The report is full of mistakes and distorted facts. Evidence has been retrofitted to inspire outrage
Plenty has been said about the politics of the government’s latest report on race. Barely any attention has been paid by most of the media to its actual evidence, even from supporters delighted that it has some. “This report DOES have facts,” cooed Rod Liddle in the Sun, with the same sunny pleasure that a toddler might take from a book having words.
Yet the nature of those facts has barely been scrutinised by journalists. Instead, newspapers on the right have complained about “zealots of wokedom” (the Express) and their “baseless abuse” (the Telegraph) of Tony Sewell, the commission’s chief. As Matthew Syed wrote in the Sunday Times, “shouldn’t this be on the evidence rather than the person who assembled it; shouldn’t we play the ball rather than the man?” Fair enough, although he doesn’t bother examining the evidence either. Not so much playing the ball as just being very chuffed there’s something that looks like one.
Continue reading...from The Guardian https://ift.tt/3tnSQZ5
