Downing Street states that the U.K. is a "model of diversity"
The conversation of race and racism is one that we’re all having more and more. Conversations on race inequity surrounded much of 2020, given the clear disproportionate impact of COVID-19 on people of colour in comparison to their white counterparts. From death rates, to the rise in hate crimes, to the impact on frontline workers.
In response to these conversations and after globalization of the Black Lives Matter movements in response to the death of George Floyd at the hands of police brutality, Boris Johnson set up a Race & Ethnic Disparities Commission. The aim was to report on findings in health, education, criminal justice and employment from the lens of race and ethnicity. The commission was formed of a number of “esteemed representatives from the fields of science, education, broadcasting, economics, medicine, policing and community organising”. What this fails to mention is that a number of the commissioners, including the Chair, are vocal deniers of institutional racism, with Dr Tony Sewell previously suggesting that the evidence for institutional racism is “somewhat flimsy”. He has also came under fire for homophobic comments, where he referred to gay people as “tortured queens playing hide and seek”.
The commission’s role was to examine inequality in the U.K. across the entire population. This report has been released.
According to the Commission on Race and Ethnic Disparities Report, a 294 page report discussing race and ethnic disparities in the U.K. which was shared at 11.30am on 31st March, states “most of the disparities we examined, which some attribute to racial discrimination, often do not have their origins in racism”. That is quite the statement, but let’s not stop there.
The report continues to delve into why any disparity may exist. People of colour and activists in this space have actively and openly shared what it means to be a person of colour here in the U.K. We remember the Windrush scandal which saw deportation threats to Commonwealth citizens’ children who have lived here for decades and in this following inquiry to the scandal, it was described as “foreseeable and avoidable”. We remember that fines for BAME (Black, Asian, minority ethnic) groups were 6.5 times higher than for white people, and when asked for an explanation, the Met police could not give one. We remember the different in Black women’s birth mortality rates, where they are 4 times more likely to die in pregnancy or childbirth than white women.
However, Downing Street is suggesting that the U.K. “should be regarded as a model for other White-majority countries”. Is the U.K. ok with comparing itself to others because apparently the U.K. is not as racist, without the awareness that this still means it is racist?
Even then, this awareness isn’t enough. We need education and action. We need conversations on anti-racism to be specific and action based. Unfortunately, the report also has a problem with this, stating that “there is also an increasingly strident form of anti-racism thinking that seeks to explain all minority disadvantage through the prism of White discrimination”. This subtlety means that the “race card” is being used to explain minority disadvantage. However, that doesn’t make sense because there is no “race card” to play because race is intertwined into everything.
One of the most common ways to support racism and whiteness is the model minority myth. A model minority is a minority demographic whose members are perceived to achieve a higher degree of socioeconomic success than the population average, where they are then seen as a reference point of the success that’s possible, making a point that the failure of others is their fault - not institutional racism.
The model minority myth pits different minority groups against each other. And we see this clearly in the report. It states “We were impressed by the ‘immigrant optimism’ of some of the new African communities. They are among the new high achievers in our education system. As their Caribbean peers sit in the same classrooms, it is difficult to blame racism in education for the latter’s underachievement”. Creating this competition against Black communities, in the hope that it enables a sentiment of “well, it’s not our fault. It’s yours!” is insidious and deliberate.
This report does little to have an honest conversation about race and ethnicity in the U.K. In one breath, it states we are a “model of diversity”, and in the next it states that 12% of ethnic minority people thought they had been discriminated against, compared with just under 6% for the White British. It’s noted that this figure rises to 18.2% for Black Caribbean people and 14.9% for Black African people.
Noting these figures, we’re told that this is due mostly to “rising sensitivity... and stretching the meaning of racism without objective data to support it”. The understanding of racism has changed because society has thankfully evolved. What we have accepted in the past is not what we accept now - and rightly so. Keep in mind that many ethnic minority people took issue with these problems many years before, but it is only now that more of society is finally listening and backing them.
The report conveniently omits data which shares that U.K. schools recorded more than 60,000 racist incidents in the past 5 years. It goes as far to state that “the ethnic minority experience is part of the whole, what works for a Black boy in Brixton will work for a White girl in Barnsley.”
Notably, we see Black children doing better than white children at school, yet white adults do better than Black adults in employment, yet the report does little to dig into this clear difference in treatment and experience of the world of work. We very briefly hear about the lack of diversity at the very top of private and public sectors, but that is quickly brushed off by mentioning the current cabinet and it’s representation of people of colour. Let’s not forget that representation is not a singular marker of inclusion.
Like many people of colour and allies today, we are tired of being gaslight and having our experiences second guessed. The Sewell report does little to advance race relations in the U.K., but rather deflects from real truths and difficult conversations. Additionally, when many in charge of the report analysis are active and vocal deniers of institutional racism, how can we put faith in this report?
As Dr Halima Begum, CEO of Runnymede Trust, stated to LBC about the appointment of Dr Tony Sewell and Munira Mizra, both vocal deniers of institutional racism, “the commission had no intention to do anything right around racism other than write to the script of Number 10, which is to deny institutional racism. That was a political decision to appoint them”.
This report does little more than take a political stance on race-related issues. There is no honesty or transparency - just the same rhetoric rolled out, with a side of gaslighting for good measure. Analysing institutional racism should not be done using a “glass half full” ideology and that is exactly what we see here.
