Counting the Colours of Prime Ministers

A friend once pointed out to me that there has never been a black Prime Minister in the UK (this was pre-Rishi Sunak), and he asked how I can be sure that that it isn't down to institutional racism. I wouldn't say we can be sure, but I'd say we can be confident. I'm confident because the sample space as a ratio of the population is too minuscule to infer such a dubious causality. A single role, like a Prime Minister, constitutes about 0.000001% of the population, and there are only a few every decade. The set of preconditions required to be a Prime Minister are complex, and there’s no reason to believe that colour of skin is a direct factor.

Last time I checked the UK demographic a few years ago, I found that for every 100 people, there would be 82 white people, 9 Asians, 4 black people and 5 others. If 82% of the population is white, and being a PM requires a set of skills that are rare in the population as a whole, then even purely on arithmetic, it’s not surprising to me that until recently we hadn't yet had a black Prime Minister.

Moreover, even if we had had a series of black Prime Ministers, that wouldn’t show that we are not a racist society. Consider Society A, which is very racist, and Society B, which is not. Because people in Society A know they live in a racist society, and because they feel that black people need a helping hand, 4 of the last 9 Prime Ministers have been black. Because people in Society B know they do not live in a racist society, and prefer to select on merit, they feel that black people do not need a helping hand, and none of the last 9 Prime Ministers have been black. Purely on number of black Prime Ministers, Society B could seem like it’s the most racist one, not Society A, when in fact the opposite is true.

There may, of course, be other non-racist factors that are contributing to fewer black people being candidates for the role of Prime Minister, where ‘racist’, lest we forget, means unfairly discriminating against someone purely on the grounds of skin colour or ethnicity. Think of Easter as an illustration. Bank Holiday Friday and chocolate eggs occur in the same weekend, without either causing the other. The cause is Easter. So it may be that in the scenario above, other things are playing the Easter role, making the society appear more racist than it is.

My own view is that we don’t live in an overtly racist society, because the vast majority of people don’t unfairly treat people based on skin colour and ethnicity. There are many people who perceive our society as racist, but that’s mostly because they miss the likelihood that apparent overt discrimination is usually based on Easter-type factors other than skin colour and ethnicity (see my Blogs on Discrimination on the side bar).

Here’s another factor to consider: humans are built for survival in the Savannah, where other tribes could have alerted us to threats or insecurity, so we are evolutionarily primed to be a little bit discriminatory against other tribes, and be alert to differences in other humans. When tested, the amygdala, which plays a key role in processing fear and aggression, reacts to different racial groups, even when we are not being consciously racist.

I can recall reading studies where people were put in a brain scanner and shown brief flashes of emotionally neutral faces, and the amygdala was activated more prominently if the face was of someone with a different skin colour or ethnicity. I also remember reading about car salesmen who offered better prices to white people than black people. I also recall an experiment where volunteers played a video game showing people holding either a gun or a mobile phone, and were instructed to shoot only those with guns. When white participants were shown black people on screen, they tended to shoot faster and were more likely to mistake a mobile phone for a gun when a black person was holding it.

However, the good news is that studies also show that it’s fairly easy to snap out of prejudices, and treat people like valuable human beings with a unique individual identity, and thereby not lazily categorising them according to skin colour and ethnicity. It’s no surprise that experiments show that people brought up in more racially diverse settings are less likely to be racist, less likely to mistake a mobile phone for a gun when a black person is holding it, and much more likely to be tolerant and accepting if they have a broad exposure to a diverse range of people.

In summary, if we define racism correctly - as unfairly treating people based on skin colour and ethnicity - then I don't think UK racism is anything like as rife as many people think - and it's highly unlikely that racism is the reason we'd never had a black Prime Minister until Rishi Sunak.