Sainsbury’s and Argos Promote Racial Segregation In The Name Of ‘Inclusion’

October is Black History Month, which means a flurry of corporate entities signalling their virtue in a curious attempt to convince us they don’t hate black people. The UK’s second largest chain of supermarkets does not appear to be immune from the woke virus given their recent statements.

Sainsbury’s and Argos (which is owned by Sainsbury’s) both posted statements regarding their plans for Black History Month to their websites. In the below section titled ‘What have we been doing to support our colleagues?’, you may notice some areas of concern:

‘Recently we provided our black colleagues with a safe space to gather in response to The Black Lives Matters [sic] movement’. Of course, by ‘safe space’ for ‘black colleagues’ they simply mean no white people allowed. This is literal racial segregation taking place in a British workplace in 2020.Sainsbury’s are so drunk on their virtue-signalling wokeness that they don’t seem to realise that their ‘solutions’ to race relations are indistinguishable from those of white supremacists. You have to wonder whether they considered separate water fountains at any point during this particular brainstorming session.

The decisions made by Sainsbury’s are deeply patronising and attempt to coddle black people in general. It borderline fetishizes them, seeing them as one voice, one mind—a homogenous group sharing all the same political thoughts—assuming their support for the Black Lives Matter organisation by default. It gets worse when you consider how infantilising it is to assume that black people require a ‘safe space’ from other people.

Also, the admission to an ‘ethnicity pay gap’ raises a few eyebrows too. To pay people less based on their ethnicity is rightly illegal in the UK. I suspect what they intend to do is pull a fast one in the style of the ‘gender pay gap’. Instead of comparing like-for-like roles, they will contrast highest earners with the lowest, regardless of their duties, skillset and contracted hours. This indeed will reveal an ‘ethnicity pay gap’ given Sainsbury's board is almost exclusively white. Which shouldn’t necessarily be a problem. Unless you are pretending to care about ‘inclusion’ and diversity’ that is. One would think that a sincere commitment to these principles would start at the top. Surely if the board were truly committed to redressing this inequality, the easiest thing to do would be for at least one of them to step aside and be replaced by an ethnic minority? But they won’t, because this is all theatre.

As with all pushback regarding the re-racialisation of our society, the response from Sainsbury’s is predictably misrepresentative of what has irritated the general public:

A concern with racial segregation and singling out black individuals for patronising special treatment is mischaracterised as an opposition to ‘diversity’ or ‘inclusion’ and we are invited to ‘shop elsewhere’ if we don’t like it. Ok then.

I’ll personally be taking my custom elsewhere if Sainsbury’s/Argos insist on promoting racial segregation—which is the antithesis of ‘inclusion’. I can already hear the cries of “isn’t that cancel culture?”.

Not at all. I’m cancelling my own custom. Others are free to do the same or not. I’m not demanding that Sainsbury’s must cease trading and I will not be attempting to prevent others from shopping there. I won’t be calling for any sackings either. This is a commitment to individual liberty and a desire to take responsibility for one’s own contribution to the spread of toxic race-based identity politics. I simply refuse to participate in it because I am an anti-racist. And being an anti-racist used to mean a furious dislike of segregating people by skin colour and making assumptions based on race.

UPDATE 05th Oct 2020:

Sainsbury’s appear to have clarified their statement on ‘Safe Spaces’ via their twitter feed:

So, when Sainsbury's said 'Recently we provided our black colleagues with a safe space to gather', they didn't mean an actual 'space' where people could actually 'gather', but an 'online support group' instead. I can’t help but feel they either upsold their efforts for woke cred, or are now engaging in damage control. Not a single person arguing in support of Sainsbury’s statement on ‘safe spaces for black colleagues’ understood their words to be referring to ‘online’ spaces either.

However, if this is the truth of the matter, I am happy that Sainsbury’s will not be considering physical safe spaces for their Black (or any other) colleagues. Not that they have said they oppose such ideas though.

Online support channels are not uncommon within big business, but the idea of segregating group support forums by skin colour also does not sit right with me. This is a regressive initiative that only serves to divide us amongst racial lines.

Stephen Knight is host of The #GSPodcast. You can listen to The Godless Spellchecker Podcast here, and support it by becoming a patron here.