David Lammy and the BAME numbers game

According to recently released figures, nearly nine in ten children held on remand in London come from a black, Asian or minority ethnic background (BAME). Under freedom of information requests made by the Howard League for Penal Reform, the statistics showed that between July and September, 87 per cent of children on remand in the capital were from a BAME background.

This is something that deeply concerns David Lammy. Talking about the data, the Shadow Justice Secretary said: “The Government’s failure to act on racial disproportionality across the justice system is resulting in unfair treatment for black, Asian and minority ethnic people.”

BAME is a term that is extremely difficult to address. The term conflates black, Asian and minority ethnic into a single homogenous entity. We are left with the assumption that to be defined as BAME means “non-white” – with white British comprising 85 per cent of the population, while BAME citizens make up 15 per cent of the UK population.

This collectivised and contrived grouping of disparate cultures into one supposed coterie of like-minded people is deeply troubling. It also redefines one particular ethnicity. For example, contained within the rubric of BAME is “Asian”. This rather vague category incorporates almost half the entire population of the planet: people from countries as diverse as Thailand, Vietnam, India, China, Japan, Bangladesh and Pakistan are all conflated together under this definition. There are 48 countries that define the continent of Asia, each of which exhibit wide-ranging social and cultural practices. Countries as different as North Korea to Singapore: each with their own unique culture, language, work ethic, and distinct social and political mores are all classified as Asian. This fact seems to have gone unnoticed by our taxonomically-obsessed progressive academia.

When it comes to the mass categorisation of distinct ethnicities, problems arise when people attempt to treat them all the same. This is evidenced in the ethnicity pay gap figures published annually by the Office for National Statistics (ONS). We are told how ethnic minorities are on average paid less than white British people. Yet, two of these ethnic minorities, Chinese and Indian – who happen to both fall under the same BAME category of Asian – are the top earners. Those at the bottom are also from the same group – Pakistani and Bangladeshi.

Only when you factor in the educational achievement of school pupils, do you realise that it is not a simple matter of oppression and discrimination. Overall, when it comes to GCSE attainment, Chinese and Indian pupils tend to sit at the top of the performance league.

Within the world of statistics and reporting, it has become fashionable to attribute any and all disparities and inequities to discrimination. In many cases, this is either grossly exaggerated or, in some cases, simply not true.

This is something the black American conservative economist Thomas Sowell calls the “invincible fallacy”. As Sowell has shown in his book Discrimination and Disparities, when it comes to claims of discrimination, once a multi-factorial analysis is carried out, these claims tend to disappear.  A similar point was made by Kate Andrews, the Spectator’s economics editor, when she addressed the issue of pay parity between the sexes within the workplace. The simple fact is that we all work different hours, some part-time, some full-time, while some have more experience than others. When you fail to factor in all these different variables, you end up comparing the pay of the intern, fresh out of university, with that of the CEO.

As Sowell points out and as the gender pay-gap revealed, through selective omission of certain factors you can make these reports say whatever you want. These studies, motivated by confirmation bias and tainted by the invincible fallacy, are often rationalised post-hoc into an urgent issue that must be amended by society.

In David Lammy’s case this would appear to be institutional racism.

When it comes to his assertion that those from a BAME background are treated unfairly, we must ask: how is this ethnic percentage broken down? When it comes to criminality, two of the lowest offending groups both come from the Asian category – Chinese and Indian. Making up 0.7 per cent of the population, Chinese people have the lowest stop and search rate of all ethnic groups.

If we are to move forward, we must first face a stark truth: of the 87 per cent of BAME children on remand, 61 per cent were black.

The Lammy review found there was racial bias inherent in the criminal justice system. He claimed there was a “greater disproportionality” when it comes to the number of black people imprisoned in England and Wales. Although black Britons make up just 3 per cent of the population, they account for roughly 12 per cent of all prisoners. But once you factor in the invincible fallacy to this, the discrimination vanishes. Once you adjust for the fact that black people make up 15 per cent of all murder convictions, for example, then the 12 per cent figure seems more proportionate.

Unless we attempt to disentangle this, we will get nowhere.

Through the misrepresentation and selective omission of facts, tainted by confirmation bias, you can make figures say almost anything you want. As the ethnic pay gap figures show – if you are selective you can find any data to support oppression. Also, when you categorise a vast diverse group of people as one homogenous unit, as BAME categorisation does, it does nothing to address any individual problems one racial group might have. Something I believe David Lammy is hiding behind.

It is a sad fact of reality that young black men are stopped and searched on average nine times more than white people. But the police are not to blame for a small subsection of society resorting to extreme violence in London. We need a serious discussion as to why so many young black men are both victims and perpetrators of knife crime in our capital. More than 100 people have been murdered by stabbing for a sixth consecutive year in London. If this is going to be dealt with, uncomfortable questions need to be asked — for example, about the importance of parenting and the presence (or indeed absence) of a strong, non-violent male role model. Maybe, just maybe, parents of recently murdered black youths might want more stop and search, not less.

David Lammy is wrong to believe that Britain is a society beset with racism. But we are not a racist country. Unless the Shadow Justice Secretary is honest and discusses the reasons why the figure is so high for one particular demographic, I fear it will further embolden activists and campaigners who believe black people have long been treated unequally within the criminal justice system. For many activists who took part in the BLM protests last summer, this was a given, leading one activist to compare the police to the KKK. 

Defining someone by an immutable characteristic such as skin colour is prejudiced and often does more harm than good. David Lammy should know this. Why then does he prefer to play the BAME numbers game, rather than help save the lives of young black victims of crime?

A Message from TheArticle

We are the only publication that’s committed to covering every angle. We have an important contribution to make, one that’s needed now more than ever, and we need your help to continue publishing throughout the pandemic. So please, make a donation.