The real problem with ‘diversity', from a man who knows

The Herald Scotland

2 days ago

I bring this up because the subject of demonstrations has been on my mind since a conversation I had with Darren McGarvey the other day. Darren is the writer and rapper who won the Orwell prize for his book Poverty Safari, which explores the causes of deprivation and tells the story of his own difficult childhood in Pollok. I also saw Darren's show at the Fringe which is based on his latest book, Trauma Industrial Complex, and it was a vivid experience. At one point, rap-style, he reeled off some of the worst moments of his childhood and the audience was uncomfortable because he wanted them to be. Change, the radical sort, doesn't come from comfort.
When I met Darren after the show, we talked about a lot of things but I was especially interested in his views on class which is when the subject of demos came up. The biggest sign of middle-class priorities in the UK, said Darren, came in the fury about Brexit. 'That was when middle class people decided to get out on the street to protect the right of their kids to go and live and work abroad,' he said, 'But they never came out on the streets for austerity, they never came out when the bankers got away with throwing our economy in the toilet, and that's fine, everybody has the right to protect their own interests. But sometimes people like to drape themselves in the veils of diversity and inclusion and forget the equity part of it.'
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Darren gave me plenty of examples – public institutions that have high-profile policies on diversity and inclusion but low pay for their staff, for example, or prices that exclude the working class. But he feels like he's actually lived the issue himself this year by failing to make the programme for the Edinburgh Book Festival. He rightly points out the festival has a certain aesthetic that doesn't sit with writers like him. He also points out that lots of writers don't have the publicists and agents to lobby for them and many of those writers are working class. 'It's a stitch-up,' he told me, 'an industry stitch-up.'
Interestingly, now that Darren has kicked up a stink, the festival tell me that they're speaking to Darren and would like to include him in the line-up for next year, but it does feel like the damage has been done already, or that the point has been made. Policies on diversity, inclusion and equity very loudly and publicly focus on diversity of gender, sexuality and race but rarely, if ever, focus on diversity of class. It's absolutely true that working class writers are less likely to make it on to the line-up of the book festival, or any festival, and it's because, in Darren's words, we forget the equity part.
I suppose what did surprise me a bit as Darren and I talked some more, me a middle-class conservative, Darren a working-class socialist, is that the two of us often agreed on the way forward, the right approach to fixing the problem. Darren spoke about the differences he sees on trips to Europe where there's more balance between neoliberal economics and a social contract and believes there are lessons for the UK to learn, if only we'd listen. Partly because of what he's seen in Europe, and party because of what he's learned from his days of addiction and days of recovery, he says there's a balance to be struck between the role of government and the role of the individual. You could create a utopia, he says, where there's a public service to meet every need and still not get an alcoholic to stop unless they decide to. Personal responsibility has a part to play.
(Image: Newsquest)
I said to Darren, a little tongue in cheek, that this is the kind of talk that could get him labelled a Tory – and he has had flak from certain sections of the Left for his opinions. But he said that to deny the role of personal responsibility would be to deny the evidence of his own life and the lives of people around him in order to maintain some kind of ideological conformity and he isn't willing to do it. I also admire the way he's torn into the festival, because he absolutely should have been on the programme but mainly because he's right: the festival has a problem with equity, class equity, which needs fixing.
The hope now is that the book festival people have got the message – their invitation to Darren to attend next year is perhaps an indication they have. But the despair kicks in, I'm afraid, when we start to think of practical solutions to the wider problem. I asked Darren what he made of the current version of the SNP and his sigh was long, very long indeed: 'a bunch of caretakers' he said, making caretakers sound like a swear word. He also believes there needs to be radical change in the way we organise society, the economy and our politics for true equity to be achieved.
But the other big problem here – and it's persistent – is that the concept of diversity, equity and inclusion that guides events such as the book festival is still ignoring one of the biggest issues that divides us. Darren says class is the defining facet of his identity and why wouldn't he: it's one of the defining facets for all of us, still, and the society we live in. And yet here we are, apparently in an age of greater diversity, equity and inclusion and we aren't talking about class, not really. Which is where disruptors like Darren come in. He's going to talk about it anyway. And make us listen. Good on him.