Matt T

Solent revisited

Those with long memories and little social life will remember back in August I made a few criticisms of a post made by Natalie Solent, accusing her of racism. As the Great Kamm would say, 'I wouldn't bother reading past here'. But if you are very bored, I'll continue.

A bit later she replied, and in reply to her reply I said this,

"Anyway, Natalie Solent responds (indirectly) to my post below wrongly accusing her of racism, taking refuge in the old line of 'someone has to say it'. To be honest the post isn't much better than her previous one, with some classic touches such as the phrase 'informed black opinion' (that's the black opinion that agrees with her, naturallly). She quotes Martiin Luther King (an informed black) as if that ends the debate, despite the fact that we clearly aren't in the world he dreamt about, which is why we have affirmative action programmes.

Some progress has been made, as she now says she was only talking about a subsection of the black population. And yet I'll quote her original article again:

"This truth is often denied, but you watch the loudest deniers choose which tube carriage to get into late at night and you will get an education. Even black women will avoid a group of young black men. Imagine the tragedy of a black mother who watches her son go from being a lovable kid to being one of those rowdy, threatening youths. "

There's nothing qualifying the 'those rowdy threatening youths' except that they are 'black, young, men'. However if I misunderstood what she was trying to say then that's all well and good.

Essentially however the point of our disagreement is that Solent believes that black youths try less hard at school because they don't think they'll need qualifications because everything will be made easier for them. I think that's a load of Horlicks. "

I think you get the gist, though if you wish to read Solent's original piece (typical quote 'Because the biggest problem facing black people in Britain (and the US) is crime by other blacks') see here

Anyway to my surprise whilst trying to find a piece I wrote via Google, I came across a further reply from her. I can't make head nor tail what she is going on about, but it might prove informative for some people.

"Next bit. Matthew Turner writes:
Some progress has been made, as she now says [not now says; always did say - NS] she was only talking about a subsection of the black population. And yet I'll quote her original article again:

"This truth is often denied, but you watch the loudest deniers choose which tube carriage to get into late at night and you will get an education. Even black women will avoid a group of young black men. Imagine the tragedy of a black mother who watches her son go from being a lovable kid to being one of those rowdy, threatening youths. "

There's nothing qualifying the 'those rowdy threatening youths' except that they are 'black, young, men'. However if I misunderstood what she was trying to say then that's all well and good.


Well and good for him, maybe. He says that inter-blog wars are confusing and boring. For me the interest level of inter-blog wars goes right up when it's me being called a racist. Try it sometime. So I was motivated to turn to my dictionary. It says of the auxiliary verb "will" that it expresses "insistence, resolve, habit or intention," adding that 'would' is the past tense. Habit or predominating custom is the meaning used in this case. Here are some other sentences using the word the same way.

"Spanish workers will take a siesta in the afternoon."
"Your best friends won't [=will not] tell you, you know."
"On Friday afternoons I will curl up with my copy of Gardening Weekly."
"Blacks will start up their own businesses to sidestep the white-dominated job market." [That last in the sense of an observation of the present, not a prediction of the future.]

This usage is standard English. It's not particularly easy to misconstrue, unless you read with your hand on the trigger."

Eh? What is she on about? Which 'will' is she referring to? And why?

On the other point, where I alleged that Solent thinks black men have it too easy, she says that what she actually is saying is that because 'any qualifications, reputation or habits of diligence they might gain won't make as as much obvious difference as they should', the 'scale of incentives is flattened out. '

This I still think is complete and utter toss. The scale of inventives for young black men certainly is flatter than it is for young white men, but that is because of general racism in the labour and other markets, rather than because of affirmative action. Many studies (admittedly in the US mainly) show that black men need greater qualifications than white men to achieve the same position. That is the rationale for affirmative action.

On a micro level Solen'ts argument doesn't work either. When she blathers on about 'The point is that they think or, what is harder to cure, they half-consciously feel, that it won't make much difference what they do', then she really needs to explain this 'half-consciously' thing a little more -- I cannot believe half-consciously or other young black men believe society rejects or refuses to reward their talents because of affirmative action.

You can picture it now, in Solent-land a young, black man aged 25 enviously watching his similarly-aged white neighbour who went to private school, Oxford and now works in the City, thinking 'If only affirmative action hadn't half-consciously flattened the incentives to my being successful I could be like him'.

There's not a great deal more to be said. It appears I admitted I 'wrongly accused her of being racist' so we'll leave it at that, except to point out that she clearly has a very strange view of young, black men. Luckily for young black men they are not alone in attracting her strictures -- muslims maybe don't have too flat an incentive structure to be decent, but they get an easy ride by the media...

" violence by Muslims is played down by the media. People read the papers and find stories tucked away in corners that they know perfectly well would be spread across the front page if a non-Muslim person or country did the same thing."

'That they know perfectly well" -- you couldn't make it up, although one suspects perhaps Solent does.

posted by Matthew @ 10/04/2003 09:23:00 AM Comments: 0