Posted: February 2010

My report 'The Myth of Racist Kids' has triggered some prickly reactions. This isn't surprising.  But if we're to have a constructive debate better to avoid name-calling and telling tales and engage with the real issues like grown-ups.

The most contemptuous response so far came from Institute of Race Relations (IRR) writer Jenny Bourne intriguingly titled 'The Myth of Anti-Racist Kids - The Manifesto Club Should Not Get Away With Its Scurrilous Attack On Schools' Anti-Racist Policies.'

Another came from the INSTED Consultancy who's principle consultant Robin Richardson (government guidance architect and co-author of the DCSF/TeacherNet advice on racist incident reporting) has written 'The Myth of Racist Kids, Notes towards a reply'. Read my response to INSTED here.

I welcome all criticism - even these.  But in different ways both responses to my report fail to engage with its content.  In Jenny Bourne's posting on the IRR site the very first line reads "THEY are at it again - attacking anti-racism." Thereafter I'm likened  to "Thatcher's hangers-on and advisers" (i.e I'm a bit right-wing).  Through my connection to The Manifesto Club (who published the report) I am, apparently, tarnished by campaigns daring to question other orthodoxies be it child protection or environmentalism.  

But there's more. Jenny Bourne asks "And who is Adrian Hart?"  Well, apart from being a right-wing, paedophile-loving planet-hater it seems I'm also not qualified to speak on this topic least of all criticise those career anti-racists "conversant with the issue of racism in children" (I am after all just "a filmmaker who has recently worked with children").  Having shot your target down its always best to snuff out any semblance of credibility lurking in the wreckage - isn't it?  And so to claim her kill Jenny Bourne  slips-in two footnoted references that are supposed to show how I've trumped up statistics and misrepresented official texts (she's wrong on both counts).

I have full respect for Jenny Bourne.  She may doubt my motives but there is no doubt that her viewpoint is sincere and that she, along with others associated with the IRR, are genuine anti-racists - indeed many are veterans in this area.   Jenny Bourne, like many who are published by the IRR, supports a great deal of state 'official' anti-racism.  She therefore regards my report as an attempt to rubbish policies which, in the fantasy of official anti-racism, only came about because of the "long and distinguished struggle" (including the efforts of 'liberal professions') which forced the state to take action.  In The Myth of Racist Kids I take a different position on this. It may offend seasoned official anti-racists (especially those who's 'liberal profession' now includes writing government guidance and advice documents) but why sweep aside the opportunity for a debate?

In other respects I think IRR writers get it right.  For example in Liz Fekete's book 'A Suitable Enemy' she challenges racist immigration policy with a clear-cut analysis.  Official anti-racism is usually silent on this subject preferring to focus on the racism it imagines as viral amongst the masses.  In this mind-set the maintenance of "community cohesion" has an undeclared vested interest in retaining immigration controls.

 Jenny Bourne seems to be aware that all might not be well in the way liberal professions administer official anti-racism.  "There are a few kernels of truth lurking under the dross [of my report]" she concedes. She notes that "psychologising racism via 'awareness programs' ... reinforced by the subjectivity in the Macpherson definition of a racist incident" is problematic and "commonsense may not prevail".  She also notes that "monitoring a problem via form-filling is always going to be a somewhat blunt instrument".  You would have thought, then, that such observations would lead to a keen interest in what I have to say about the racialising effects of these practices?  Instead, Jenny Bourne merely asserts a kind of 'there is no alternative' argument in favour of the necessity of these measures as though any unfortunate side-effects are irrelevant compared to keeping the lid pressed tightly down on insurgent racism.

The raw material of the anti-racism industry centers on the idea of endemic racism and permanent victimhood with the state cast in the role of purifiers and saviours.  Jenny Bourne wants to credit past struggles against racism as having achieved a worthy role for official anti-racism in schools and to have "raised the threshold of what is now generally acceptable behaviour".  But her caveat is revealing: 

"Such behaviour is not innate or natural in parts of society where racist culture still prevails.  Which is precisely why it is important to begin to show youngsters, even as young as three, that the racialised views they might have imbibed from home or popular culture, are not to be sanctioned in their playgroup. 'Catching them young' is a way of ensuring that subliminal notions do not become fully fledged prejudices and go on to lead to racist behaviour." 

Leaving aside the use of code for 'the revolting working classes' the debate we should be having is on how plausible it is to assert 'feral racism' at large in the community and how all we need to do is educate kids and rinse away their subliminal notions.

Its not enough to cite Panorama or headlines on a child's attempted suicide.  Its not enough to assert that the IRR is called up weekly by parents at their wits end due to a schools indifference to their child's racial bullying.  Either Britain is becoming palpably more tolerant and less racist that 30, 20 or even 10 years ago or its not - lets debate that. 

In exactly the same way it is assumed we are all potentially on the cusp of committing child abuse and need CRB checks we might like to debate the assumption that without regulating the life of schools and nurseries via state anti-racist policy legions of kids will flower into racist adults.   How, I wonder, did today's generation of more tolerant, less racist, middle-aged adults survive their childhoods? They did so not only without the purifying influence of official anti-racism but, in the context of the 1970s and 80s where racism really was a social force, without succumbing to 'the racialised views they might have imbibed from home or popular culture'.

Whatever it is that advocates of official anti-racism think is being achieved, the rest of us are entitled to note how strange it is that Brown, Cameran, Clegg et al fall over themselves to proclaim their anti-racism.  How strange that, as the virulent racial tensions of the past recede, the state positions itself as the anti-racist purifiers of you and I (and especially our kids) - discretely we have been cast as 'the bigoted herd'.  The politicians may be insincere compared to the liberal professions that formulate and administer policy but they are united by a pessimistic view of humanity.  Here, adults are mistrusted and our hapless children are designated 'at risk' of becoming either the perpetrators or victims of racism.   

Let's debate that.