Historically PC.

Gary Younge today:

‘If there is no struggle, there is no progress," said the African American abolitionist Frederick Douglass.

Does political correctness really reach back into history? Douglass would have (and did) proudly described himself as Negro.

This also got me:

Even as the French
politicians talked tough, the state was suing for peace with the offer
of greater social justice. The government unrolled a package of
measures that would give career guidance and work placements to all
unemployed people under 25 in some of the poorest suburbs; there would
be tax breaks for companies who set up on sink estates; a €1,000 (£675)
lump sum for jobless people who returned to work as well as €150 a
month for a year; 5,000 extra teachers and educational assistants;
10,000 scholarships to encourage academic achievers to stay at school;
and 10 boarding schools for those who want to leave their estates to
study.

Look at what he describes as "social justice". A few more handouts from the central State. No ideathat it might actually be the constrictions imposed by that central State that lead to the alienation and social exclusion. What’s needed a little more is markets for they are colour blind.

One response

  1. This leitmotiv of yours about markets being colour blind simply doesn’t hold water. The job market in particular is run by people. Anyone who has ever been through the frustrating rigmarole of recruitment knows that ultimately, decisions are made on completely irrational grounds as much as they are on actual ability to do a job. I was once rejected for giving the wrong answer to the daft and irrelevant question “If you were an animal, what animal would you be?”. Imagine how much more frustrating it would be if my name was Mourad and my address was in Clichy. The free market treats the black inhabitants of New Orleans just as well as “the constrictions imposed by that central State” do in France. What’s needed is intelligent, targeted state intervention, not state disengagement.
    The origin of the phrase is here:
    http://stumblingandmumbling.typepad.com/stumbling_and_mumbling/2005/11/a_racist_europe.html
    The full phrase is:
    Could it be that competition and markets, rather than state intervention, are the best fighters against racism? If so, the smaller the market, the more racism there’ll be.
    Markets are colour-blind. Social networks are not.

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