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Downing Street suggests UK should be seen as model of racial equality
Anger as long-awaited report on race and ethnic disparities concludes ‘claims of institutional racism not borne out’
https://www.theguardian.com/world/2021/mar/31/uk-an-exemplar-of-racial-equality-no-10s-race-commission-concludes
Downing Street’s official response to the racial justice movements connected to Black Lives Matter has suggested the UK should be seen as an international exemplar of racial equality, and has played down the impact of structural factors in ethnic disparities. The much-delayed report by No 10’s Commission on Race and Ethnic Disparities is likely to spark an angry response from activist groups, with race equality experts describing it as “extremely disturbing” and offensive to black and minority ethnic key workers who have died in disproportionate numbers during the pandemic. The commission’s chairman, Dr Tony Sewell, said the report did not deny that racism exists in Britain, but there was no evidence “of actual institutional racism”. He told BBC Radio 4’s Today programme on Wednesday: “What we have seen is that the term ‘institutional racism’ is sometimes wrongly applied and it’s been a sort of a catch-all phrase for micro-aggressions or acts of racial abuse. Also people use it interchangeably – systematic racism, structural racism [are] just being used wrongly.”
A preview summarising the report, which is described as a “major shift in the race debate”, notes that while overt racism does still exist in the UK, achievements elsewhere should make the country “a model for other white-majority countries”. It emphasises the academic achievements of children from minority ethnic backgrounds, saying that many students from these communities do as well or better than their white peers. It does, however, call for extended school days to help disadvantaged pupils catch up. The 264-page report has 24 recommendations. However, these are not yet known, as the Government Equalities Office, which is organising its release, opted to put out only a brief summary of the findings on Tuesday. One of the main conclusions of the report appears to be a pushback against the idea of structural racism. In an open rebuff to the arguments of the BLM movement, and the protests that erupted after the death of George Floyd in the US, the report is described as saying “the well-meaning idealism of many young people who claim the country is still institutionally racist is not borne out by the evidence”.
A spokesperson for Black Lives Matter UK said that while the report focused on education, “it fails to explore disproportionality in school exclusion, eurocentrism and censorship in the curriculum, or the ongoing attainment gap in higher education. “We are also disappointed to learn that the report overlooks disproportionality in the criminal justice system – particularly as police racism served as the catalyst for last summer’s protests. Black people in England and Wales are nine times more likely to be imprisoned than their white peers, and yet, four years on, the recommendations from the Lammy review are yet to be implemented.” Halima Begum, the chief executive of the Runnymede Trust, said: “As we saw in the early days of the pandemic, 60% of the first NHS doctors and nurses to die were from our BAME communities. For Boris Johnson to look the grieving families of those brave dead in the eye and say there is no evidence of institutional racism in the UK is nothing short of a gross offence. “The facts about institutional racism do not lie, and we note with some surprise that, no matter how much spin the commission puts on its findings, it does in fact concede that we do not live in a post-racist society.”
The report does note that some communities are still very affected by historical cases of racism, creating “deep mistrust” in the system, adding: “Both the reality and the perception of unfairness matter.” One conclusion is that the term BAME, (black, Asian and minority ethnic) is “of limited value” and should no longer be used by official bodies. As expected, it also calls for a move away from unconscious bias training. On pay and other work-based disparities, the report calls this “an improving picture”, saying that overall, “issues around race and racism were becoming less important and, in some cases, were not a significant factor in explaining disparities”, with areas such as social class viewed as of equal importance. The report says: “We found that most of the disparities we examined, which some attribute to racial discrimination, often do not have their origins in racism.” The language contained in the precis appears to mirror much of the thinking of Munira Mirza, the head of the Downing Street policy unit, who is seen as a particular influence on Boris Johnson on race and other cultural issues. Mirza, who oversaw the appointment of the commission panel, is a longtime and outspoken critic of previous government attempts to tackle structural factors behind racial inequality.
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A plane towing a banner reading White Lives Matter Burnley flies above the stadium during the English Premier League soccer match between Manchester City and Burnley at Etihad Stadium, in Manchester, England, on June 22, 2020. (AP Photo/Michael Regan/Pool).
