Casey & new statutory inquiry: a simple suggestion

Sensitive matters here, all too often treated crassly and/or simply ignored.  May we hope the new statutory commission will make serious inroads?

I’m going to make a simple suggestion for them, with a bit of intro logic first.  

It is widely stated that, among other legion institutional failures, “the authorities” are fearful of considering ethnic and cultural dimensions for fear of stirring things up (and of course getting serious, career-threatening trouble from the ‘progressive’ direction just for opening their mouths).  Casey documents large-scale non-reporting, and indeed non-collection of data under this heading.  Does anyone really doubt this is a factor?  (There must even be progressives who take pleasure in bringing about such self-censorship.)

Now we know, from a century of study and many centuries of literature, that the average Joe just wants an easy life and is always receptive to danger-signals that might suggest he’s going against the grain, in order to get himself safely back within whatever seems to be the prevailing norm.  (Homer Simpson is a beautifully-rendered exemplar.)  Prevailing norm changes?  OK, just tell me what I have to do now, what is the new salute, what the new shibboleth.  It was ever thus, and we kid ourselves if we imagine that brave, resolute stand-outs against baleful prevailing norms are anything other than a minority (and half of them are, frankly, nutters, even if high personal integrity and courage are also occasionally to be found).  

So we can certainly imagine that the justifiable fearfulness of individuals within “the authorities” who have chosen the path of studiously ignoring, in this case, ethnic and cultural dimensions, has in most cases been not necessarily the result of direct formal instructions, but rather their own nervous judgement in the matter, reinforced by nods, nudges, and general institutional wokery pervading their workplace. 

But.  Institutions and bureaucratic instincts being what they are, on at least some occasions somebody towards the top of some organisation or other will have put something in writing.  I view this as inevitable – just as we know someone else will rapidly have told them to delete and shred it.

The challenge for the new commission, then, is: proactively seek out genuinely authentic cases of written instructions on this issue.  Let it be known that you’re in the market for whistleblowing, and tap into that other very widespread human aspect: resentment of such instructions, and the instinct to take a few copies or screenshots, and to wait for your moment to reveal the incriminating evidence.  

Now’s the time.

ND