aTalkingDude: Recent Episodes
aTalkingDude
A podcast from a young(ish) African Brit pontificating on a range of issues ranging from politics, economics and housing to football, parenting and music – all from a libertarian perspective. This means that I firmly believe that each individual adult is usually the best person to decide what is best for his or her life. I believe that we should be free to do whatever we want to do as long as we do not infringe upon the liberty of others. I think the best societies are those that are as meritocratic as possible and which maximise people’s individual liberty. All of this means I am opposed to those who, in the name of ‘equality’, ‘socialism’, ‘social justice’ (etc.) seek to control others and restrict their ability to express themselves and control their own lives. I am opposed to social arrangements which allow some people to unfairly hold back other people from exercising their individual liberty. In particular, I detest how certain people are able to extract value created by other people while pretending to be all about free markets and Capitalism. On this podcast you will hear all of these kinds of things discussed, mainly focussed on the UK but with an eye on happenings around this global village of ours. RSS Feed: https://feeds.soundcloud.com/users/soundcloud:users:5772027/sounds.rss Social media linkage: https://twitter.com/atalkingdude https://youtube.com/atalkingdude https://soundcloud.com/atalkingdude
In early 2018, the BBC aired a fantastic documentary called Being Blacker in which they followed a well-known Brixton based record shop owner called Blacker Dread. One thing that stood out for me was how his youngest son who had been having some problems at school was labelled a problem child with probable ADHD. His mother Mary relocated him to Jamaica and he was regularly scoring over 90% in his exams and came across as an eloquent, charming and good-natured young boy. But had the school authorities had their way, things could've ended very differently for him.
The rapper Akala who is half black and white had a somewhat similar at school which he recounts in an interview for the Independent newspaper, he said:
"I was one of the smartest kids in the class ... But I was put in a special needs group because of a teacher who thought I was too bright for a working class brown boy. Fortunately, my mum was already sending me to Pan-African society on Saturdays, so I’d learned to be prepared for this kind of discrimination. I had this armoury that could pick up on it and nip it in the bud and keep me in school." https://inews.co.uk/culture/books/akala-interview-natives-book/
In other interviews, Akala explains that it was a chance visit from folks from the Saturday school which alerted his mother to what had happened, and they managed to get him out of the special needs class. Again, this was probably a lucky escape. I know from other interviews Akala has done that during his youth he was on the peripheries of street crime and violence. But for many boys, this labelling and sorting by teachers and school authority figures would put them on a trajectory headed toward educational failure and crime.
Links: https://www.tes.com/news/black-caribbean-fsm-boy-send-168-times-more-likely-be-permanently-excluded-white-british-girl
https://www.telegraph.co.uk/education/educationnews/10399599/Boys-much-more-likely-to-be-labelled-with-special-needs.htmlhttps://www.theguardian.com/world/2016/oct/04/black-students-teachers-implicit-racial-bias-preschool-study
https://www.ethnicity-facts-figures.service.gov.uk/education-skills-and-training/absence-and-exclusions/pupil-exclusions/latest
David Lammy has again accused Oxford University of racism due to the low numbers of black students studying there. In this episode, I will look at some of the data and give some background as to why so few black students are even applying to Oxford University. Here are the links to the statistics discussed in the episode.
https://public.tableau.com/views/UniversityofOxford-AdmissionsStatistics-Ethnicity/Ethnicity?:embed=y&:display_count=yes&:showTabs=y&:showVizHome=no
https://www.channel4.com/news/factcheck/factcheck-oxford-is-actually-more-likely-to-offer-a-place-to-the-best-black-candidates
https://public.tableau.com/views/UniversityofOxford-AdmissionsStatistics-Ethnicity/Ethnicity?:embed=y&:display_count=yes&:showTabs=y&:showVizHome=no
https://www.ethnicity-facts-figures.service.gov.uk/education-skills-and-training/a-levels/draft-percentage-of-students-achieving-3-a-grades-or-better-at-a-level/latest
UCAS: Factors associated with and achieved A Level grade attainment - August 2016
Equality Report, 2016/17 University of Oxford
Institute for Social and Economic Research, Ethnicity and Degree Attainment, Research Report RW92
http://www.hefce.ac.uk/pubs/year/2014/201403/
https://www.ethnicity-facts-figures.service.gov.uk/education-skills-and-training/11-to-16-years-old/percentage-achieving-a-c-in-english-and-maths/latest
http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/education-29544986
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Yes, Drill Music does help Fuel Gang Violence
Over the Easter Bank Holiday 2018, UK Drill Music burst onto newspaper front pages following a flurry of fatal stabbings and shootings in London and other cities. In reporting on these murders, the media discovered that some of them were related to ongoing feuds or beefs between gangs which are promoted in drill music videos and on social media in general. This set off the usual slew of content, some asking if drill music causes gang violence, some asserting that it definitely does, and others claiming that it definitely doesn't.
In this podcast, I'll give my perspective which is hopefully a common sense angle. In my opinion, drill music doesn't really "cause" the violence in a simple way. But drill music is one of a number of elements that fuels the violence. Many (most?) drill groups are themselves gangs, or are affiliated to gangs and the music and videos are their way of promoting their gangs. These songs are full of references to actual violent incidents involving them and their 'opps.' They use the music to brag about previous exploits, to threaten future violence and to generally portray themselves as the top dogs on their blocks (council estates, mainly).
Along with the music and the videos, they also carry out a propaganda war elsewhere on social media. They actively use their Snapchat, Instagram and Twitters to maintain their reputations and to send shots out to their opps. Once of the weirdest things is that there is a whole army of young boys who follow these gangs/groups like they're football teams. You can find them gossiping relentlessly on who do what to who. This buzz gives the drillers the oxygen to continue doing what they're doing. Reputation is everything in this game. It would be funny if it wasn't for the fact that there are devastating real life and death consequences for all of this.
In a way, I'm grateful that drill exists to shine a light on this dark subculture of violence, narcissism and nihilism which has infected too many of our young people. Banning or restricting drill music will do next to nothing to stop the violence, anymore than restricting access to Snapchat, Instagram, Twitter, will. We as a society need to face up to this world and ask some tough questions about how we got here and what can we do to deal with the root causes.
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In episode 2, I discuss the main reasons why I think we should stop taxing labour and capital and instead shift the tax burden mostly or entirely on to land. This is the basic premise of Georgism or Geolibertarianism. Remember to like, share and comment!
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Cultural appropriation is a dodgy idea for the same reason that intellectual property is a dodgy idea. You can't own ideas, and thus you can't appropriate them. A style of clothing or a genre of music cannot be owned in any real sense.
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