility, described
Thwaites’s offer as ‘obnoxious’.
When Ben Bradley, the
Conservative MP for Mansfield, tried to ask an ‘Equalities’ question about
working-class white boys in parliament earlier this year, he was turned down by
the Table Office because they do not have any ‘protected characteristics’. The
concept of ‘protected characteristics’ was wheeled into UK law by Harriet
Harman’s Equality Act, ten years ago, and the Tories, then in opposition, took
the rare step of voting for it. The nine protected characteristics include
‘race’, ‘sex’ and ‘sexual orientation’, but the Table Office is not alone in
interpreting these as ‘non-white’, ‘female’ and ‘gay’.
Under the Equality
Act, ‘positive discrimination’ remains technically unlawful, but the barely
indistinguishable concept of ‘positive action’ is explicitly legal. Firms
cannot have quotas, but they can set targets. Employers cannot refuse to look
at job applications from people who lack protected characteristics, but by
stating that ‘applications are particularly welcome’ from BAME, female or
LBGTQ+ candidates they send a message that some need not apply.
In 2016 the BBC
pledged that half its workforce and leadership would be female by 2020 despite
less than 40 per cent of Britain’s full-time workers being women. It also set
an 8 per cent target for LGBT employees, although only around 2 per cent of the
population identify as LGBT. This target has been comfortably exceeded, as has
been the target of having 15 per cent of employees from a BAME background. In
the wake of the Black Lives Matter protests last month, the corporation raised
this target to 20 per cent.
The BBC admits that
people from ‘low and intermediate income households’ are hugely
underrepresented in its workforce. But what does it do about it? Earlier this
month Oxford University proudly reported that it was making ‘steady progress’
in its efforts to make its campuses ‘representative of wider society’. Of its
most recent intake of British students, only 14 per cent came from the poorest
40 per cent of households.
This fits a pattern:
at a push, we can hear acknowledgement of the ‘poor white male’ problem. But
that’s as far as it ever goes. The underperformance of white boys and men is
not considered to be a problem worth solving. When figures come out showing the
stunning attainment gaps between boys and girls, the interest lasts for about a
day. ‘It always got a few headlines,’ says Mary Curnock Cook, the former head
of Ucas. ‘Where it never got any traction at all was in policy-making in
government. I began to think that the subject of white boys is just too
difficult for them, given the politicisation of feminism and women’s equality.’
When I asked a teacher
why white working-class boys have fallen so far behind, he gave me a short
answer: girls are better behaved and immigrant parents are stricter. This is a
generalisation but nonetheless interesting: if it is the case that parenting is
the problem, then it’s not clear how much the government can do. Perhaps the
reluctance to discuss the subject stems from fear that such a discussion would
lead to difficult territory about family structure, quality of parenting and —
in short — culture. Perhaps politicians think it better to let the problem
fester, and the children suffer, than to risk discussing it.
Last month, the
government announced that its commission on racial inequality would include an
examination into the underperformance of working-class white boys at schools.
Will it look deep into the causes? It might look at recent studies that suggest
poor reading levels in schools is a huge part of the problem. And it might ask
whether ‘positive action’ in the name of diversity has left white working-class
boys behind.
Here is a link to
the original article >>>
Here are my letters
to the Charity Commission:-
Charity Commission
PO BOX 211
Bootle
L20 7YX
Dear Sir
Re:
Complaint against Winchester College – Charity No. 1139000
It has come to my
attention that the above registered charity refused a charitable bequest of
more than £1m because the donor, Sir Bryan Thwaites, wanted the money
ring-fenced for scholarships for ‘White Working Class Boys’.
I enclose a copy of
an article which usefully explains why it is that it is actually white working
class boys who particularly need positive action, but at the moment are being
denied it by, inter alia, this organisation which benefits from its charity
status. In my view if they are not
prepared to act as a charity and accept such a munificent bequest, then they
should lose their charitable status.
I am therefore
writing formally to request an investigation with a view to sanctioning the
above charity.
Yours faithfully
R C W Tilbrook
Chairman
Charity Commission
PO BOX 211
Bootle
L20 7YX
Dear Sir
Re:
Complaint against Dulwich College – Charity No. 1150064
It has come to my
attention that the above registered charity refused a charitable bequest of
more than £1m because the donor, Sir Bryan Thwaites, wanted the money
ring-fenced for scholarships for ‘White Working Class Boys’.
I enclose a copy of
an article which usefully explains why it is that it is actually white working
class boys who particularly need positive action, but at the moment are being
denied it by, inter alia, this organisation which benefits from its charity
status. In my view if they are not
prepared to act as a charity and accept such a munificent bequest, then they
should lose their charitable status.
I am therefore
writing formally to request an investigation with a view to sanctioning the
above charity.
Yours faithfully
R C W Tilbrook
Chairman
