Kemi Badenoch’s ignorance on race and culture

Kemi Badenoch, Leader of Britain’s Conservative Party, posted this today: “We are a multiracial country, not a multicultural country”. It reveals an astonishing ignorance about race and culture from someone who aspires to lead Britain.

We need to start with some definitions. Race is mostly about imposed social categories tied to appearance/ancestry. Culture is mostly about acquired, shared ways of life. They are related in practice far more often than they are identical in theory.

Within most if not all nations there is diversity of race. So Mrs Badenoch herself would be categorised as being of African racial heritage, which she is. Her appearance is African as is her ancestry. She spent her childhood and teenage years in Nigeria though acquired British nationality because she had been born in Wimbledon.

Whether Mrs Badenoch’s African childhood conferred African cultural characteristics on her at the time we do not know. It seems unlikely that it wouldn’t. But when she settled in Britain permanently in her late teens she clearly acquired distinctively British cultural characteristics from her education and surroundings. The way she speaks, her apparent societal norms and her manner are distinctly traditional English.

Mrs Badenoch says she culturally identifies with Christian traditions, she does not actively practice or profess Christian religious belief.  She is an agnostic.

Whilst Race and Culture are not the same thing, they certainly overlap. Religion is often an important aspect of culture and Kemi does not want to be seen to reject “Christian traditions” because, I suspect, that helps her assert her adopted cultural Britishness. As does being married to her Catholic husband Hamish who was born in Wimbledon to an an Irish mother and a father of Scottish descent. One profile says his “…diverse heritage gave him a rich cultural background, combining Irish roots with Scottish-Gaelic ancestry.” So arguably her own family is “multicultural” !

So the overlap between race and culture is present chez Badenoch as it is across Britain, and always has been. Religion is one of the main drivers of this. In North London, for example, there are distinctive and long-established Jewish communities known for their distinctive Hasidic dress and customs, and for their many synagogues and Jewish schools.

Judaism varies in the visibility of its adherents in society but few would argue that followers of the religion to any degree of orthodoxy are not culturally distinctive. And so of course are Britain’s Muslims. including eighteen Muslim MPs

Whilst religion is perhaps the most overt sign of multiculturalism it is far from the only one. Across the nation cultures differ. My three years living full time in Scotland taught me as much about cultural differences as did my three years in The Netherlands!

Across Britain we have cultural distinctiveness as much as we have racial differences. Sometimes, as at the Notting Hill Carnival, they are linked. The Carnival celebrates the Caribbean cultural heritage of the Windrush generation.

We are indisputably a Multicultural country for a variety of reasons (Immigration is not the only one important though it is). The only obligation we all have is to obey the laws of the land , within that we are free to follow our cultural traditions and choices whatever the reasons. But maybe in view of the Leader of the Opposition’s obvious distaste for British multiculturalism those of us who profoundly disagree with her need to say so and why more strongly. And ask her to show more respect for those who are different.