Woke academics have been given almost £1.5m of taxpayers’ money to study the “white-centrism” of British folk music and how to “decolonise” the art form.
Researchers from the University of Sheffield will set out to “examine the white supremacy of folk music repertoire, performers and audiences by conducting fieldwork that will shed light on long-standing regional singing practices in England’s ethnic minority cultures”. according to In response to a report from Telegraph.
The project’s stated aim is to “increase accessibility to the folk club scene and mark the first step in a process of decolonising the folk music canon”.
The researchers have received a £1,485,400 grant from the UK taxpayer-funded UK Research and Innovation (UKRI) Future Leaders Fellowship.
UKRI’s move to use taxpayers’ money for awareness work has been criticised by the Taxpayers’ Alliance, with research campaigns manager Joanna Markong saying: “Taxpayers are tired of research councils acting in their own favour and ignoring all concerns about value for money.”
“These institutions rewrite history and in return force needy families to pay millions of dollars to scholars who achieve trivial goals.
“The next administration needs to crack down on research councils to ensure that only worthy projects are approved and that the research they fund delivers value for taxpayers.”
As in the United States, British scholars have become increasingly preoccupied with ideas of social justice, with British scholars focusing particularly on the supposed evils of the British Empire.
There is also a strong movement to “deconstruct” British traditions and even what it means to be British: last year, for example, “anti-racism” scholars at Cambridge University argued that there was no actual Anglo-Saxon nation, and that they were being used to bolster “nationalist” sentiment in the country.
“The Revolution Will Devour Itself”: Scholars Fight Over “Whiteness” in Anglo-Saxon History https://t.co/nXIoVE7txl
—Breitbart London (@BreitbartLondon) May 15, 2022
Commenting on the obsession with attacking “white supremacy” in academia, Professor Dennis Hayes, executive director of the Association of Scholars for Academic Freedom, said: “There’s no end to talk about universities ordering disciplines to ‘decolonise’ and money being spent on ‘white supremacy’ studies of every imaginable subject.”
“The reason is institutional groupthink in universities, which have embraced the need for decolonization and the victim hierarchy of intersectional theory as essential to upholding inclusive values. This groupthink is a threat to academic freedom. Academics fear being accused of racism if they speak out against being told what to think, so they silence almost all dissent.
“But the only solution is for academics to speak up, to do the time-consuming work on university committees and university conferences, and to challenge institutional groupthink.”
Defending the £1.5m project, Faye Hild, professor of music at the University of Sheffield, said: “Decolonisation is a term that is often misunderstood. Our research focuses on a range of lesser known communities who contributed to the establishment of cultural life in England. Folk music is a genre that has been influenced by many different people over the centuries and is constantly evolving.”
“It’s part of Britain’s cultural heritage and should be celebrated. Our aim is to break down the barriers for people to engage with folk music. Opening up the genre to a range of audiences will help to sustain British folk music for decades to come.”
A UKRI spokesman said the publicly funded institute “invests in a diverse portfolio of research and innovation. Funding decisions on the research projects it supports follow a rigorous peer review process, with independent experts from across academia and business.”
Cambridge University blocks white working-class people from applying to graduate programs https://t.co/mhUZ7hyBCq
—Breitbart London (@BreitbartLondon) February 26, 2023
