Is it possible to believe we need to move away from "State-identified" inclusion, whilst remaining fundamentally committed to ensuring everyone is supported to pursue their personal definitions of success?
I happen to think so.
I happen to think so.
It often comes as a surprise to people "how left-wing" I am (although, in 2002, I was described by a Politics and Philosophy lecturer as "slightly to the right of Atilla the Hun"... my politics haven't changed all that much in the intervening 24 years...)
Currently, there is a lot of noise being made about how "white working class boys" have been "abandoned and forgotten by decades of so-called inclusion" - with all the attendant free rein to racists and other bigots that you might expect such an announcement to generate, and groups who've been milking the funding cash cows of "supporting women and girls!" for the past 5yrs having very public fits of pique about how "their" funding is "just going to be snatched away!"
That's the key problem with State-identified 'inclusion'; it gatekeeps funding, making complex personal and societal challenges something that has to neatly fit a tick-box.
It prevents people from working together to address systemic issues that impact multiple groups, because it forces a position of "Group X has to ensure they're not forgotten when it comes to funding!", and co-operation and collaboration is positioned as "watering down Group X's issues", "centring Group Y", or "perpetuating existing systemic biases."
When funders only give support to those causes which tick enough increasingly obscure boxes, bigotry and intolerance of particular groups is exacerbated, because - surprise surprise - a lot of people are facing a lot of problems at the moment. Just because your experience of being human doesn't meet quite enough tick boxes doesn't mean you're not facing barriers that it would take other people's agreement to move or lower for you, or that other people couldn't give you kit and support that would make it more likely you'd be able to jump those barriers.
Simply sniping that "well, life isn't fair!" in response to expressions of frustration, when you yourself belong to a group on whose behalf a lot of money is being spent making life more fair than it might otherwise be, is childish at best, and destabilisingly anti-social at worst. If "life isn't fair", it shouldn't be fair for you either.
In fact, having to simply persist through life's unfairness, rather than assume someone, somewhere, will provide money to remove the unfairness in exactly the way that is most preferable to you, and most precisely meets your own personal needs, would potentially do you the considerable favour of helping you develop the skills to cope with challenges when there isn't money to throw at the problem.
Direct experience of the fickleness of financial security is remarkably bonding. The most ruggedly individualistic people quickly recognise the benefits of becoming team players when it comes to maximising financial profit.
Having to just work through unfairness and frustration makes you more conscious of the barriers other people face, the strengths you lack which others can provide, the gaps in others' experience you can fill, and the ways in which working harder can actually change the outcome, regardless of systemic inequalities.
But if we don't have State-identified inclusion guidance, how do we make sure people are being properly supported? What about those who genuinely face more difficulties than other people? How do we help them?!
Ask:
"How do you find you work best?"
"What do you need to do your best work?"
"What's your preferred communication style?"
"What domestic work falls to you at home?"
"What percentage of your household income does your paycheque cover, and how many people is that supporting?"
"What experiences, language, and attitudes make you uncomfortable?"
The more questions you can think of to ask someone, the more meaningful connections you'll make, the wider your support network will be, and the more peoples' support networks you will be part of; connections and mutual participation in support networks is what builds and maintains community. And community - real, vibrant, active community, with people who are different to us as well as those who are similar to us - is what takes us beyond GoFundMes and constant mutual aid calls on social media - and, in fact, what allows us to move away from social media more easily.
Almost everyone has something that limits them, something they struggle with, something they experience as unfair.
The "blunt object" of "Group X will all find themselves facing poverty, Group Y will all find themselves struggling with interpersonal dynamics, Group Z all face risks of violence" not only places the members of said groups into permanent victim status - which makes it more likely that those group members will experience societal disadvantagement, but it also leaves people who are not from those groups, but who do experience the challenges assumed to only be faced by group members without support to overcome those challenges, which reduces the overall achievement of human potential across society.
Suddenly pivoting to focus on "white working class boys" is a mistake; firstly, the focus needs to be on the similarities in the challenges faced by white working class boys and those who are non-white, and not boys, a change in priority which would lead to greater communication between groups, wider understanding of the specific and individual challenges faced by some groups over others, and a decrease in racism and misogyny - which, themselves, are significant causes of barriers and challenges faced by global majority individuals and women.
By bringing working class and middle and upper class groups together, those with greater resources develop an understanding of why and where their resources could do most good, while those with a lack of resources benefit from the opportuntity to learn how those with resources acquired them, and everyone realises that very few people get to navigate life without hurdles, barriers, and challenges.
We could all list the ways in which we're hard done by, but what difference does it make in the end?
. I'm currently earning less than the minimum income standard identified as needed to support one adult, whilst having to support two adults.
. A lot of the mental load of my household management falls to me, because my wife's ADHD means that I'm better at remembering and keeping track of things than she is.
. I was raised in working poverty. My mother refused to work, my father worked in a slaughterhouse. My maternal grandfather worked in a furniture factory. My maternal grandmother was too ill to work.
. I'm legally blind, I have schizophrenia and fibromyalgia.
. The first years of my parents' marriage, and the first years of my independent adulthood, were spent in council housing.
. I've been homeless twice in my life.
. I've had three occasions where I've had to sell things which were important to me - and, in every case, that I haven't been able to replace - in order to afford essentials.
. I have had multiple occassions where I've spent several days in a row without food.
. I've lived without central heating and running hot water.
All of these things mean I struggle with things that are very easy for other people. I don't have the money to be ambitious or to take significant risks. I can't easily get to opportunities. The number of jobs I can physically do, which I can sustain doing, and which I can reliably get to and from, seems to drop by the month.
None of these barriers and challenges are helped, remotely, by the fact that I'm a "white male."
They wouldn't stop being specific barriers and challenges for me personally if millions of pounds of funding were provided to "support white males."
It would be impractical for the government to provide specific funding to me, directly and uniquely.
Even if every single barrier was removed, every challenge smoothed away, and unlimited funds provided to me personally, there would still be people who achieved more than I could, simply because potential and capability are not things that can be bought and sold. They are things which are built, enhanced, and encouraged in community.
And community can't exist when people are being split into siloes and made to fight for resources.
Currently, there is a lot of noise being made about how "white working class boys" have been "abandoned and forgotten by decades of so-called inclusion" - with all the attendant free rein to racists and other bigots that you might expect such an announcement to generate, and groups who've been milking the funding cash cows of "supporting women and girls!" for the past 5yrs having very public fits of pique about how "their" funding is "just going to be snatched away!"
That's the key problem with State-identified 'inclusion'; it gatekeeps funding, making complex personal and societal challenges something that has to neatly fit a tick-box.
It prevents people from working together to address systemic issues that impact multiple groups, because it forces a position of "Group X has to ensure they're not forgotten when it comes to funding!", and co-operation and collaboration is positioned as "watering down Group X's issues", "centring Group Y", or "perpetuating existing systemic biases."
When funders only give support to those causes which tick enough increasingly obscure boxes, bigotry and intolerance of particular groups is exacerbated, because - surprise surprise - a lot of people are facing a lot of problems at the moment. Just because your experience of being human doesn't meet quite enough tick boxes doesn't mean you're not facing barriers that it would take other people's agreement to move or lower for you, or that other people couldn't give you kit and support that would make it more likely you'd be able to jump those barriers.
Simply sniping that "well, life isn't fair!" in response to expressions of frustration, when you yourself belong to a group on whose behalf a lot of money is being spent making life more fair than it might otherwise be, is childish at best, and destabilisingly anti-social at worst. If "life isn't fair", it shouldn't be fair for you either.
In fact, having to simply persist through life's unfairness, rather than assume someone, somewhere, will provide money to remove the unfairness in exactly the way that is most preferable to you, and most precisely meets your own personal needs, would potentially do you the considerable favour of helping you develop the skills to cope with challenges when there isn't money to throw at the problem.
Direct experience of the fickleness of financial security is remarkably bonding. The most ruggedly individualistic people quickly recognise the benefits of becoming team players when it comes to maximising financial profit.
Having to just work through unfairness and frustration makes you more conscious of the barriers other people face, the strengths you lack which others can provide, the gaps in others' experience you can fill, and the ways in which working harder can actually change the outcome, regardless of systemic inequalities.
But if we don't have State-identified inclusion guidance, how do we make sure people are being properly supported? What about those who genuinely face more difficulties than other people? How do we help them?!
Ask:
"How do you find you work best?"
"What do you need to do your best work?"
"What's your preferred communication style?"
"What domestic work falls to you at home?"
"What percentage of your household income does your paycheque cover, and how many people is that supporting?"
"What experiences, language, and attitudes make you uncomfortable?"
The more questions you can think of to ask someone, the more meaningful connections you'll make, the wider your support network will be, and the more peoples' support networks you will be part of; connections and mutual participation in support networks is what builds and maintains community. And community - real, vibrant, active community, with people who are different to us as well as those who are similar to us - is what takes us beyond GoFundMes and constant mutual aid calls on social media - and, in fact, what allows us to move away from social media more easily.
Almost everyone has something that limits them, something they struggle with, something they experience as unfair.
The "blunt object" of "Group X will all find themselves facing poverty, Group Y will all find themselves struggling with interpersonal dynamics, Group Z all face risks of violence" not only places the members of said groups into permanent victim status - which makes it more likely that those group members will experience societal disadvantagement, but it also leaves people who are not from those groups, but who do experience the challenges assumed to only be faced by group members without support to overcome those challenges, which reduces the overall achievement of human potential across society.
Suddenly pivoting to focus on "white working class boys" is a mistake; firstly, the focus needs to be on the similarities in the challenges faced by white working class boys and those who are non-white, and not boys, a change in priority which would lead to greater communication between groups, wider understanding of the specific and individual challenges faced by some groups over others, and a decrease in racism and misogyny - which, themselves, are significant causes of barriers and challenges faced by global majority individuals and women.
By bringing working class and middle and upper class groups together, those with greater resources develop an understanding of why and where their resources could do most good, while those with a lack of resources benefit from the opportuntity to learn how those with resources acquired them, and everyone realises that very few people get to navigate life without hurdles, barriers, and challenges.
We could all list the ways in which we're hard done by, but what difference does it make in the end?
. I'm currently earning less than the minimum income standard identified as needed to support one adult, whilst having to support two adults.
. A lot of the mental load of my household management falls to me, because my wife's ADHD means that I'm better at remembering and keeping track of things than she is.
. I was raised in working poverty. My mother refused to work, my father worked in a slaughterhouse. My maternal grandfather worked in a furniture factory. My maternal grandmother was too ill to work.
. I'm legally blind, I have schizophrenia and fibromyalgia.
. The first years of my parents' marriage, and the first years of my independent adulthood, were spent in council housing.
. I've been homeless twice in my life.
. I've had three occasions where I've had to sell things which were important to me - and, in every case, that I haven't been able to replace - in order to afford essentials.
. I have had multiple occassions where I've spent several days in a row without food.
. I've lived without central heating and running hot water.
All of these things mean I struggle with things that are very easy for other people. I don't have the money to be ambitious or to take significant risks. I can't easily get to opportunities. The number of jobs I can physically do, which I can sustain doing, and which I can reliably get to and from, seems to drop by the month.
None of these barriers and challenges are helped, remotely, by the fact that I'm a "white male."
They wouldn't stop being specific barriers and challenges for me personally if millions of pounds of funding were provided to "support white males."
It would be impractical for the government to provide specific funding to me, directly and uniquely.
Even if every single barrier was removed, every challenge smoothed away, and unlimited funds provided to me personally, there would still be people who achieved more than I could, simply because potential and capability are not things that can be bought and sold. They are things which are built, enhanced, and encouraged in community.
And community can't exist when people are being split into siloes and made to fight for resources.
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