And Why Does That Matter?

No, this is the new definition of 'not welcome', no-one's actively blocking them... 

“Tennis,” a head coach from a prestigious club in Surrey casually remarked to me, “will never have a Marcus Rashford.”

The throwaway comment was made at a sparsely attended coaching forum on diversity in tennis in 2022. Less than six months later, I was at Surrey’s under-9 girls’ county cup with nine-year-old Sabein Weldegebriel, whose mother is from Ethiopia. I coach her in a park next to a south London council estate. Sabein’s success at getting to county level should give me hope that the head coach was wrong, but having been in this sport for 20 years, it is hard for me not to agree with him.

Perhaps instead of asking yourself 'Is he right or wrong?' you should maybe ask yourself 'Why should the colour of a person's skin matter more than whether or not they are a good player?' Chris...

Because the costs of becoming a professional tennis player are prohibitive to most kids, and the tennis establishment does very little to nurture talent in the way sports like football do.

Is this something charity could do instead? Yes, Reader, it is...and it's doing that.  

Sabein has had 100 hours of unpaid lessons with me over the past 12 months. We spotted her talent straight away when she came to G Tennis (grassroots tennis) about four years ago. A local charity that supports single parents, the Cheer Trust paid for initial group sessions, but the rest G Tennis has provided for free.

So what's the beef, Chris? 

He Who Pays The Piper, Robert...

A particularly troubling aspect of Gay’s resignation concerns the apparent clout of wealthy Harvard alumni​...

You want their money, and they want...well, not to be hectored and told black is really white. And while you need their money, they get to call the tune.  

I can understand the frustrations of these donors. But to use their influence to force the ouster of these university presidents is an abuse of power. It sets a dangerous precedent of mega-donor intrusion into university life. It endangers the autonomy of America’s universities to determine for themselves how to strike the right balance between freedom of expression and hateful speech.

But they aren't using that autonomy properly, are they? They are taking that money and spitting in the faces of those who are giving it. And they've decided enough is enough. 

As have I. What is it? Is it ''We have to employ more smart well-educated black minorities to show us their worth' or is it 'Oh noes, our smart well-educated black minorities have fallen into a trap so obvious a child could see it coming'..?

It can't really be both, can it? 

The core problem is that one of the major jobs of today’s university presidents is to solicit money.

It does make the world go round, after all... 

As a Jew, I also cannot help but worry that the actions of these donors – many of them Jewish, many from Wall Street – could fuel the very antisemitism they claim to oppose, based on the age-old stereotype of wealthy Jewish bankers controlling the world.

If they really were doing that, Ms Gay would still be in the kitchen or on reception. or wearing a janitor's uniform. Assuming she's smart enough to know which end of the broom to push.  

Oh, Canada...Again!

The country has set aside billions of dollars in compensation and declared a 'cultural genocide' in the treatment of indigenous children who were taken away from their families and placed at the schools for much of the 19th and 20th centuries.

Teams using ground-penetrating radar claim to have found mass graves in the last two years containing the remains of more than 1,000 children who were buried in secret.

Haven't we been here before, a bit closer to home? 

Reader, yes we have:  

Doubts are growing about the scale of historic abuse at Canada's notorious residential schools for indigenous children after a dig at one of the country's most high-profile sites uncovered no bodies.

Will it change minds now, then? Why, no. No, of course not! 

'People believe things that are not true or improbable and they continue to believe it even when no evidence turns up,' said Tom Flanagan, a professor emeritus of political science at the University of Calgary.

'People seem to double down on their conviction that something happened.'

And many people are now owed an apology they won't, of course, get: 

James McCrae, Manitoba's former attorney general, resigned from a government panel in May after his skepticism infuriated some indigenous groups.

'The evidence does not support the overall gruesome narrative put forward around the world for several years, a narrative for which verifiable evidence has been scarce, or non-existent,' he wrote.

The (profitable) bandwagon must roll on, even when the wheels come off... 

More Retail Cowardice...

Another shop falls prey to the hysterical ninnies amongst us, as Longrider notes:

The shop has since removed the image and apologised on Instagram.

'We will keep this brief,' the post read. 'The image that has caused offence has been removed. We apologise unreservedly for any and all distress that it caused.'

Mr Harriman posted screenshots of the apology, with a tweet from Surrey Police confirming that the image has been taken down.

The 'offending image'..? A photo of a tobacco plantation. In a tobacconist.

After filming inside the store, Harriman, 46, spoke directly to the camera outside it, expressing his fury that a shop in 2023 could use an image of oppression to promote its products, calling it 'triggering' and 'damaging to many people'.

Something's damaging all right, but it isn't a sepia photo of a byegone age... 

'Agony Aunts' Are Somewhat...Different...In The Dear Old 'Guardian'

*blinks* 

One of the common mistakes white people make is to overestimate their importance in the lives and imaginations of people of colour.

Could that possibly be because race baiters like you never shut up about it? 

Racism matters, and microaggressions are important because they often impede our ability to function in the world with ease by stopping us from conducting basic activities like driving, shopping, or even just walking down the street.

*skepticism intensifies* 

But at the level of whether a particular white person is interested in dating us or not, I think you would have a hard time finding any woman of colour who would be even mildly concerned about this.

Sisonke is just brimming with compassion for us honkeys, isn't she?

I feel bad for him: one of the burdens of whiteness is how much it stunts the lives of those who buy into its deceits.

It's not the first thing that springs to mind when 'the burden of whiteness' crops up, actually... 

The bigger question you need to ask yourself is whether your values and his still align. Surely this is not the only area where his attitudes on race show up.

Yes, it must be racism that drives sexual preferences. I mean, what else could it possibly be? 

Are Race Grifters A 'Community' Now..?

The British Film Institute is embroiled in a court action against a Black Lives Matter activist over an alleged £216,000 sponsorship debt. Alisha Hall, 41, and her Hall Media Group Limited are subject of a winding-up petition launched by the BFI over the large sum it says is missing.

Gosh, how unprecedented! 

At the time BFI announced of the 65th festival: 'This year we were joined for the first time by The Liberation Initiatives as Main Partner, who supported a number of key programmes and helped in our continued efforts to make LFF more inclusive to underrepresented communities.'

Ah. if only you'd done a bit of due diligence before jumping into bed for the woke kudos... 

The Liberation Initiatives calls itself 'a force for systematic change against the social & economic disadvantages faced by marginalised communities'. It was founded in the aftermath of George Floyd's death in America.

There's something I need here in my....Ah! 

Got it! 

Let's Spin The Wheel Of Racism Once More...

...where will it land?

Wha..?

In a last intervention before the end of her tenure...

Well, there's a relief, I guess...

...Achiume said meaningful solutions to the ecological crisis were not possible without tackling racism. But in a bleak assessment of the prospects for the future of humanity, she admitted it was “difficult to imagine” how that message could be made to resonate with people holding power.

 Pretty difficult to get it to resonate with me, and I don't hold any...

“You can’t think that you solve the climate crisis and then attend to racial justice or racial discrimination,” Achiume said.

 Can you break for lunch first?

“What you have to realise is that every action that is taken in relation to ecological crisis – environmental, climate and otherwise – has racial justice implications, and so every action becomes a site of undoing racial subordination.”

Sure, sure...say, can I borrow that hammer? I've a nail right here I need to fix. 

It Seems The 'One Drop' Concept Is Alive And Well...

Ros Griffiths, a 57-year-old community organiser in London, was initially hopeful when Meghan Markle married into the British royal family. She regarded their wedding and Meghan’s initial acceptance into the family as a step in the right direction for the institution.

This is Ros Griffiths. 

This is Meghan Markle.

 See any resemblance? Nope, me neither!

“That’s what I thought initially. Then it went all downhill very quickly,” said Griffiths. “I think [the documentary] further compounded what I suspected all along – that this family that lives off the public purse is not reflective of society.”

I didn't realise that 'race grifter' wasn't somehow also 'living off the public purse'. Who knew? Ming you, she's not the only one...

Natasha Mulenga, a 32-year-old writer and host of the podcast A Soulful Storm, said: “It’s changed my opinion more towards the negative. So much information has come out that really has made me doubt whether the institution can be reformed.”

She also pointed to the recent incident involving Ngozi Fulani, the black charity boss who said she was repeatedly questioned about her background by the late queen’s former lady-in-waiting.

Mmmm, yeah, about that, Natasha... 

Stereotypes Always Have Some Basis In Fact...

Ms Thermidor said soon afterwards that she recorded Betsy Bassis, who was chief executive at the time, having a private conversation with then chairwoman Millie Banerjee, during which the latter seemingly played down the matter.

Ms Banerjee said the situation was ‘high risk’ for NHSBT but that she could not ‘fix the ravages or consequences of 300 years of slavery and 200 years of empire’. She also talked of there being a ‘nasty dichotomy’ between different ethnic groups, with Asians considering themselves ‘well above the blacks’.

Ms Banerjee stepped down in August last year. She denies acting or talking in a racist manner.

Is that not the case, then?  

An external report into grievances raised by Ms Thermidor found she was not treated unfavourably because of her race but that she and others ‘did suffer harassment in NHSBT because of their race’.

Ms Thermidor resigned in February last year. Both Ms Bassis and Ms Banerjee have vowed to contest her claims at the tribunal.

Why Isn't It Up To A Company To Choose Where It Spends Its Money?

Media mogul Byron Allen's $10billion racial discrimination lawsuit against McDonald's was given the green-light to proceed by a US court on Friday, nearly a year after it was dismissed last December. Allen alleges McDonald's intentionally chooses not to pay to place advertisements on black-owned networks - including his own AMG Entertainment Studios and Weather Group - costing the networks millions in potential annual revenue.

So..? Isn't a company eentitled to choose where it spends its advertising revenue, then? 

An attorney for McDonald's, Loretta Lynch, reiterated that Olguin did not rule on the case's merits, and insisted the allegations were baseless.

'[The decision] has nothing whatsoever to do with the merits of the case, but simply allows Mr. Allen to continue to try, as he has for more than a year now, to substantiate his speculative and conclusory claims,' Lynch said, 'We believe the evidence will show that there was no discrimination and that Entertainment Studios' claims are meritless.'

Why shouldn't there be discrimination, though? Why should any company be forced into advertising with specific sectors of the population, rather than where it feels that advertising will do the most good? 

Allen, in a statement, said the case was 'about economic inclusion of African American-owned businesses in the U.S. economy. McDonald's takes billions from African American consumers and gives almost nothing back.'

No, it gives them burgers and fries in exchange for their money. And that's all they are entitled to.