Ridiculous: Welsh Language Upholds ‘White Supremacy’

A Black Lives Matter-inspired review from the Arts Council of Wales has found that the use of the Welsh language is linked to “white supremacist ideology”.

A £51,000 taxpayer-funded review from the Arts Council of Wales and the National Museums Wales found that the use of the Welsh language by itself serves to exclude racial minorities.

The council’s Anti-Racist Union said that the feeling of exclusion emanates from the “the concept of ‘Welshness’ altogether, which often disregards Black and Non-Black People of Colour as the ‘other’ – there is a notion that if you are not white, you cannot be Welsh,” 

The Arts Council of Wales report concluded that it is itself “systemically racist” through its use of the Welsh language and that the very concept of Welsh “meant white”.

“Welsh language policies in current applications can exclude Black and non-Black people of colour,” the review stated.

“The continual exclusion and disregard for black and non-black communities is not due to willful ignorance; it is due to a calculated and repetitive pattern,” the report added.

Responding to the review, the chairman of the Arts Council of Wales, Phil George and the president of the National Museums of Wales, Roger Lewis said in a joint statement: “It is not acceptable that access to publicly funded culture is so unequally distributed.

“It is our responsibility to ensure everybody can experience culture in the way they choose – in-person or digitally, in museums and other venues, or in their communities.

“At the same time, we had to face some difficult and important truths in response to the Black Lives Matter movement and to reflect on our role in tackling racism.”

The Anti-Racist Union said that public bodies in Wales should ease “the emphasis on having to speak Welsh, and providing opportunities to learn on the job.”

It suggested that they could employ “job sharing in roles that may require Welsh language proficiency, where a black or non-black person of colour who doesn’t speak Welsh can work alongside a Welsh speaker.”

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