Simon Marcus – Spiked Online Jan 22, 2020
So the handwringing goes on. White working-class boys are behind almost every other group at GCSE level. They are hugely underrepresented at university, and private schools even refuse bursaries to help them. Worse still, this failure continues into adult life, the government doesn’t keep records on most of it, and few even talk about it.
But the problem has been on the radar for well over a decade. A 2008 report showed that the GCSE grades of white working-class boys eligible for free school meals (FSMs) fell to the bottom of the pile, as black working-class boys’ results began to improve. Girls were, and still are, more successful across the board.
From 2006 until 2011, I was director of the Boxing Academy, a charity for excluded students in Tottenham. You couldn’t get grants or funding unless you explained how you were going to help disadvantaged minority groups. This was okay for us. Our students were mostly black and they deserved extra support. But white working-class boys eligible for FSM, with the same needs and the same broken homes, got nothing.
The reports a decade ago on failing white working-class boys should have focused minds. But they didn’t. Instead, curricula and funding continued to favour minority groups and girls at the expense of others.
The authorities were behind the curve then, and now those boys from mid-2000s are adults. So what has happened to them? We don’t really know because there is no clear research. Any information we get on white working-class boys eligible for free school meals (FSM white boys) in adult life is hidden in the broad category of white male, which also includes Eton-educated sons of millionaires, so it tells us little.
But while there is little evidence regarding outcomes in adulthood, it is possible to get a broad idea of how FSM white boys have done later in life.
For example, unemployment among black males in the UK in 2019 was at a scandalous nine per cent. This shows support is still needed and that the action taken in the past 20 years isn’t working. White-male unemployment in 2019 was 3.8 per cent. This is near to full employment, so nothing to see here.
But, while we don’t have data on white working-class males, look at the unemployment in areas where those FSM white boys from a decade ago grew up, and where they are likely to be overrepresented in the population. In the borough of Hartlepool, for instance, the male unemployment rate is nine per cent.
Benefit-claimant rates by parliamentary constituency in 2019 provide a better like-for-like comparison. Tottenham, one of the most diverse constituencies in the UK, has a claimant rate of five per cent. Constituencies with a large white British majority fare worse. Middlesborough has a claimant rate of 9.4 per cent. In South Shields, it is 9.2 per cent. In Blackpool South, it is 8.1 per cent. If it were possible to identify those who were FSM white boys at GCSE level, you could bet the claimant rate pushes 20 or even 30 per cent.
We know that some minority groups are overrepresented in the prison population. For example, despite people from ethnic-minority backgrounds making up just 13 per cent of the national population, they make up around 27 per cent of the prison population. But of the remaining 87 per cent of the white British national population, what proportion are FSM white boys who failed their GCSEs? Again we don’t know. But we can have a guess. Over half the prison population is functionally illiterate, and we know educational failure is overrepresented in prison. So, again, it is probable that much of that white prison population consists of FSM white boys. That would be a significant overrepresentation.
How many of those men were excluded from school and went to pupil referral units? Around 71 per cent of children at PRUs are white British. They do not come from middle-class homes. The fact that over 42 per cent of students at PRUs are FSM again indicates an overrepresentation of working-class white boys.
For almost all of these boys, it all starts with a broken or abusive family. In the UK there is no available research in this area, but in the US there is solid evidence to suggest that this is where it all begins. Changes in social morals, patterns of work, employment and culture have all had a massive impact on poor working-class men. Both black and white British boys, and others without the traditional values of sub-continental cultures, have suffered from the collapse of the traditional working-class family and community.
It is everything I saw at the Boxing Academy. Broken families, father-absence, low aspiration, a macho, physical culture, the need for an identity, purpose, acceptance and love. These problems need answering. For these kids are far more likely to be victims and perpetrators of crime, join gangs, suffer from substance abuse, and develop mental illness.
The truth is that white working-class boys are one of the main casualties of the 20th-century culture war. The liberal left won, and inaugurated the new world of identity politics based on race and gender. This divisive ideology won’t help kids if they are white.
Brexit tore the mask away, and now we know how the liberal left sneer and laugh at the white working class. Middle-class white men get off easily. They can keep quiet. Or they can join the ranks of the self-loathing, check their privilege and volunteer for diversity training.
But white working-class boys went to school and learned Britain was a uniquely bad country. They learned to be ashamed of themselves and accept that they were sexist and racist. One award-winning teacher said that sometimes it seemed that the only white, male role-model in the history curriculum was Adolf Hitler.
Our education system trashes the heritage of these boys. They never learn of the millions who died prematurely and horribly in the Industrial Revolution. Tens of thousands of bodies still lie buried in mines around the country. Men, women and children. For their descendants the cycle of poverty never stopped turning.
So if you really want to understand why working-class white boys are failing in childhood and adulthood, I will tell you. It is because our metropolitan elite doesn’t like them. And when people don’t like you, they are often nasty to you. Especially when they have a lot of stupid ideas to back them up.
The solutions are simple. Give these boys the same funding and support as others. Just as Black History Month has helped build self-esteem for black boys, let’s allow white boys to be proud of themselves and their history. And let’s give them the skills and values to achieve in life and in work.
Simon Marcus is a writer, political consultant and former government adviser.
After the Scarman report all worked with adolescents were told favour the coloured boys, and if two or more boys one cloured the rest white get the same marks, give it to the coloured boy.
This is racist but its the rules.
We had kids leaving school at 15 and 16 not able to read and write, the coloured boys were offered extra help and tuition but we were not allowed to give it to the white boys. After the London riots which was black gangsm the authorities thought it best to ” give positive discrimation to black boys” what this really was was holding back white boys. Many of these lads through no fault of their own are unemployable,
The Government tells the CBI to employ foreign first, and the govenrnent would sooner bring in foreign nationals many of them coloured before giving employment to their own
I was asked to teach young offenders boxing, this was the last thing you should ever do
as they now know how to fight and injure others, same as gymnasiums in prisons
they leave after their sentence strong fit and belligerent.
The bottom line, is our own governments racially discriminate against their own people
Ur people been doing that, “Under education” thing for the pass 50 years to OTHER groups. Now that “Chickens come home to roost”… I’m supposed 2 GAF. NOT 2DAY!
I could not understand James F
But the Government discriminates against white boys
and racial discrimination is a hate crime.
The government should apologise and pay damages.
I was a community support worker and i would supervise the young offenders.Most crimes were committed by blacks, so white boys were nicked often for stupid stuff
to balance the figures, i had one mild low intelligence white teenager fined for threatening behaviour, he passed a boy in the street and said ” give us a bite of your burger”
A typical thing the police do is the case where a youth centre closed and a group of about 10 boys were sitting ona park bench watched by police.
One boy began kicking at the bench to break it, the police scored by charging all 10 boys with the crime
What do expect from a system that tells you unless you get our mark on grades of conditioning you don’t eat, now that’s an education. Please sir can I have some more.
The only future these kids already know being poor is dystopia and that’s not going to change for them and they know it. It’s not depressing it’s just something they will adapt to hopefully still growing through. If you’re going to educate them, bloody well take them to the lowest common denominator of why this is happening. Show them to research the questions they ask and grow from it. Establishment education is useless, they’d get far more experience mowing an old lady’s lawn for a home cooked lunch than what establishment can offer. Teach them to survive living on the fringe of the system, now that’s an education but they could probably teach the teachers. I’d value their life experience at that young age more than I would Simon Marcus`s establishment education.
Can James tell me at what point he believes the score is settled because I can assure him that settlement is an imagination. If you want to play entitlement games James we can all play that game.
Simon Marcus we are living in a time where your sentiments are justified however shallow they are.
They’ll notice disadvantaged white youth when they react in the only way left, through civil unrest. Whatever starts the next riots, and I suspect like last time it could be police brutally killing a gang member, these lads are going to burn Britain down. When they do they should realise that once it starts it should continue so the damage is so devastating that neo-liberalism cannot afford to rebuild the country. We want something better.
The government has closed too many police and fire stations, and made redundant too many police and fire officers, that they will not be able to do much but watch the country burn. Next time the looters should ignore the shops which generate the economy–TVs, mobile phones, computers, kitchen electronics etc–because in a grid-down situation that stuff’s no good. An old parka from a charity shop will keep you warmer and drier than a designer suit; a camping stove from an army surplus store will give you hot food unlike a microwave without electricity that won’t show a light; and a second-hand bike will get you further than a new BMW from a showroom once its bit of fuel runs out. Loot wisely!
Its true sadly that our own system discriminates against us
the anger of our boys who signed up for Tonies war on iraq, is only superceded by Churchills wars, both faked up on lies, we gained nothing but it made the jews rich.
My nephew who is 7 comes home from school knowing what bumming off is, and that young boys like him should be gad to share their bodies with older men
who thinks this shit up ? what kind of a pervert wants to teach this stuff >
just one group jews.
It’s class war simply. You can’t buy off the entire British working class under capitalism, so you buy off a quota number of the numerous ‘rainbow’ identity groups the racial, sexual, religious and gender identities, preferably middle class so there’s literally no room for working class representation anymore. We need 21st century revolution that’s the only way forward for the majority, we shouldn’t expect middle class parties and politicians (including Labour) to get us -the working class- a crumb or two, it’s well past that now. When did I ever see a working class British doctor, journalist or even politician on TV or in parliament, very few – very rare. We’re simply not represented we’re being rapidy rubbed out of British history and culture in favour of compliant opportunists with no trade union backgrounds or understanding of the centuries of class war and brutality, like the 12 hour shifts children suffered in Lancashire cotton mills in 1800s, while Southern US child cotton slave had to endure 10 hours in the fields, at least they saw daylight and got Vitamin D – while our kids got ricketts. The capitalist system uses all these ‘rainbow’ people to fill in all the gaps (or quotas) not filled by middle class white people in politics, education, media and health care, just ensure you keep down and out anyone from the working class. It’s exactly the same in politics, ever so called radical Left/Socialist or even Community, it’s all dominated by white middle class people, and their ‘rainbow’ allies to block working class activists from speaking or even just expressing our serious political concerns about daily economic things, such as Universal Credit, Bedroom Tax and simply that we get the crumbs off the NHS and education system while the middle class seem able to always get the very best out of the system (NHS, Welfare system) set up to enable the poor to improve ourselves. Just take a look around any big city right now in 2020 and whose faces do you overwhelming see sleeping rough in shop door ways. 8 out to 10 it’s white (British native, whatever we’re allowed to refer to ourselves) male and of course working class, many will be ex-military having fought and killed foreigners for the British ruling class and queen, only to be dumped on to the streets without no access to welfare or support, it’s why the BNP et-al have tried to target them in previous years. But they are simply too ground down -to rise up politically- having been brutalised by poverty, hunger, inhumanity towards them and freezing cold and wet weather. While the majority still remain unrepresented, seemingly unseen, unheard and quietly not rising up like our class did in the 1970s and 1980s riots. Incidently while we are constantly reminded of the ‘Windrush” scandal and talk of compensation (and it was an absolute disgrace). Do we ever hear much (except this text) about white, British, working class children kidnapped off the streets in places like Liverpool – in one example I was told in person, sent on a boat to Canada with other kids – never to see his family again, who then died as an adult in uniform after being sent to France to fight for Empire in WW1 – the very Empire that allowed him to be press ganged as a truanting school child. Nevermind the fact that white working class British born children in children’s homes in seaports even until the early 1970s were sent to Australia and Canada -parents told child had died- to face being worked to death on farms (slave labour) and being sexually abused by the Christian Brothers running those farms. Simply put working class people in Britain have been de-politicised and our communities, culture and history denied and destroyed.