PRESS RELEASE: OPEN LETTER TO MICHAEL GOVE ON BLACK HISTORY AND THE NATIONAL CURRICULUM

PRESS RELEASE.


Immediate release: Contact Zita 07711861660

Best selling authors such as Zadie Smith, Malorie Blackman and Andrea Levy, playwright Kwame Kwei Armah, Civil Rights icon Rev Jesse Jackson,  Trade Union leaders Christine Blower, Mark Serwotka and politicians including Diane Abbott, David Lammy and Stephen Twigg have all signed an open letter to the Secretary of State for Education Michael Gove, calling upon him to rethink his plans to scrap Mary Seacole and Olaudah Equiano from the National Curriculum.

Gove has stated that he wants children to learn ‘traditional’ figures such as Winston Churchill and Oliver Cromwell, and that Equiano and Seacole can be options.

Simon Woolley stated:

‘Dumping Mary Seacole and Olaudah Equiano, denies children of our rich diversity of key historical figures. It is also seen by some as the whitewashing of British history.’

Civil Rights Campaigner Rev Jesse Jackson stated:

'A nation’s history must be told by all its people for the benefit of everyone. Failure to do so invariably ends up talking about the exploits of white men.’

Zita Holbourne, National Co-Chair BARAC UK stated:

'The achievements of figures such as Mary Seacole and Olaudah Equiano in the face of prejudice are to be celebrated so that they inspire generations to come.  The broad range of people opposing Gove's proposal demonstrate the strength of our multicultural society at its best.

Patrick Vernon stated:

‘After launching the successful campaign in 2003 where Mary Seacole was voted the Greatest Black Briton by the public, Michael Grove, Secretary State for Education now wants to remove her from the National Curriculum along with Olaudah Equiano. This gives a clear message to all children and parents in Britain that we do no have a pluralist or multicultural society and thus equality of opportunity is only the preserved for the rich and privileged. Is this history we want to teach and shape future leaders in 21st century Britain?’

Juliet Alexander, broadcaster, lecturer and trustee of the Mary Seacole Memorial Statue Appeal, stated:

‘To exclude Mary Seacole from the national curriculum would be to
remove a vital and important part of  the UK's rich heritage of Black, female activism and to condemn future generations to a poor and distorted history of the UK. The unprecedented response to the OBV petition and public eagerness to fund a statue for Mary, shows the UK's continuing fascination with the fighting spirit of historical heroines like Mary Seacole.’

Notes to the editor:

http://www.100greatblackbritions.com/

http://www.maryseacoleappeal.org.uk/


Open letter to Rt Michael Gove MP
Dear Michael Gove

Remember that glorious summer evening when Jessica Ennis, Mo Farah and Greg Rutherford all won Olympic gold medals? It encapsulated multicultural Britain at its very best.

Given the nations collective celebration which included who we are and what we achieved, it is deeply disappointing that you as the  Secretary State for Education, is  considering removing two Black great Britons - Mary Seacole and Olaudah Equiano - from the schools curriculum.

You have said Mr Gove that you want our children to focus on ‘traditional figures’ such as Winston Churchill and Oliver Cromwell. Seacole and Equiano should also be seen in the rich, often traumatic history of Britain as traditional figures: brave, courageous and inspiring.

After all, 80,000 people - the capacity of our Olympic stadium - came out to pay tribute to the extraordinary Seacole on her return from the Crimean War. As for Equiano, there is no doubt that the abolition of slavery would have endured many more years without his passionate Christian narrative which, at the time, shook the establishment to the core.

Today in our schools children from all backgrounds learn about, and are moved by, the stories of both individuals. It is not political correctness to keep them in, but it is historically and culturally incorrect to remove them from our rich tapestry of history, including the struggle for women's rights.

Even in the 1850s the famed Times reporter Sir W. H Russell said of Mary Seacole: "Let England not forget one who nursed her sick, who sought out her wounded to aid and succour them, and who performed the last offices for some of her illustrious dead.”

That is why thousands of people signed an online petition calling for Seacole not to be removed from the national curriculum. Seacole and Equiano are part of all our histories.

For the benefit of all our children now and in the future, we call upon you Mr Gove to rethink your plans to remove these two great Black Britons from the National Curriculum.

Rev Jesse Jackson Snr
Zadie Smith, Author
Andrea Levy, Author
Pauline Melville, Author
Malorie Blackman, Author
Kwame Kwei-Armah OBE,  Playwright
Dr Rob Berkley, Head of Runnymede
Prof Gus John, Educationalist
Greg Jenner, Horrible Histories
Verna Wilkins, Author
Diane Abbott MP
David Lammy MP
Stephen Twigg MP, Shadow Education Secretary
Michael Rosen, Writer and Broadcaster
Paul Reid, Head of Black Cultural Archives
Steve Martin, Historian
Dr Mary Bousted, General Secretary of Association of Lecturers and Teachers
Lord Herman Ouseley
Lord Victor Adebowale CBE
Baroness Lola Young
Bonnie Greer OBE
Christine Blower, General Secretary of the NUT
Lord Herman Ouseley
Garth Crooks, Former Spurs international
Dr Jacqueline Sanchez Taylor, University of Leicester
Professor Julia O'Connell Davidson, Professor of Sociology, University of Nottingham
Gloria Mills CBE, Unison
John McDonnell MP
Baroness Kishwer Falkner
Bonnie Greer OBE
Kate Green MP
Jeremy Corbyn MP
Margaret Busby OBE,  Publisher
Simon Woolley, Operation Black Vote
Patrick Vernon OBE, founder of 100 Great Black Britons
Prof Elizabeth Anionwu CBE & FRCN
Alex Pascal
Zita Holbourne, National Co-chair BARAC UK & PCS NEC
Khi Rafe, Community Advocate
Lester Holloway, Lib Dem Race Equality Taskforce
Pav Akhtar, Director UK Black Pride
Amarjite Singh – CWU
Kingsley Abrams, Unite
Sally Hunt, General Secretary UCU
Mark Serwotka, General Secretary of PCS
Dr Mary Bousted, General Secretary of ATL
Lee Jasper,  National Co-Chair BARAC UK
George Ruddock, CEO The Voice
Aaron Kieley, NUS Black Students Officer
Jak Beula, Nubian Jak
Maggie Gee, OBE FRSL
George Galloway MP
Freddie Brown, Prospect
Mohammad Taj, Unite
Colette Corkhurst, Equality Officer Unite
Michelle Codrington-Rogers, NASUWT BME Committee
Professor Gargi Bhattacharyya, UCU
Caryl Phillips, Author
Verna Wilkins,  Children's Author
Jeannette Arnold OBE AM
Baroness Lola Young OBE
Alex Pascall OBE
Luke Daniels, Caribbean Labour Solidarity
Roger McKenzie OBE, UNISON
Aminatta Forna, Author
Stephen Bourne, Author and Historian
Tony Warner, Black Historical Walks

--

Zita Holbourne & Lee Jasper
Co-founders/ National Co-Chairs
Black Activists Rising Against Cuts (BARAC UK)

Email: barac.info@gmail.com
Web: http://blackactivistsrisingagainstcuts.blogspot.com
Twitter: www.twitter.com/BARACUK
Facebook: http://www.facebook.com/blackactivistsrisingagainstcuts#!/groups/108132359239521/

Labour's targetting of Ray Lewis smacks of racism

Boris Johnson (left) has reappointed Ray Lewis (right)

Yesterday I noted that Mayor of London Boris Johnson had reappointed Ray Lewis as his ‘Senior Adviser for Mentoring’. As many of you will know, the history of the mentoring scheme announced in Nov 2008 with the objective of recruiting 1000 black mentors for black boys, has been fraught with calamitous failure. Five years on and only 100 mentors have been recruited.

This lamentable effort was a direct result of the personal political intervention of Boris himself and his Chief of Staff Edward Lister in an officer led Greater London Authority procurement process.

You can read all about this monumental grand litany of failure here, here and here.

No sooner was the ink dried on Lewis’s one day a week £20,000 per year contract than some Labour supporters led by the Greater London Authority (GLA) Labour Group and the Labour List blog were fulminating about his appointment with their GLA Police & Crime Spokesperson AM Joanne McCartney claiming Lewis is not up to the job and condemning Lewis’s appointment.

Now I’m no fan of Boris but for Labour to target Ray Lewis for the failure of the mentoring scheme is ludicrous and smacks of racism. Lewis is one of the most effective people I know for working with young people and I say that although I don’t agree with some of his ‘boot camp’ methods employed to keep wayward young people on the proverbial straight and narrow. But fair’s fair: he is successful at what he does and it would be churlish to fail to acknowledge that fact.

Labour seem to be copying the Lynton Crosby school of politics in targeting Lewis for the failure of Johnsons mentoring scheme. This is despite the fact they have interviewed Lewis extensively at a couple of GLA Scrutiny Panels where the evidence of Lewis and the GLA Officer responsible for the mentoring scheme Ron Belgrave, both made it absolutely clear that their preferred choice of a contractor to deliver the scheme was summarily dismissed.

Boris himself intervened, dispatching Lister to knobble the GLA procurement process in order to ensure that the contract was given to their preferred provider and overruling both Lewis and Belgrave.

To now attack Lewis for this failure is deeply cynical politics and stinks of racism. The fact is GLA Labour has been so spine chillingly ineffective in holding Boris to account on anything at all that they are now reduced to relying on racist sentiment in the press and public by labeling Lewis as a ‘failure’ and a waste of public money.

This is so desperately disingenuous as to be unbelievable, particularly in the light of their failure to expose the race discrimination effects of Boris’s policies throughout the last five years.

GLA Labour has barely raised the issues of racism and disproportionality as a consequence of the Mayors policies or its effects on black Londoners and that is in the context of London being a majority black and ethnic minority city.

Over the last few years they have been made to look quite feeble in their attempt to hold the Mayor to account as Boris plays with them at Mayors Question time, much like a bored cat plays with a half dead mouse.

I believe their relative impotence in the face of Boris has led them to grasp at straws as a means of hiding their quite obvious failures in this regard. They have, instead targeted the only black man appointed by the Mayor as a cheap and easy target in bid to mask their own lack of effective political strategy.

Meanwhile the problem that mentoring was supposed to solve: youth violence, continues to get worse, (though actual deaths are down thanks to the brilliant work of our hospital surgeons), far too many young people are cowering in fear imprisoned in their local neighborhoods, trapped by local gangs on the one hand and an increasingly racist police service that can’t tell the difference between gun toting gang members and bible carrying church goers.

It’s a cheap shot by Labour who should be more effectively attacking Johnson not his employees. It’s a growing trend within Labour generally to attempt to capture racist public sentiment on issues of immigration for example. It’s a nasty trend and they should stop masking their own inadequacies, get some testicular fortitude and go after a Mayor who is the epitome of incompetence.

Stuart Lawrence: Stop and Search and the fire next time

The MPS used to be a world class organisation that led the world in tackling police racism. Traumatised by the horror of the deliberate and calculated police racism that allowed the racist murders of Stephen Lawrence to evade justice, the MPS embarked on a radical reform programme designed to rid British policing of the curse of institutional racism.

Today Stuart Lawrence brother of Stephen, a teacher, has complained that he is being targeted for repeated stop and search simply because he is black. Unfortunately his experience is all too familiar to young black people in London.



Stuart Lawrence. (Photo by Keith Waldegrave)



Stuart’s complaint represents a significant blow to the MPS who have repeatedly claimed to have a zero tolerance approach to racism according to the Commissioner Bernard ‘Hulk’ Hogan Howe. He has of late committed to reducing stop and search in London; however history suggests that when there is a reduction in the overall figures, the stop and search of black people disproportionally continues to grow despite top line reductions. 

Don’t believe me? Stop and search of black people across the UK has risen every year since the publication of the seminal Stephen Lawrence report in 1999, yes that’s right, every single year.

(Photograph: Gideon Mendel/Corbis)

Commissioner Howe has a real problem. The organisational and political commitment to tackle racism in policing has all but evaporated as a result of the election of Tory Mayor Boris Johnson. In some ways Howe’s announcement in January this year reminds me of the Government commitment to reduce immigration; designed to placate but completely impossible to achieve.

One of the real bulwarks against reducing stop and search figures is the simple fact that each police officer is empowered through the antiquated medieval Office of Constable that allows each individual officer to interpret the law as he sees fit, enshrining the modern concept ‘operational independence’.

Every sworn police officer in England and Wales is a ‘Constable’, irrespective of rank. It is from the Office of Constable that each officer derives his or her powers.

The Office of Constable means a police officer has the additional legal powers of arrest and control of the public given to him or her directly by a sworn oath and warrant. These are not delegated powers simply because they have been employed as an officer. Police officers are not employees; they are not agents of the police force, police authority or government. Each police officer has personal liability for their actions or inaction.

Those who hold the Office of Constable are servants of the Crown, not employees. Each sworn constable is an independent legal official.

The result is that the Commissioner cannot order police officers to reduce the stop and searching of black people as they are legally empowered to execute the law where they ‘believe’ people are behaving suspiciously or committing a crime.

His other major problem is that his officers are refusing to comply. For years stop and search has been seen as an article of faith for PC’s. They see this power as intrinsic to their control of the streets. It has become a central tenant of policing culture, a culture that is steeped in institutional racism, which infects operational policing at the point of delivery on the streets and where black young people are routinely seen as inherently criminal by police constables.

Howe’s problem though is not just legal or one of low-level subordination, it is also a major political problem. Mayor of London Boris Johnsons approach to tackling racism is borrowed straight from his colleague Minister Eric ‘The Vandal’ Pickles whose stock response to any and all claims of institutional racism is routine denial.



Commissioner Howe & Boris Johnson. Photograph: Dominic Lipinski/PA

In Britain today the political climate is such that to raise issues of racism is to be seen as ‘divisive’, to promote multiculturalism is to promote ‘separatism’. 

Doreen Lawrence has already publicly condemned Government for its total lack of commitment to tackling institutional racism. All of the post McPherson policy infrastructure designed to monitor the incidence of racism and the effectiveness of Government policies has been ruthlessly dismantled in an ideological attack of unprecedented proportions. In terms of race equality policies and initiatives, this Government led by Pickles has employed a scorched earth policy.

The ongoing Tory Coalition’s ideological attack against multiculturalism, anti racism and race equality has eradicated, eviscerated and dismantled all evidence of and commitment to, race equality policies.

Put simply, this Government sees race equality as a political anathema and as such, race as political priority, has long since been abandoned by this Coalition Government.

As it is in the country so it is in London; Boris has reduced London’s race equality infrastructure to rubble.

The consequences have been dire. In London the culture of racial profiling in policing contributed toward the uprising of August 2011 costing the country millions and the deaths of innocents.

Stop and search, black deaths in police custody, increases in racial harassment, the ongoing net loss of black police officers, disproportionate use of tasers and violent restraint on black men, disproportionate cautioning rates for first time black and white offenders charged with the same offence, all of these realities give an insight into the parlous state of the MPS relations with London’s black communities.

The consequence of Tory ideology in relation to race and policing is a catastrophic error of simply staggering proportions. Black and ethnic minorities in the capital are now the majority and it is vital that these issues are dealt or we will witness a capital increasingly characterised by deep hostility towards policing.

Lee Jasper (former Policing Director for London)

Finally Players walk off because of racial abuse

First published at: www.obv.org.uk The Home of Black Politics
By Usman Bott



AC Milan captain Massimo Ambrosini led his team’s retreat, 26 minutes into a friendly match with Pro Patria, after Pro Patria fans hurled racial abuse at Ghanaian-born Kevin-Prince Boateng. Boateng reacted to the onslaught by picking up the ball and kicking it into the crowd, he then tore off his shirt and walked off the pitch.
On his way out, other sections of the crowd applauded him and reacted angrily towards the sections of the crowd where the racist chants came from. His decision to leave the pitch was supported by manager Massimilliano Allegri, who told Gazzetta

I’m disappointed and saddened but I think it was the right decision not to return to the field out of respect for our players and all other Black players.”

Whilst the support for Boateng by his fellow team mates, manager and fans was an encouraging sign, the fact remains that he was still shockingly racially abused. Racial insults on main land Europe continue to plague the ‘beautiful game, with footballing authorities such as UEFA paying scant regard. Just last month, Serbia were fined a paltry 65k Euros for their fans' unprecedented racial abuse against English under 21 players.

Sadly here too, the spectre of racism in football is never far away. Recently defender Clarke Carlisle, Vice-chairman of the professional footballers’ association said “If you’re a black footballer, you stand as fair a chance of succeeding as a white player. If you are an Asian player you don’t. And when we are talking about coaching and managerial opportunities, and the structures of football, black and ethnic minorities still lag behind their white counterparts”.
Today we must applaud what the Milan team have done to support the Black player/s. If more teams walked off and the offending fans had their team lose points, racism on the field would stop on instant.
Usman Bott

Originally published at: www.obv.org.uk The Home of Black Politics

By Simon Woolley

OBV initiate Mary Seacole Petition

Due to the overwhelming response to yesterday’s story* and conversations with a number of people such as Patrick Vernon who established 100 Great Black Briton’s we’ve decided to initiate a petition to the Secretary of State for Education to reconsider putting Mary Seacole back on the Curriculum.
As you will know, petitions are only note worthy when you respond; when we tell our Government that we care about Mary Seacole and we care about having diversity in our children’s education.
Please sign our petition and use your networks and friends to get them to sign too:
https://www.change.org/en-GB/petitions/michael-gove-secretary-of-state-for-education-keep-mary-seacole-on-the-national-curriculum
Regards
Simon Woolley

*Original article below.



The Education Secretary Michael Gove has bowed to the detractors of great Victorian Mary Seacole, and removed her from the National Curriculum.
Gove has stated that students should learn about traditional figures such as Oliver Cromwell and Winston Churchill.
Truth is, Michael Gove would find it difficult to find a history teacher who sacrificed teaching either Winston Churchill or Oliver Cromwell for Mary Seacole.
Seacole’s detractors such as William Curtis of the Crimean War research have called the interest in Seacole, ‘a disgrace to the serious study of history’.
This view along with Gove’s says more about their own prejudices rather than illuminating, educating and inspiring children of all races.
Seacole’s story is much more than about the Crimean war where she made her name.  It is a story of endeavour, great bravery, but perhaps above all it is  about how an ordinary woman, with no privilege, and no support from the nation she served, became so revered by the army class she administered  and the British public.
On her own volition, Seacole left her native Jamaica for London to sign up as one of Florence Nightingale’s nurses. She was refused both a ticket to travel, and when she eventually found another steamer that would take her, she was also then refused by the British establishment to help the nursing efforts in the Crimean war.
Undeterred she made her own way to Balaclava a town in Crimea, in the Ukrain and set up her own  brand of resting place and nursing home  for the injured British soldiers very near the front line.
Word soon got back to London about this courageous woman, who it was said would be dodging bullets to get men to safety. Her contemporary at the time Florence Nightingale poured scorn on Seacole’s unconventional methods, including allowing dying and very sick men to have a ‘tipple’.  However, these very brave men loved Seacole, and after the war had ended, when they heard that she had fallen on hard times rallied to support her.
What makes this story fascinating is that it wasn’t just the officer and army class that sought  to help Seacole  after the war. It was estimated that more than 80,000 people came out to pay tribute to this woman.  When was the last time that amount of people –the size of Wembley stadium full, came to pay tribute to an ordinary woman?  I can’t remember either.
By any standard Seacole was a great Victorian, that a creative teacher can wrap around subjects such as  the Crimean war, nursing, racial prejudice, and  above all that great human endeavour, particularly  by an extraordinary ordinary woman.  A simple yet valuable lesson that seems to have been lost on our Education Secretary Michael Gove.
Simon Woolley

Video: Respect Lee Jasper: young voters

On the campaign trail talking to young voters.

One of the reasons I am standing... #LeeJasper4CroydonNorth

Elect Respect, Elect Lee Jasper: 1, 2, 3!

Elect Respect Lee Jasper Part 1

 Lee Jasper decided to stand for Election in the Borough of Croydon North on 3rd November 2012. The Respect Party launch, was held at Crystals Night Spot, South Norwood, November 11th, and was attended by George Galloway, English Frank and Vas Blackwood.

Elect Respect Part 2

Lee Jasper decided to stand for Election in the Borough of Croydon North on 3rd November 2012. The Respect Party launch, was held at Crystals Night Spot, South Norwood, November 11th, and was attended by George Galloway, English Frank, Vas Blackwood.

Elect Respect Part 3 - Policy