#birbalsingh

[katharinebirbalsingh]

A note on Katharine Birbalsingh and Michaela Community School

The media narrative surrounding Michaela Community School in London mostly goes like this: Katharine Birbalsingh transforms poor inner-city (read: ethnic minority) children into academic superstars through the power of discipline. Thomas Chatterton Williams’s recent essay (full text here) in The Atlantic is merely the latest in a long line of fawning profiles that tout, implicitly or explicitly, Birbalsingh's iron fist as the solution to all that ails Britain. However, no article I have read so far has investigated other explanations for Michaela's high Progress 8 score nor endeavored to deconstruct the popular narrative surrounding the conservative superstar.

Williams begins the body of this piece by pointing out that Michaela “draws nearly all its students from Wembley, one of the poorest districts in London” in an apparent attempt to cast them as would-be low achievers, if not for Birbalsingh’s intervention. Although the characteristics of the individual pupils who attend Michaela have a greater impact on results than those of the school's neighborhood, he doesn’t bother to investigate how they differ. Among Michaela pupils who sat GCSEs over the past three years and whose prior attainment at Key Stage 2 (measured by an exam at the end of primary school) were available, 31% were high achieving, 53% were middle achieving, and only the remaining 16% were low achieving. For those who are uninterested in learning the nuances of British exam scoring, that means Michaela’s pupils were exceptionally bright even before they entered the school.

Birbalsingh furthers her savior narrative by describing Michaela's intake with unquantifiable terms such as "challenging" or "inner-city." However, only 28 of Michaela's 2024 GCSE takers (24%) were disadvantaged per the government's definition, "those who were eligible for free school meals at any time during the last 6 years and children looked after," in line with the national average of 25%. Although Birbalsingh likes to advance the narrative that she improves the academic performance of poor children—to be fair, she does, at a rate of roughly 30 individuals per year—she mostly improves the GCSE performance of middle class children.

Michaela's pupils are also self selecting, and therefore they are not representative of pupils in Wembley, London, or the UK as a whole. Any pupil who wishes to attend state secondary school in London must fill out a form indicating their top six choices, and they will be placed in one of those schools based on geography, demand, and availability. A pupil who does not wish to attend Michaela can leave it off their application, guaranteeing they won't attend. Therefore, Michaela is left with an intake of pupils who largely want to be there. By my calculations, Michaela's classwork and homework demand just over 49 hours of work each week. Although this does lead to good results, many teenagers would not abide by this; the 40-hour workweek is taxing even for most adults, who are blessed with more waking hours. Michaela's model and results cannot be easily repeated at any given school—at least not without systematic exclusion.

Williams unintentionally misrepresents a statistic when he asserts that “More than 80 percent of Michaela graduates continue their studies at Russell Group Universities.” He lacks a sufficiently deep understanding of the British school system to interpret this figure. While Michaela’s website states that 82% of its 2021 sixth form alumni attended a Russell Group university, it does not provide data on the university attendance of graduates from its secondary school, the disciplinarian institution which Williams profiles.

In the UK, sixth form (years 12 and 13, spent studying for A-levels) is separate from secondary school (years 7 through 11; the last 2 years, KS4, are spent studying for GCSEs). For Michaela, this also means a different admissions process. While there are no academic minimums to enroll in the secondary school, the sixth form requires an impressive average GCSE score of 7. Michaela has the capacity to enroll 120 students in each year of sixth form. However, the sixth form was under-enrolled by half in 2024. Michaela is a publicly-funded school, so this begs the question as to why state resources are not being utilized to their maximum capacity. The sixth form could educate more students simply by lowering GCSE requirements, but that would of course lead to less impressive university admissions—the kind that may not be displayed on Michaela’s home page. It is also possible that some secondary teachers would be pulled away to teach A-level subjects, worsening GCSE results, but that is speculation.

Thus far, all discussions of Michaela’s results have been woefully incomplete because they have not examined the effect of its narrow curriculum on its exam scores, instead focusing on the behaviorism that makes Birbalsingh’s authoritarian acolytes salivate. Williams's article is no different, only mentioning in passing that she believes “the national curriculum might force her to lower her own standards.” Depending on what changes the new Labour government implements, a revised national curriculum may indeed clash with Michaela’s philosophy. The school directs virtually all of its resources toward preparing pupils for its narrow selection of GCSE subjects or the few non-GCSE subjects that are required by the current national curriculum, such as PSHE, music theory, or PE. Birbalsingh is so focused on GCSE revision that she does not even believe volunteer work to be a "financially viable" option for Michaela pupils. Michaela's extra-curricular clubs all have a marginal cost of practically zero. In fact, several of them directly support curricular subjects, so they should rightfully be considered part of GCSE preparation.

A narrow curriculum obviously allows pupils to spend more time studying each GCSE subject they sit, thereby increasing their exam scores. Since most of the GCSE-level classes that Michaela offers are mandatory, pupils have little freedom to choose their own subjects (more on that later). Aside from that, cohort sizes stay remarkably close to 120 from year to year, and the school seems to impose a soft cap on classes of 30 pupils (120 / 4 = 30), so Michaela can hire the exact number of teachers it needs each year on a full-time basis. The school never needs to "waste" money hiring teachers for undersubscribed subjects, so it can also raise test scores by investing more in its core subjects than schools with broader curricula can afford to. On the flip side, Michaela does not offer dramatic arts, orchestra, individual sciences, computing, design and technology, foreign languages besides French, or a whole host of other popular subjects at the GCSE level. Other schools could easily raise their GCSE scores by slashing their curricula down to Michaela levels, but they offer a variety of classes because they care about their pupils experiencing joy and exploring a variety of career paths more than they care about their P8 scores.

For years, all of Michaela’s pupils have studied the same subjects at GCSE with some slight variations. A handful of pupils always sit for exams in heritage languages, but otherwise, the following paragraphs demonstrate approximately how the subject breakdown has looked over the past three years. (Earlier data has been distorted by COVID, or it is incomplete or outdated.) At the time of publication, 2024 data can be found here, while older results can be accessed through the link “Download data (1991-2024)”.

- 2022: 100% of pupils: English language, English literature, combined science, mathematics, religious studies. ~75%: French, geography/history. ~25%: Citizenship. ~25%: Art & design: photography, art & design: fine art. (I had to recreate this year from memory because individual subject entries do not appear to be retained in older data, but it is accurate to the best of my recollection.)

- 2023: 100% of pupils: English language, English literature, combined science, mathematics, religious studies. ~75%: French, geography/history. ~25%: Art & design: photography, art & design: fine art.

- 2024: 100% of pupils: English language, English literature, combined science, mathematics, religious studies, French. * ~80%: Geography/history. ~20%: Art & design: photography.

*This year, 3 pupils sat for biology, chemistry, and physics separately instead of taking combined science, but there is no explanation for this on Michaela's website.

Each year, about 90 Michaela pupils enter for the EBacc, a set of GCSE subjects encouraged by the British government. This usually works out to 75% of a cohort, but in 2024 it was 81% (94 pupils) because the cohort size was smaller than usual at only 116 pupils. Still, that means the largest class of EBacc entrants was only 32, in line with Michaela's projected class size of 30—despite Birbalsingh asserting that "class size matters little for success." Although the school comparison website does not list subject selections for individual pupils, it was easy to see how subjects were combined by cross-referencing exam entries per pupil and total entries per subject.

In 2021-2022, the pupils who did not enter for EBacc studied citizenship but neither French nor humanities. The study of art did not appear to correlate with EBacc entry.

In 2022-2023, the pupils who did not enter for EBacc studied photography and fine art but neither French nor humanities. Citizenship was dropped from the curriculum.

In 2023-2024, the pupils who did not enter for the EBacc studied photography but not humanities.

EBacc entry varies little across different pupil demographics such as gender, disadvantage, or English as an additional language. However, there is one characteristic that strongly determines EBacc entry at Michaela: prior attainment (PA). Over the past three years, out of 323 pupils for whom the PA data is available, 23% of low-PA pupils have entered the EBacc. This number is 83% for middle PA and 99% for high PA. According to my statistical analysis, the chance of these disparate "choices" arising without intervention is less than one percent.

At the end of Key Stage 3, Michaela staff pick approximately the top 75% of performers to enter for EBacc and require the lowest 25% to study other subjects.

This explains why only a few low-PA pupils enter for EBacc: although they are likely to remain in the bottom of their cohort throughout their schooling, some may improve enough to enter the top three quartiles. Although I am fully confident that my statistical analysis supports my assertion that Michaela pupils are not permitted to choose their GCSE subjects, the school has never disclosed a rationale for this practice, so the remainder of this essay will be speculation, not fact.

Michaela frequently boasts of its high Progress 8 (P8) score, and in order to understand my hypotheses, I recommend you familiarize yourself with its calculation. P8 is calculated by comparing actual Attainment 8 (A8) scores with expected scores based on Key Stage 2 (KS2) performance. This PDF explains how A8 scores are derived. (For my purposes, I will count double science as 2 GCSE subjects.) Therefore, a school with a non-selective intake such as Michaela can only change its P8 score by changing its A8 score.

Over the past few years, Michaela has refined its placement technique, presumably to increase its A8 scores. Pupils of any ability were permitted to study art at the GCSE level in 2022, but that option was removed the next year, probably so that high performers could devote more energy to EBacc subjects. Low performers who would have studied citizenship in 2022 instead studied art in 2023. Perhaps a part-time citizenship teacher would no longer be needed, and more resources could be directed to core subjects. All pupils studied GCSE French for the first time in 2024, giving each pupil 3 EBacc qualifications and finally maximizing A8 scores. However, the poorest performing 25% did not study humanities at KS4. This meant that approximately 120 * 2 * (1 - 0.25) = 180 pupils did study humanities at KS4, so with a typical class size of 30 and 6 class periods per day, one teacher could have accommodated all of them. If poor performers had studied humanities as well, hiring another teacher may have been necessary (and we already know how protective Michaela is of its budget).

The curricula for high and low performers are now identical, except for poor performers studying photography instead of humanities. Working from the assumption that Michaela intends to maximize its A8 score, this leads to one or two conclusions: it believes that poor performers will score higher on photography than French, and/or it does not want to expend humanities resources on poor performers because allocating them exclusively to high performers will raise the A8 score more. Similarly, no Michaela pupil has entered for more than 8 GCSE subjects (barring heritage languages, which do not demand too much revision time) since 2022, almost certainly to improve A8 scores. A limited class schedule allows pupils to devote more revision time to each core subject, while more exams would not raise A8, even if they did expand pupils’ horizons.

In the matter of GCSE curriculum, Michaela’s website is outdated and incomplete. It still enumerates the KS4 fine art curriculum, even though the subject was not offered at the GCSE level in 2024. It doesn’t mention that only three-quarters of pupils will study GCSE history or geography, so some parents who expect their children to study the humanities past age 13 may be in for a nasty surprise. Of course, this begs the question, what does Michaela have to hide?

It is difficult to understand how these prescribed schedules advantage Michaela’s pupils. Does the school not enroll maths whizzes who are determined to enter for mathematics, further mathematics, and physics at A-level, but who want one last artistic hurrah before starting sixth form? Are none of the poor performers averse enough to art that they'd prefer history? These prescriptions do not necessarily benefit Michaela’s pupils, but they do benefit the school’s P8.

Finally, Williams closes his article on a nostalgic note, contrasting his childhood with that of the Michaela pupil: “…my friends and I were free—luxuriously so—in ways these children possibly couldn’t even imagine. But that freedom that so many underprivileged and minority children bask in isn’t worth a damn thing if it leads to an adulthood boxed in by self-inflicted limitations.” Since the author was raised by college graduate parents and educated in private schools, and he is now a successful writer, he seems to believe that children who grow up rich can thrive on freedom, but the same is not true of the poor. Birbalsingh similarly believes that disadvantaged children need extreme discipline to succeed. However, she does not want to create a world where child poverty is eradicated so that every pupil can experience freedom, joy, and success at the same time. In fact, she envisions the opposite. She has spoken out against free meals for primary schoolers because she believes (without evidence!) that it would somehow make their parents less responsible. Even this concern were legitimate, it would pale in comparison to the necessity of feeding hungry children.

In the end, my dislike of Birbalsingh stems from her incredibly bleak worldview. She maintains that children should face the threat of starvation so their parents will be motivated to work harder. Even when testifying before Parliament, she believes the sexism that drives differences in A-level subject choices should remain unexamined. She propagates furry hoaxes—originally spread to mock trans people—to exemplify a supposed lack of discipline from parents. She believes if you don’t decorate your house for Christmas, you are destroying the country, and it is also somehow Vishnu’s problem (yes, the letter is truly that bizarre, and I recommend reading it for full effect). In her ideal world, she imagines suffering for suffering’s sake, a boot stamping on a human face—forever.

[mockwooloo]

This was one of my most successful tweets ever on The Other Site so I may as well post it here too.

[religion-is-a-mental-illness]

Katharine Birbalsingh: The first point is that everyone had slaves. Okay, people of all colors became slaves. For economic reasons, because of war. Because slavery, as odious as it was, was simply a normal way of life.

Arabs were extracting millions of black African slaves centuries before Christian nations did, for about 13 centuries, compared to the three centuries European nations ran the Atlantic slave trade. Arabs marched African slaves across the Sahara Desert, and as such, they died more often. It was customary to castrate them and many died from this practice. The Arabs also enslaved over 1 million white European Christians.

The term slavery in fact comes from the word Slav. The Slavs inhabited Eastern Europe and were taken by the Muslims of Spain in the ninth century. Not to mention that Africans have been enslaving each other for thousands of years.

The second point is that slavery was not about race, and it's important. It was not about race. The only reason we think it's about race is because philosophers like David Hume in the 18th century ranked human beings and put Africans at the bottom, saying that they had no souls. The Enlightenment imposed the concept of race on a practice that had been going on for centuries in order to justify that practice. And why did they have to justify it? And this is the point. Because people in the West began to question slavery's moral validity.

The fact is the people of all colors owned slaves. Both as part of the Atlantic slave trade and outside of it. In the United States and Caribbean, black people - black people - owned thousands of black slaves. And so did the Native Americans. Nearly 20,000 of the Native Americans Five Civilized tribes sided with the Confederacy during the Civil War fighting to keep slavery alive. 28% the black population who were free in New Orleans pledged their support to the Confederacy. All of the 13 southern states of the Confederacy had substantial numbers of black slave owners. There were more than 250,000 free blacks and nearly 4,000 of them were slave masters who owned more than 20,000 slaves.

The practice of slavery was legal after all. We need to remember that governments did not own slaves. Slave owners did. In fact, the US government fought a war to end slavery. How much should the descendants of the 400,000 Union soldiers, who lost their lives fighting to free the slaves, pay to the descendants of the slaves they freed?

Giving people lump sums of money does not work. Economists often point the Georgia Land Lottery of 1832, in which parcels of land were distributed randomly. What happened to the descendants of those who were lucky enough to be given this land? Are they the richest families in Georgia? No. In fact, within one generation after the distribution of the Georgia land, one could not distinguish between those who had been given land and those who hadn't.

Certainly my own direct experiences of working for 20-plus years in the inner city with families on welfare demonstrates this time and time again. Rather than give a man a fish, it is always better to teach him how to fish. All giving the fish does is make the giver feel better.

Reparations might relieve white people of their guilt, but it will do little else.

So back to my initial question. Why are we only discussing whether the West should pay reparations for slavery? Because while slavery was common to all civilizations, only one civilization developed a moral revulsion against it, very late in its history. Western civilization. Not even the leading moralists in other civilizations rejected slavery at all.

Rather than be ashamed as Westerners we should stand proud for having led the world out of a mentality where slavery was the norm, and we should vote against this motion.

[ Full debate: https://youtu.be/HboI2t5_M4I ]

==

No one ever talks about "reparations" from Arabs. The reasons are both multiple and obvious.

[360degreesasthecrowflies]

A note on the Katharine Birbalsingh 'removing prayer from schools/defending schools from Islam' story that is doing the rounds in the UK right now...

As you may already have been aware, predictably, Ms Birbalsingh is not, as she presents herself, an impartial educator just fighting against an unjust system.

Firstly, she has direct links to the Tory government including the likes of Suella Braverman, both in terms of securing her funding and her position in the first place.

Secondly, she (and media sources that she has chosen to appear on to support her position) is misrepresenting the situation, which frankly from someone who is an educator and purportedly a role model for children I find reprehensible.

So here's an actual summary of what the situation is here:

Ms Birbalsingh instituted a policy that students at her 11-18 high school - which she admits is multicultural and has students of faith attending (including 50% Muslim students) and is a school where, within the English education system, students do not have a choice of which school they attend - would be forbidden to pray indoors inside the school or to have a specific room to pray in, but could pray outdoors if they wished

Recently, during the winter some of her students took her up on this and, following her instructions and the school rules exactly, prayed outdoors, kneeling on the cold ground

These students were witnessed by passers-by through the school gate, who contacted Ms Birbalsingh and suggested that the students shouldn't have to pray outdoors in the playground in the middle of winter

Ms Birbalsingh then decided this wasn't acceptable and ran to the media, securing several high-profile interviews (strange for a regular educator, no?) in which she portrayed this entire situation as some kind of sustained campaign of hate and terror against herself personally and some kind of culture war, all because students at what she herself describes as 'the strictest school in Britain' followed the rules that she herself set out of where they could pray and, horror of horrors, were seen by members of the public in a way that might make her look bad.

[tinystepsforward]

sometimes i feel angsty about not being indian enough as a mixed-race/diaspora person but then i get reminded of the existence of conservative uk indian people who consider themselves "english not indian" and suddenly it's not a problem any more

[electricpentacle]

Kids identifying as cats, kids identifying as holograms...

What's next? Kids identifying as mechanoids and the last human?!

So obviously furries exist but the Tories and the British media trying to whip up a culture war frenzy about “Kids in schools identifying as cats” runs into one major problem…

Kids fucking love to wind adults up, especially those in positions of perceived authority.

Imagine sitting in class, knowing if you say something funny that it could end up on national news because your head teacher is a frothing culture war bigot.

Imagine all the other kids going along with it and backing them up.

[wholesomeobsessive]

As we are leaving, Inspirational turns to me. 'What would Ms Magical think of this event?' I laugh. 'She'd think it was a load of bollocks. She'd think that what black boys need is some good old-fashioned discipline!' Inspirational scratches his head. 'So why don't we just give it to them?' I put my arm through his. 'What the hell, Inspirational! What am I? A fountain of knowledge?' I rush us along the road. 'I have no bloody idea.

To Miss with Love by Katharine Birbalsingh

[eroticcannibal]

I honestly think Katherine birbalsingh should kill herself

[whinlatter]

hello i'd like 1 8 14 and 22 about argus filch please. plus what is his favourite season?

i might have known you'd be the one to choose mischief... come on argus filch. let's be having ya

Canon I outright reject

that the tartan scarf-wearing scottish nationalist argus filch would ever deign to work in a wizarding school which drew students from across the united kingdom and ireland and therefore did not respect the principle of devolved education and the noble pedagogical tradition of both the scottish enlightenment and the free church. filch votes SNP and no doubt took nicola sturgeon's recent arrest as hard as he did umbridge's removal as headmistress in 1996

8. Unpopular opinion about them

that his means of punishment were a) cruel and b) disproportionate. when the carrows chained up children and tortured them they did it for bad reasons (blood supremacy, suppression of political dissidents). when filch did it, it's because they literally made his life a living hell:

“Dung,” [Filch] muttered furiously, “great sizzling dragon bogies … frog brains … rat intestines … I’ve had enough of it … make an example … where’s the form … yes …”

if i was forced to clean up dung, dragon bogies (which sizzle???), frog brains and rat intestines on the daily i too would become a strong supporter of corporal punishment and/or the wizarding equivalent of katharine birbalsingh

also filch is literally an oppressed minority ergo he can do what he damn likes in the face of his oppressor. hagrid literally calls him a slur. hagrid. (more fodder for the hagrid is a death eater theory i fear)

14. Most heroic moment

filch is the unsung hero of the series but it's a tie between when in CoS when filch literally makes ron stare at that trophy with tom riddle's name on it in detention in the chamber of secrets aka handing them perhaps the biggest fattest clue as to what is Afoot OR when dobby reveals that filch knows about the room of requirement a room which eluded both the marauders and albus percival wulfric brian dumbledore. slay, honestly

22. Best physical feature

legs. he's a proud scotsman who waps the kilt out for any occasion. his thighs are the envy of the wizarding world

finally, obviously argus filch's favourite season is the summer, when all of the snotty little children are gone and he and irma are free to romp in the sunlit grounds as they both deserve

50 Random Character Asks

[buzz-london]

BRITAIN'S BRAVEST WOMAN SAYS 'NO' TO ISLAMIC PRAYERS IN HER SCHOOL - 23/1/24

In this video, we delve into the story of a headmistress in Britain who has become an emblem of courage and resolve. Known for her strict yet fair approach, the founder and head teacher of Michaela Community School in London, Catherine Birbalsingh, recently faced a challenging situation in her school involving a student in a hijab.

We explore the nuances of this incident, where the headmistress upheld the school's policy of no prayers for any religion, a stance that sparked controversy. This video examines the broader implications of such incidents on societal values, multiculturalism, and the importance of respecting local laws and cultures.

Harris Sultan provides insightful commentary on this situation, highlighting the delicate balance between maintaining cultural values and respecting the laws and customs of a country. He raises critical questions about multicultural integration and the consequences of not adhering to local norms.

This episode also discusses the legal ramifications faced by the school and the potential financial burden on taxpayers. Furthermore, we address the broader societal reluctance to uphold and defend local values, drawing parallels with other similar situations.

As always, Harris Sultan encourages viewers to support those who stand up for their values and principles. He urges the audience to participate actively in these discussions and lend their voices to causes that matter.

[katharinebirbalsingh]

Michaela Community School Ofsted Report

Michaela's narrow curriculum has been noted previously but not widely reported on—in fact, it was not even mentioned in the most recent Ofsted report, which rated the school "Outstanding" despite not offering the curriculum required to achieve such a rating. Warwick Mansell of Education Uncovered made a Freedom of Information request to obtain the inspection notes, summarized and linked in full in this thread. Neither the (redacted) notes nor the final report mention the divergent curricula for high/medium and low performers, nor do they note that the sixth form is under enrolled by half. It will be interesting to see whether these aspects of Michaela will continue to be omitted from Ofsted reports under the new government.

[ephemeriee]

i do not like katharine birbalsingh, and i do not think she will get away with her 'prayer ritual' ban, but it is definitely very interesting that her ultra authoritarian education ethos was completely falling apart when the hot new playground trend became ultra observant islam

[religion-is-a-mental-illness]

By: Tomiwa Owolade

Published: May 13, 2024

Zadie Smith seems like the poster girl for progressive ideology. She is mixed-race. She was born and raised in London. The characters in her fiction are ethnically and religiously diverse. She hates Brexit. She is deeply worried about climate change. She thinks a ceasefire in Gaza is necessary and has condemned Binyamin Netanyahu’s Israeli government. Tick, tick, tick.

Smith published an essay in The New Yorker last week in which she praised the “brave students” in Columbia University and elsewhere who demand that Israel should end its military attacks on Gaza. She argued that to “send the police in to arrest young people peacefully insisting upon a ceasefire represents a moral injury to us all. To do it with violence is a scandal. How could they do less than protest, in this moment?”

She argues that just as “there was no way to ‘win’ in Vietnam” in the 1960s, Hamas will not be “eliminated” today. That a ceasefire is not just politically wise, it is also an “ethical necessity”.

This did nothing to stop many people on Twitter/X from denouncing Smith as an apologist for Israel. This is because she also argued in her essay that words like “Zionist” should not be treated as a “monolith”. That Jewish students should not be made to feel unsafe on university campuses. And that the conflict can’t be reduced to rhetoric and buzzwords: it is too grave and complex for that.

Smith was castigated for ignorant fence-sitting, for undermining the cause of justice, for being a stooge of the establishment. We have lost Zadie, some of them moaned, as though she belonged to their tribe and has now run away. Others proclaimed that she has always been a liberal, not a progressive, as if this constitutes a definitive mark against her. But the most striking responses were from those who argued that Smith had betrayed her racial identity.

“I am not quite sure why people are shocked,” one account said about Smith’s article. “This is the price of admission into elite white literary and institutional circles.” (The person who posted this, Priyamvada Gopal, is a professor of postcolonial studies at that famously marginalised institution the University of Cambridge.)

Another individual, mentioning Smith along with the head teacher Katharine Birbalsingh and the novelist Bernardine Evaristo, affirmed “there is a very specific reason why the British establishment selects these women”. The “establishment will never select anyone who will quake the foundation”.

Smith’s liberal politics — with her novelistic taste for nuance — thus renders her unfit to be at the vanguard of progressive politics. Someone of her race, it is implied, should know better.

But no one should be a poster girl or boy for left-wing ideology, or any other kind of politics, simply on the basis of their racial identity. The prime minister is an Asian man and leader of the Conservative Party. The mayor of London, Sadiq Khan, is an Asian man who represents the Labour Party. Until very recently, the first minister of Scotland was an Asian man who led the Scottish National Party. None of these men are any more or any less Asian than the other.

The majority of ethnic minority people in Britain support the Labour Party but before Jeremy Hunt the last four chancellors of the exchequer were called Kwasi, Nadhim, Rishi and Sajid. The favourite to be the next leader of the Tory party was born Kemi Adegoke and spent most of her childhood in Nigeria.

Diversity and progressivism are not the same thing. London is one of the most diverse cities in the UK but it is also one of the most socially conservative: polling for the Christian think tank Theos found that 29 per cent of Londoners, for instance, believe that same-sex relationships are wrong in some cases; only 23 per cent in the rest of the country think the same. London is conservative because of its diversity, not in spite of it.

Rather than being progressive and secular, many ethnic minority people in the UK are more socially conservative and religious than the rest of the population. This is true elsewhere: 92 per cent of black Americans who voted in the 2020 presidential election supported Joe Biden. But this does not mean that black Democrats constitute the most left-wing base within the party. They are on the right of the Democratic Party, not the left.

The overwhelming majority of black Americans support the Democrats but Donald Trump increased his vote share among black Americans between 2016 and 2020, particularly among younger and male black voters. These trends are holding up for the election this year.

Inferring political opinions exclusively from someone’s background is an abdication of curiosity. Anyone who cares about diversity ought also to care about pluralism: the principle that people who share a cultural background can nevertheless differ in their beliefs.

We should never assume that someone is, or ought to be, progressive by virtue of their race. Some black and brown people are progressive. Others are liberal or conservative. Some are ideologically indifferent. Others shift from one position to another. But this is not because of their race. It is because of their personality, their upbringing, their interests: that irreducible quality inherent in all of us that should never be forsaken for a narrow fixation on group identity.

Eldridge Cleaver was a spokesman for the Black Panthers in the 1960s. He called for a militant revolution and described Ronald Reagan (at that time the governor of California) as a pig. By the 1980s Cleaver was a Mormon and endorsed Reagan to be president of the United States — a fascinating narrative arc worthy of exploration by a novelist as finely attuned to the ironies and complexities of life as Zadie Smith.

[rosiewitchescottage]

Muslim Woman says Britishness needs to Return - Askin the most Muslim pl...

A great example of how many issues can need to be tackled at the same time.

As our host ‘Shay’ said at the start, freedom of religion is important to the British People. We’ve had periods of brutal religious persecution during our history, and we don’t want a repetition of it.

Yes. The Church of England is the ‘official’ religion. But that does NOT mean that no one can practice any other Faith. 

We have many Catholics and other Christian Denominations. We have Muslims, Hindus, Sikhs, Jews, Buddhists, Pagans. All free to practice, without risk of being punished for it by the state.

All that’s required is that we practice in keeping with The Law. And that’s fine by me. The Law is one of the things that unites us as British Citizens, regardless of religious and cultural differences.

Katherine Birbalsingh Dr Rakib Ehsan and others talk about Multiculturalism this way too. 

People are free to practice their own faith and culture. But we should all be united by being British Citizens.

And if you’re living here, but don’t want to be a ‘British Citizen’, then one has to wonder what you’re doing here at all.

Shay talks here about a gentleman who came here from India wanting a ‘different life’. But was shocked that our country didn’t look like he was expecting.

We hear a Muslim lady talking about ‘British Values’ needing to return, because the country has changed so much.

Dammit. I’m disgusted to hear about the rise of Anti Muslim Hate since 9/11. That’s an outrage!

Have disagreements and concerns with any religion? Then a British Citizen should be free to express them. 

BUT hating, harassing and abusing people, simply for practicing any particular religion? No, No, No!

No one should be judged for good or bad, simply on account of what religion they practice, or none.

Only HOW we do so, should matter.

 Islamists who want to bring Shariah Law here? We should fight that, all the way.

But the many Muslims just peacefully practicing their faith should be left to do so in safety and with a respect that we have every right to ask to be mutual.

Two young Muslim guys saying that someone asked them if they had bombs inside their jackets.

If that happened, then I’m far from OK with it. 

It’s one thing to challenge someone who is behaving in a suitably dubious manner. 

The guy carrying the bomb at The Manchester Arena was just such a person. There should have been zero qualms about challenging him, but he wasn’t.

Quite another to ask two young men on the street if they’re carrying bombs, just because of their religion.

None of that helps us to deal with the real problems. In fact it hinders it!

There’s ZERO reasons why we can’t support people practicing their own faiths and cultures, within our British Laws.

 Whilst also practicing the religious and cultural traditions that have been part of British Life for centuries, and longer.

If people want to come and share their lives with us here. Then let’s show them British Values to share and be united by, as well as having the freedom to follow their own faith.

That’s a Multiculturalism that I’ll support up to the hilt.

https://rakibehsan.com/diversity-without-shared-values-is-a-recipe-for-disaster-rakib-ehsan-on-the-lessons-from-the-uk/

[revisesociology]

Is banning prayers in school discriminatory?

Michaela Secondary School and Sixth Form lead by Katherine Birbalsingh is openly secular. It is also the BEST school in the country. It has ranked number 1 for Progress 8 in the last two years. It gets better GCSE results than many private schools despite having 25% of its pupils on Free School Meals. For eight years they had no prayers in school, and provided no prayer rooms for pupils, making…

[rollerska8er]

Katharine Birbalsingh is one of the most rancid cunts in this entire country, and that's saying something. Even J. K. Rowling looks good next to her.