Opponents of the Black Lives Matter movement and equal rights for trans people have misconceptions about the world. The only way to correct them is to talk to each other
Six things that divide British society
The research is aptly titled: "Detonators in Britain's culture wars". On which fronts are the battles being fought the hardest? Britons are most bloodily divided on issues of political preference, Brexit, pride in the legacy of the British Empire, action against the Covid-19 disease, the Black Lives Matter movement and transgender rights.
A team of researchers from the Policy Institute at King's College London and market research company Ipsos MORI surveyed people taking part in the research on three types of information: how strongly they identify with one side in the cultural conflict; how deep the divide is between opposing camps of opinion; and how accurate people's information is on each issue.
Why support BLM if everyone is taking the same view?
Research has shown something that we probably suspect from the day-to-day realities we live alone today. People with conservative views leaning toward the radical right have misinformation about the world today. They think, for example, that people in Britain are paid the same regardless of the colour of their skin. This belief is easily refuted by hard data. In fact, dark-skinned employees of African, Caribbean and British origin earn on average 9% less than their white colleagues.
This disparity is reported by 77% of those who support the Black Lives Matter movement. By contrast, among its opponents, only 39% are willing to believe such a thing. With that kind of input, it's not surprising that nearly two-thirds of BLM opponents reject the idea that black workers' wages are lower than white workers' wages. The good news, at least, is that none of the opponents of Black Lives Matter think that black employees earn more than white employees.
However, overall support for BLM in the UK is relatively high, with 58% of the population sympathetic to the movement's ideas. How about in the Czech Republic, where the mere kneeling of footballers has managed to make a lot of people angry?
After all, trans people are safe and have rights!
It is worse with the views on equal rights for transgender people. Thirty-one per cent of British society thinks trans people's rights are inadequate; the same number believe that trans people have exactly the rights they should have; and another 17% don't like the fact that trans people have been given more rights than they should have. So society is divided into three similarly sized camps. While on other issues there are always opponents and supporters, and among them a group of undecideds with no opinion, on trans rights there are three groups with clearly articulated opinions. And two of them are not very friendly towards trans people (trans people have enough rights already + trans people have more rights than they should have - 48% of society in total).
Again, opponents of equal rights for transgender people have the wrong idea about how trans people live in their country. Sixty-seven percent do not know that trans people in their country are twice as likely to be victims of crime. Among those who support equal rights for trans people, 79% are aware of this fact.
We need to talk to each other, not close ourselves off in bubbles
But another interesting thing that came out of the research suggests that healing the wounds in a severely divided society will be challenging. People with more liberal views leaning towards the left of the political spectrum find it extremely difficult to be friends with someone who belongs to the camp that rejects the EU, BLM, trans rights or a hard lockdown on a pandemic. The deepest divide is on the issue of lockdown compliance. Its proponents can't even stand those who violated it.
What can we take from the findings of British scientists and scholars for our own lives? Perhaps the opponents of transgender rights and the BLM movement are not so much ill-willed, but rather have a false sense that inequalities have already been redressed and their fellow citizens of different gender identities and dark skin colour already have as good a life as themselves. If we are angry with them and refuse to communicate with them, they will not get more accurate information about the real state of the world. We need to swallow our bitterness and talk together.
