Thursday, December 14, 2023
Woke history?
Is it me or is Kemi Badenoch turning into a rent-a-quote MP? The so-called Equalities Minister has launched into an attack on a perfectly valid historical study into the black death, purely on the grounds that it is examining whether ethnicity was a risk factor in its spread.
The Guardian says that Badenoch has condemned the study after an MP described it as “woke archaeology”. It is not clear what qualifications either the MP or Badenoch have to pass judgement in this way or how they are qualified to propose the dumbing down of academia which is suggested by their criticism.:
Badenoch said the research into 14th-century London risked damaging trust in modern health services and that she had written to the Museum of London, where the lead author of the study in question works.
During equalities questions in the Commons, Philip Hollobone, a Conservative MP cited the study, asking Badenoch, who is also business secretary, to “ensure that such sensationalist research findings and woke archaeology have no impact at all on current health and pandemic policy”.
“I do agree,” Badenoch replied. “I am not even sure whether we can call it just sensationalist or woke.”
She added: “I agree with my honourable friend that this type of research is damaging to trust, to social cohesion and even to trust in health services. I have written to the director of the Museum of London to express my concern.”
It was the first recorded use of the term “woke archaeology” in more than 200 years of Commons transcripts.
The paper, published in the journal Bioarchaeology International, examined the remains of 145 people buried at London plague cemeteries, 49 of whom died from the plague.
By examining five features of the skulls and comparing these with a forensic databank covering modern and historical global populations, it estimated the likely heritage of people who died and found that those of African heritage were disproportionately more likely to have died from plague than people of European or Asian ancestry, compared with non-plague deaths.
While stressing the need for caution given the sample size, the authors said the results suggested there was value in considering structural racism in such research, likening this to the higher death rates for people from some minority ethnic groups during Covid.
When politicians start to interfere in legitimate academic research in this way, then we are on a very slippery slope to censorship and repression.
The Guardian says that Badenoch has condemned the study after an MP described it as “woke archaeology”. It is not clear what qualifications either the MP or Badenoch have to pass judgement in this way or how they are qualified to propose the dumbing down of academia which is suggested by their criticism.:
Badenoch said the research into 14th-century London risked damaging trust in modern health services and that she had written to the Museum of London, where the lead author of the study in question works.
During equalities questions in the Commons, Philip Hollobone, a Conservative MP cited the study, asking Badenoch, who is also business secretary, to “ensure that such sensationalist research findings and woke archaeology have no impact at all on current health and pandemic policy”.
“I do agree,” Badenoch replied. “I am not even sure whether we can call it just sensationalist or woke.”
She added: “I agree with my honourable friend that this type of research is damaging to trust, to social cohesion and even to trust in health services. I have written to the director of the Museum of London to express my concern.”
It was the first recorded use of the term “woke archaeology” in more than 200 years of Commons transcripts.
The paper, published in the journal Bioarchaeology International, examined the remains of 145 people buried at London plague cemeteries, 49 of whom died from the plague.
By examining five features of the skulls and comparing these with a forensic databank covering modern and historical global populations, it estimated the likely heritage of people who died and found that those of African heritage were disproportionately more likely to have died from plague than people of European or Asian ancestry, compared with non-plague deaths.
While stressing the need for caution given the sample size, the authors said the results suggested there was value in considering structural racism in such research, likening this to the higher death rates for people from some minority ethnic groups during Covid.
When politicians start to interfere in legitimate academic research in this way, then we are on a very slippery slope to censorship and repression.
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So we were a multi racial society even then!,
The plague came from fleas on rats .Traced ,I believe, from the middle east.It would affect anybody of any nationality.The immune system of different nationality would/will be developed to cope with illness disease of where they came from.The plague would have affected everybody.
There was no NHS health system then.These sort of comments are being used to 'stir it'.
Remember Eugenics helped Hitler to his position in the 1930s and was also prevelant in UK upper circles .
This is adangerous slide backwards if it is not stamped on.
The plague came from fleas on rats .Traced ,I believe, from the middle east.It would affect anybody of any nationality.The immune system of different nationality would/will be developed to cope with illness disease of where they came from.The plague would have affected everybody.
There was no NHS health system then.These sort of comments are being used to 'stir it'.
Remember Eugenics helped Hitler to his position in the 1930s and was also prevelant in UK upper circles .
This is adangerous slide backwards if it is not stamped on.
So would Miss Bayednotch (she seems to want to disown her Scottish heritage) also deprecate medical research into conditions, such as sickle-cell anaemia and Prader-Willi syndrome, which are clearly related to ethnicity?
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