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Omar Khan

@omaromalleykhan.bsky.social

2.2K followers 4K following 1.5K posts

CEO of @taso.org.uk, Chair of Trust for London, Executive Committee of Political Studies Association. The usual disclaimers.

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Omar Khan @omaromalleykhan.bsky.social · Nov 16

Sadly, humans can be mobilised in the cause of hatred. We should bemoan & condemn it wherever we see it. We must also defend and promote a positive alternative, of how we can and do work together across our differences, indeed of how those interactions produce the best of us

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Omar Khan @omaromalleykhan.bsky.social · 25m

I've got a lot of fellow dubious Omar Khans, ranging from supplying cocaine to international wine fraud, so I can sympathise...

www.justice.gov/usao-sdny/pr...

International Businessman Sentenced To Two Years In Prison In Connection With Wine Fraud Scheme

Damian Williams, the United States Attorney for the Southern District of New York, and James Smith, the Assistant Director in Charge of the New York Field Office of the Federal Bureau of Investigation...

www.justice.gov

Reposted by Omar Khan

Lindsey Macmillan @lindseymacmillan.bsky.social · 3h

📖 New Working Paper

"Measuring systematic gaps in teacher judgement: A new approach"

😷 We use the Covid-19 induced cancellation of exams, where teachers assigned student grades & rankings within grade

econpapers.repec.org/paper/uclcep...

@opmc1.bsky.social @gillwyness.bsky.social Rich Murphy

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Omar Khan @omaromalleykhan.bsky.social · 3h

This is an ideological, racist understanding of whiteness, as seen in the collapsing of all European ethnic groups and traditions (to the extent that white nationalists read literature, visit ['nondegenerate'] art galleries, listen to Bach) into a whiteness defined by superiority over not-white ppl

Omar Khan @omaromalleykhan.bsky.social · 3h

White nationalists in Britain see themselves as sharing more with white nationalists in the US than they do with any of their not-white neighbours or colleagues; similarly white nationalists in the US believe they have greater claim to British identity than do Asian or Black or Jewish British ppl

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Omar Khan @omaromalleykhan.bsky.social · 3h

White nationalism is an ideology where white ppl everywhere are deeply connected thru a shared identity & belief in their superiority over all not-white ppl

It may vary in the specfics country by country but it's no surprise white nationalists in South Africa, Australia, UK, US support each other

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George Gantsoudes @pedsortho.bsky.social · 23h

Please remember that the disgust people have over Christopher Columbus is not based on some modern, 21st century “woke” ideology, but rather on contemporaneous accounts of atrocities that make many modern genocides appear quaint in comparison.

Below, are the accounts of Bartlomé de las Casas.

But too many of the slaves died in captivity. And so Columbus, desperate to pay back dividends to those who had in-vested, had to make good his promise to fill the ships with gold. In the province of Cicao on Haiti, where he and his men imagined huge gold fields to exist, they ordered all persons fourteen years or older to collect a certain quantity of gold every three months. When they brought it, they were given copper tokens to hang around their necks. Indians found without a copper token had their hands cut off and bled to death.
The Indians had been given an impossible task. The only gold around was bits of dust garnered from the streams. So they fled, were hunted down with dogs, and were killed.

After each six or eight months' work in the mines, which was the time required of each crew to dig enough gold for melting, up to a third of the men died.
While the men were sent many miles away to the mines, the wives remained to work the soil, forced into the excruciating job of digging and making thousands of hills for cassava plants.
Thus husbands and wives were together only once every eight or ten months and when they met they were so exhausted and depressed on both sides... they ceased to pro-create. As for the newly born, they died early because their mothers, overworked and fam-ished, had no milk to nurse them, and for this reason, while I was in Cuba, 7000 children died in three months. Some mothers even drowned their babies from sheer desper-ation.... In this way, husbands died in the mines, wives died at work, and children died from lack of milk ... and in a short time this land which was so great, so powerful and fer-tile... was depopulated... My eyes have seen these acts so foreign to human nature, and now I tremble as I write....

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Dmitry Grozoubinski @explaintrade.com · 2d

This is an exact encapsulation of why I moved to Bluesky.

No amount of handwringing in the Atlantic about how I owe some eternal Promethean suffering to the discourse is going to make me stay on a site I hate, that stopped doing anything for me professionally years ago.

Well – no. Bluesky may or may not be, as one centre-right friend who felt unwelcome put it, “self-righteous island”. But the idea that’s why we went is nonsense. That I’ve largely stopped posting on a site that’s done more to shape my career and social circle than the rest of the internet combined is less about avoiding rival opinions (I love arguing with people who are wrong!) than with the fact the site simply became unusable. It stopped generating the things (good jokes, interesting debate, clicks) I wanted; it became extremely good at generating the things (racists, pornbots, racist pornbots) I did not.

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Ursula K. Le Guin @ursulakleguin.com · 3d

Today, The Word for World: The Maps of Ursula K. Le Guin opens at AA Gallery in London! Curated by Sarah Shin and Harriet Jennings, the exhibition presents a selection of Ursula's maps, including some that have never been exhibited before.

A photo of the entrance to The Word for World exhibition, with two banners hanging vertically down outside the doorway to a brick building with white-paned windows. A row of bicycles are parked in front. The banners are purple and white and say the name of the exhibition and Ursula K. Le Guin's name.

A cord-wrapped rock rests on a vivid blue background next to a map of and program for The Word for World exhibition.

A stack of copies of The Word for World book, which shows the title in vivid blue against a black cloth cover.

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Sam Thorpe @samthorpe.bsky.social · 3d

It turns out that once you correct for this error, unemployment is actually rising faster for NON-degree workers - meaning that explanations in terms of AI replacing the college-educated workforce don't make much sense, and this looks a lot more like an across-the-board labor market slowdown.

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Omar Khan @omaromalleykhan.bsky.social · 3d

Interesting/significant that the MIT statement in response to the US government 'compact' highlights both that it doesn't have 'legacy preferences' nor does it prioritise wealth

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Seema Jayachandran @seema.bsky.social · 6d

We just spent 6 months to add 1 figure to this paper. Some people said, "Couples aren't prioritizing men's careers. Men just have better earnings opportunities when moving."

Earnings effects of moves for couples on the left, singles on the right. Negligible gap between single men and women.

Event study coefficients that show that men's earnings rise more than women's among couples following a cross-commuting zone move (left panels). The pattern is muted or reverses among single men and single women (right panels).

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Omar Khan @omaromalleykhan.bsky.social · 4d

I agree that the 1980s Conservative govt didn't achieve the claims to equal treatment in this poster, and that immigration and integration policy - not just statements - undermined racial equality. But the public statement here is still important for bottling up the worst forms of explicit racism

Omar Khan @omaromalleykhan.bsky.social · 4d

Yes, I made that point in the thread. Notably, this usage was then widely shared, by right as well as left, and in public not just academic or progressive communication. This usage started breaking down a few yrs later, tho continued into the 90s on the left & amg (some) antiracists into the 2000s

Omar Khan @omaromalleykhan.bsky.social · 4d

Tho I'm no fashionista, the suit appears well tailored; flared trousers are coming back in style, right?

Omar Khan @omaromalleykhan.bsky.social · 4d

Obviously there are questions about how far the claims in the poster were achieved, and how far Black Britons were convinced to vote for the Conservative Party, but it's important to recall the political consensus about British identity being inclusive, and this being a positive/good thing

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Omar Khan @omaromalleykhan.bsky.social · 4d

The language here is obv dated. It does show that the use of the 'Black' to refer to all racialised minorities was then widely shared in public discourse (left or right)

The concluding reason to vote Conservative, at the height of 'Thatcherism': to create a more equal, more prosperous Britain

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Omar Khan @omaromalleykhan.bsky.social · 4d

A well known 1983 election poster

42 yrs on, the opposing view 'You can't be British/English if you're Black' is still defended. Powell & the Monday Club did then call for *voluntary* repatriation, a view the Thatcher govt rejected

Many of course disagree(d) w/the poster's claims for other reasons

1983 Conservative election poster stating 'Labour Says He's Black. Tories Say He's British', outlining how their policies will create 'a more equal, more prosperous Britain'

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Wonkhe @wonkhe.bsky.social · 4d

NEW on Wonkhe: What does the sector look like in 2025, in terms of the chances that groups of students can get in or get on? David Kernohan paints a picture using the latest OfS data buff.ly/qqb8LRC

Omar Khan @omaromalleykhan.bsky.social · 4d

It's outrageous, tho indicative of a wider knowing jokiness/dismissiveness about racism, that he and others like him are both tapping into and amplifying/normalising

Omar Khan @omaromalleykhan.bsky.social · 4d

55% of Black British pupils report experiencing racism in school. Tho I appreciate Farage thinks he knows better than these children about racism in schools, that Johnny and his friends experience false consciousness and only believe they've experienced racism because Marxist teachers tell them so

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Omar Khan @omaromalleykhan.bsky.social · 4d

Would welcome your view on the public discussion, but I feel the framing of autism is not just cavalier, but counterproductive if not damaging/stimgatising

Omar Khan @omaromalleykhan.bsky.social · 4d

Around 70 countries have higher circumcision rates than the US, with eg Afghanistan and Nigeria at 99%, and conversely a large number of countries below 1%, including Ireland, Vietnam, Costa Rica, and Portugal

It doesn't take a rocket scientist to know autism rates are 99x higher in the former

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Omar Khan @omaromalleykhan.bsky.social · 4d

Circumcision rates in the US are 80%, whereas they are well under 20% in Europe

Autism rates are not remotely so varied

I appreciate innumeracy and immorality are now baked into decision making, but we should keep explaining and fighting against the harms to thousands if not millions of ppl

Justin Baragona @justinbaragona.bsky.social · 4d

Besides linking Tylenol in pregnant women to autism, RFK Jr. now says circumcision is part of the reason why kids are autistic.

"Children who are circumcised early have double the rate of autism, and it's highly likely because they're given Tylenol. None of this is positive..."

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Prof Christina Pagel @chrischirp.bsky.social · 4d

🧵🚨

The UK’s independent scientific bodies are highly vulnerable to politicisation - over the past 5 months I've been working with @martinmckee.bsky.social to map out their vulnerabilities and it's not good news.

Today our report is published!
www.ucl.ac.uk/policy-lab/n...

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UK’s arm’s length public bodies are highly vulnerable to politicisation

Seven in ten Britons say it is important for top scientific institutions to be independent in exclusive new polling.

www.ucl.ac.uk

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Olúfẹ́mi O. Táíwò @olufemiotaiwo.bsky.social · 5d

repost this if an editor has ever saved you from yourself

violent alien @blipstress.bsky.social · 5d

An actual hot take: Too many authors are afraid of editors watering down their voice or whatever and not afraid enough of editors letting you put any old slop on the page.

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