Showing posts with label Brexit. Show all posts
Showing posts with label Brexit. Show all posts
Thursday, 7 March 2019
Sunday, 6 January 2019
Bias In Britain: Speaking of racism ? Do so softly with your head down.
As we saw the dying embers of a chilly November gradually give way to December 2018, in what proved to be, one of the most turbulent political years, in the post war period, Britain’s leading, left wing paper, the Guardia announced it was to publish, over the course of an entire week, a series of articles, entitled Bias In Britain highlighting the extent of "unconscious bias" and prejudice here in the UK.
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| Guardian: Bias In Britain. |
Brexit and austerity have combined to amplify both the common gross racism of the streets and football terraces in addition to Parliament and Whitehall. Their combined affects has resulted in a doubling down of racism on Britain’s Black communities.
A Black community that, even prior to the financial crash of 2008, was already suffering acute institutional and societal racism resulting in economic exclusion, is now suffering the profound effects of Brexit, that has seen the resurgence of much more muscular, devastating and aggressive form of racism.
My initial response was to welcome the news, after all in these #Brexit obsessed, rancorous times, such a detailed expose of British racism, in our mainstream media, is a very rare event indeed.
However, being a veteran race activist and a recognised expert in the area of race discrimination. I was also little anxious.
There are two principle reasons for this, the first from an unapologetically black perspective; the periodic public and political debate’s on ‘racism’ over the last 20 years, can be characterised by the angst, deep anxiety, uncertainty, sometimes anger, and shed loads of denial and disappointment. The second is in-spite of these reports we've made virtually no progress in the last 20 years in reducing race inequality.
Such sterility of debate and inquiry, have come to typify British debates on racism. Such discussions tend to generate, lots of heat and very light. they're often painful discussions that are far too often derailed by white anxiety, anger, fragility or outright denial.
It’s one of the reasons why, over the course of the last decade, both the incidence of racism, racial prejudice and substantive racial inequality in Britain, has exploded.
Britain’s failure to learn lessons from it’s inglorious, imperial past provides an explanation.
History teaches us that all European economies under stress ,always see’s right wing elites, foaming at the mouth, eager to scapegoat domestic minorities and ramp up racism, as means of distracting people from identifying the real authors of their economic misfortune, i.e. politicians and masters of the universe in the financial services sector.
When it come to the issue of “racism”, for black people, everyday is like Groundhog Day.
What we hear is a lot of talk, and what we see is a surfeit of academic and policy analysis, foregrounded by acute shortage of political action and popular indifference.
What we hear is a lot of talk, and what we see is a surfeit of academic and policy analysis, foregrounded by acute shortage of political action and popular indifference.
In my 35-year experience, such investigations, reports and media articles, on the whole, tend to be conceptually weak, reactionary, anodyne and lacking in terms of both their depth of analysis and ability to arrive at recommendations, capable of making a difference.
We are so very tired of explaining the blindingly bleeding obvious.
Exhausted of being ‘researched’ and of being ignored. Tired of being marginalised as third class citizens in a supposed ‘first-class democracy’, so the last thing we need, is actually more research, analysis and more white middle class angst and prevarication.
And let’s face it, British black communities must be one of the most researched ethnic communities in Europe other than the Roma community.
There are literally decades of these endless reports, investigations and media exposes, all identifying real, serious, substantive racial discrimination, stretching back over decades.
All conscientiously written, painstakingly assembled and published at great public expense.
These reports sometimes catch the publics attention for a hot minute and then are duly forgotten.
There are at least, a couple of aircraft campaigners somewhere in Surrey, where these things are stored. Stacks upon stacks of largely white people's reports, on the nature of racism and what outlining what they’re going to do about.
So yes, I was a little anxious and for good reason.
My additionally worry was, that if the Guardian, reputedly the most progressive left wing paper in the country, cant get this right, with its diverse roster of black journalist and columnists, then we’re in deep, deep trouble.
And these are contentious and troubling times ,with the toxic and hysterical Brexit debate in rancid, full hysterical flow. It is therefore, important that any mainstream media contributions to the debate
on racism, do take us forward.
Problem is, that much of the British left today and in particular, the Labour movement, are totally confused about racism, preferring the traditional and much rehearsed, Punch and Judy, set piece politics, of ‘anti fascism’ that results in chasing Tommy Robinson and Nigel Farage around the country, as opposed to focusing on 50% black youth unemployment, racist policing, criminalisation and immigration policy.
The left’s obsession with fascism comes at the huge expense of failing to support British black communities in tackling substantive institutionalised racism.
So yes I was concerned and anxious. My hope was the ethics of progressive journalism we saw reflected the Guardians excellent coverage of the 2011, disturbances surrounding the death of Mark Duggan, would mean the Guardian would feel a special ethical responsibility to make sure it does justice to these difficult issues.
Whilst the former certainly did, these later articles were for me, less than impressive.
But before we get into all of that, let me clear the semantic decks.
For the purposes of this article to avoid the repetitive use of the dreaded acronym BAME, I will use the term black, as an all inclusive term to describe non white British peoples of African, Caribbean and Asian descent.
I detest the designation, now ubiquitous, of describing all black peoples as ‘ethnic minorities.’
Excuse me?
Let’s be absolutely clear about this, as black and brown British people, we are part of a worldwide global majority, we are no ones minority, whatever the particular national context.
Global demographic growth trends tells us that today and well into the future, the world will look increasingly black and brown, and white people are now the world's newest ethnic minorities.
This may seem a small semantic point to some, but it’s an incredibly important part of a progressive black perspective and analysis.
Lets talk content, the authors of these endless supply of the of 'race focused reports' , sometimes written by academics, sometimes campaigning non-governmental organisations, tend, in the main, to be white middle class professionals or one of the small number of emerging black bourgeoisie.
Whilst both are happy to identify the disproportionate outcomes of discrimination, they become much more coy and reticent about identifying it’s causes, preferring to conclude that the issue of British racism is "complex" and requires "further investigations” and that we suffer an assault of daily "micro-aggressions".
This issue of the use of language is very, very important because, as we know, language has the power to define, confirm or undermine and deny people's lived experience and realities.
Reading this series of articles, although very much welcomed in general, I’m not at all sure the Guardian got the balance right.
Contrast the tepid language of "unconscious bias" as an explanation of the catastrophic prejudice and injustice endured by black people at the hands of white people, and contrast with the recent comments made by the UN Special Rapporteur[3]on racism, xenophobia and intolerance in Britain.
The response from UN representative Ms Tenadayo Achiume was unequivocal and explicit in her strong condemnation of the UK.
She said;
"I am shocked by the criminalisation of young people from ethnic minorities, especially young black men. They are overrepresented in police stop and searches, more likely to face prosecution…"
Don’t get me wrong, I do appreciate the efforts of the Guardian to exposé the real realities of racism, but where is the radical articulation of the politics of black liberation, equality and justice?
It’s critically important, we don’t ‘dumb down’ the problem of racism in the UK, to "attitudinal or unconscious bias", small, localised domestic problem, when in reality, what we have is a full-scale crisis of state legitimacy, a full-scale human rights problem, that is negatively affecting and destroying the lives, hopes and aspirations of millions of black British people.
Here’s my disappointment, from Windrush to school exclusions, from prison population to the ethnic pay gap, onto mental health and well being, endemic levels of poverty and sky high unemployment, I would have expected the Guardian to be able to bring together the bigger picture, with much more focus on the routine denial of human rights and our rights as supposed British citizens.
By that, I mean ensuring that the full political implications and legal context, of our political and human right infringements and oppression, i.e. that of of increasing institutionalised racism, prejudice and bias is fully explored.
Reading the whole piece, I can find no radical agenda for change at all. Surely this is a missed opportunity that could have been used to ventilate radical demands for change.
And it’s not like the Guardian doesn’t have the journalists or individuals, who could deliver such insight and articulation.
The quotes from a range of black activists were welcomed and insightful, but again, by and large, their comments as printed, seemed largely descriptive rather than demand led or solution focused.
Is there a big idea/answer to the question of what do we do about racism in Britain in this series of articles?
If there was, I didn’t see it. And that’s the problem right there, paralysis of analysis.
As a fifth generation Black Britain, I'm not interested in this perennial paralysis of analysis and the mealy mouthed expression of equality, quoted from a standard operating model, torn from straight from White Pages. the white privileged, mainstream, equality and diversity training manual.
Endless research and insipid conclusions have only resulted in bone aching, incremental progress and now under austerity, the reverse race equality regression.
Put simply, is it too much to ask to have race equality in my lifetime?
And if that’ not forthcoming, then we should embark on a radical campaign of economic boycotts and civil disobedience, until such time as we are able to place race equality back on the political agenda and win back our hard won rights.
To do that, we need the British left, including the Guardian to wake up to the realities of racism and to help elevate and ventilate our struggle for equality and justice. The real reality is, we are suffering from the most egregious invasion of our citizenship rights ever seen in Britain in the post-war period.
In addition, we need to stop talking about the discrimination we face in a purely parochial and uninformed way, that downgrades and dumbs down, the very real and substantive racial inequality and discrimination we face. It's nothing more than a fundamental violation of our human rights. We do have important historical precedents for demanding our plight is recognised at the highest level. African American icon Malcolm X understood the importance of not restricting the US civil rights struggle, to the stifling confines of small town, Jim Crown America.
Speaking in 1964 Malcolm said,
“We have to make the world see that the problem that we’re confronted with is a problem for humanity. It’snot a Negro problem; it’s not an American problem. You and I have to make it a world problem…”[4]
He understood the importance of just how we articulate and where we advocate for justice.
To often in Britain, we can allow our struggle to be domesticated, relegated to simple appeals “to do the right thing”. We end up pleading to the very institutions, Governments and people who are primarily responsible for the continued racism we face.
For example, following the publication of the Stephen Lawrence Report[5]in 1999, there has been a successful " countercoup" backlash, led by deeply reactionary forces, and initiated by senior police officers at the time, and fully supported by successive Labour Home Secretaries, following Jack Straw MP.
Their sole aim was to get rid of and discard the use of term “institutional racism“ in relation to modern policing, and they did this with the full support of Trevor Phillips, the then Chair of Commission for Race Equality (CRE)
Today as we can see, the important lessons of Lawrence Inquiry report, have been squandered and lost[6]. The gains that were made have withered on the vine or simply evaporated in the searing xenophobic heat of Brexit. The deeply rooted virus of institutionalised racism that was identified, was not routed and after a brief period of recession, has now become massively amplified.
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| Black Activists Rising Against The Cuts. |
Frankly, I expected more from the Guardian.
Racism, just like any other contractible social disease, where the patient decides to only take half of the prescribed medicine, the infection has now aggressively returned and is worse than ever.
Such timidity has receipts too.
In the wake of McPherson we saw an determined and co-ordinated effort to ‘depoliticise’ police racism, and adopt a liberal preference for the moderate professional language of human resource management theory and diversity, language and terminologies that have now come to dominate discussions of racial inequality and prejudice in the UK.
This is reflective of another British canard about racism, the idea that substantive, systemic, racism is largely a thing of the past and that today, were just dealing with a view errant idiotic individuals and series of one off, largely isolated incidents.
The liberal confusion extends to many British trade unions, which have invested millions in combating the perceived and potential dangers of fascism, have largely ignored the toxic effects of institutionalised racism.
I assume it is easier to organise demonstration against fake fascism then real racism, particularly where it involves powerful state institutions, such as the police, prisons or immigration service for example.
It's a way of being seen to do something, whilst doing nothing.
More generally, the British left and their liberal allies, have reduced the complex problems and deep power politics of racial inequality and anti racism, down to a simple, people management, diversity and/or equality, community outreach/engagement strategy.
Effectively tackling racism requires the relinquishing of power and authority by white people. It's a deeply uncomfortable and confrontation political project and quite frankly cannot be divorced from its subjective reality and historical contexts.
The full facts of the matter are, that when it comes to racism, Britain is in deep, deep denial about the scale of its problem.
This is further evidenced, by the fact that when it comes to decreasing racial inequality and increasing black representation, both in the workplace or in public life more generally, despite the fact that hundreds of millions of pounds, has been spent on ‘diversity strategy consultants’, thousands of race equality reports have been written, and countless media exposures too, we’ve nevertheless regressed as a nation.
When we look in the boardroom, in the classroom and the courtroom, what we see the grindingly slow incremental progress, achieved at monumental costs simply to achieve a staggering slow, glacial rate pace of progress.
The only real progress we've seen is the progression of individual people's careers as a consequence of writing these reports.
This intellectual ‘pimping and cultural expropriation’ of black communities lived experience of racism, captured by white liberals, academics and mainstream race equality organisations, is something we’ve become used to in Britain. Like our culture, even our suffering is expropriated, repackaged and monetised for the benefit of others.
Academics, journalists, race equality practioners enter the urban jungle on exotic safari, take their pictures, talk to the natives, then leave town, write book and become celebrities or instant "experts" on the nature of the black condition and the "complex" dynamics of racism, without a thank you, by your leave, kiss my arse, good bye or nothing.
Too many simply use the black experience of racism, as a jumping off point to develop their own careers, without putting anything back into the communities they pimp.
All sorts of professionals export our intellectual, cultural and social assets, which are harvested, repackaged and leveraged without a second thought for the communities suffering disadvantage.
So with that in mind, I went on to read all of the articles, studies and readers letters, and I was struck by the repetitive use of the terms "unconscious bias" and by the terms "micro-aggressions", terms that, in our experience, usually indicate an unwillingness for white people to own the issue of racism.
What I found surprising in the Guardian series of articles and reinforces my key point, is there is virtually no mention of the central issue, that is the cause of so much racial inequality and exclusion, namely institutionalised racism.
Racial inequality in Britain, has become greatly aggravated, exacerbated and amplified by austerity and the toxic atmosphere created by Brexit. Institutional racism in Britain today, is both resurgent and rampant.
All have contributed to increasing rate of racial inequalities to such an extent, that it now poses the very real risk of inflaming racial tensions according to the Equality and Human Rights Commission. [7]
I would go further, much further, than the Commission and suggest that these tensions, after a decade of austerity and increasing inequality, will inevitably explode onto our streets, with the usual devastating and tragic consequences.
The Guardian helpfully explained, it’s intentions in publishing this important series of articles as follows…
“Unconscious or implicit bias is one part of the explanation for why, despite equalities being enshrined in law, minority groups are still at a disadvantage in many parts of life.
In this series, Bias in Britain, we're exploring some of the ways unconscious bias plays out in the real world. For example, we conducted a poll which found that ethnic minorities are much more likely to report being suspected of shoplifting, refused entry to bars and clubs or being unfairly overlooked for promotion at work.“
It went on to add in the penultimate paragraph of their explanation,
“While some of our biases may begin on an unconscious level, experts caution that the concept of unconscious bias should not absolve people of discriminatory behaviour.
Now I absolutely sure these articles educated some white people on the issue, however I found the penultimate explanatory paragraph above, represented a profound understatement and potentially left the reader with the confused impression that institutional racismand unconscious biasare some how, two different things.
It's worth reminding ourselves that the 1999 MacPherson Report into the racist murder of Stephen Lawrence concluded institutional racism as defined as,
"The collective failure of an organisation to provide an appropriate and professional service to people because of their colour, culture, or ethnic origin. It can be seen or detected in processes, attitudes and behaviour which amount to discrimination through unwitting prejudice, ignorance, thoughtlessness and racist stereotypingwhich disadvantage minority ethnic people."
Such a definition was initially useful, particularly within the context of senior public and political figures, fully accepted the application of this definition, as it applied to their own organisations and institutions, most notably the police.
However, the current regressive confusion about race and racism has helped foster the idea, now sadly commonplace in Britain, that you can have racism and racist outcomes, without any individual racists or institutionalised racism.
Such prejudice is nothing if not irrational.
The idea that you can have an institutional racist organisation without a single conscious act of racism or overly racist person within it, and equally that racist incident’s within institutions, does not automatically translate into an organisation being deemed as institutionally racist.
The Guardian Bias in Britainattitudinal survey is helpful [8]as it confirms in general, what we as black people have known all along, that white people just don’t get racism.
The gap in understanding of racism is huge and illuminates the profound difficulty some have in recognising and confronting the realities of racism in the UK
Such wholesale and widespread discrimination as identified in the survey, can only be maintained and delivered on the scale revealed, through systematic and cultural institutional discrimination, driven by cultural practices of white individuals, within organisations and institutions. Who care whether its unconscious or nit, the effects ar just the same. If a sleep walking man kills some, the victim is still dead, whatever the psychological, physiological stage of the murderer.
I’m not waiting for the benign enlightenment to emerge form their unconscious state of racism. I want affordable, accessible strong anti racist legalisation now.
As Professor Eldar Shafir Princeton University quoted in the Guardian articles states:
“When you tap my knee with a reflex hammer and I kick, that's a reflex. I'm still kicking you a minute later, that's something else."
We’ll all be here for another three hundred years, waiting for white people to give us justice.
No… we have already earned the right to be treated equally and today we have to radically organise ourselves to take justice and secure our rights for future generations.
Back to the series of investigative articles, the series was kicked off with the results of an ICM survey commissioned by the Guardian, of 1000 by ethnic minority peoples.
The result’s confirmed, that which again we, as black people know already, and that is huge swathes Britain's black populations, perceive themselves to be subject to wholesale race discrimination and disadvantage, and that by and large, white people in Britain in 2018, still have no clue about the realities of racism faced by their fellow citizens.
The survey concludes. “…thatunconscious bias has a negative effect on the lives of Britain’s 8.5 million people from minority backgrounds…"
I must admit my hackles began to rise as I read, the gently massaging, nuanced language, of the Guardian, that seemed completely incongruous with their own findings and what we know from other studies.
The Guardian’s editorial on this matter dryly observed:
“It is the norms that need changing, so that they prohibit rather than permit biased behaviour. This means taking a long, hard look at ourselves as a nation to see how we end up discriminating when we don’t mean to.”
For Christ sake, how long do you need?
Here again we see the modulating influence, white liberal approach to racism, by taking a serious issue, exploring it in some depth and yet arrive at the most derisory of conclusions.
I also have to take issue with the article written by senior assistant editor at the Guardian, journalist, Hugh Muir, a friend and colleague for many years, who wrote in a contributory article
"It has been easy, while reading the reports of how unconscious prejudice affects millions of lives, too point an angry finger; but that's too easy because so many of us are complicit."
Although there is much that I agree with him on in the article, I have to differ with him on this important point.
The fact is, and as these series of articles themselves demonstrate, we are facing the largest and most sustained assault on our fundamental human rights, that we've seen in the last 50 years, ranging from the denial of access to equality of justice, arbitrary detention and illegal deportation, access to education, housing, health and employment opportunities.
What we see, is social, economic and political justice denied, whilst we are, as British citizens, routinely and erroneously suspected, disbelieved and excluded, simply because of the colour of our skins.
The truth is, the ameliorating voices of incremental progress, the "winning hearts and minds" approach of non-confrontational, consensus accommodation and compromise, have had their day.
Over the last 20 or so years, and certainly since the publication of the Stephen Lawrence report, we have seen black people pleading, often on bended knee, for people in power, to do the right thing.
This quiet, undignified diplomacy has been the predominant mode of engagement with governments, businesses and the wider civil society, by those seeking progress through incremental reform.
I'm sorry, but today, our own young people cannot wait for the benign enlightenment of those in power to be afforded full citizenship, equality and social Justice.
Power concedes nothing without demand and truth be told, our demands to date have been weak, fragmented and contradictory.
All radical reform, such as affirmative action laws, reparations for slavery and colonialism, radical reform of the criminal justice system, the establishment of Black focused local schools and universities, are all examples of ideas capable of delivery substantive change in our lifetime, and all have been shunned, rejected in preference for incremental change and capturing "hearts and minds.”
We really need to abandon our "Kumbya" approach to achieving equality.
What we really need is to get angry and organised and shut down British society, forcing it to pay attention, through powerful consumer boycotts, organise non-violent civil disobedience, political education and mobilisation, in order to secure our God-given rights.
Black British citizens are living our lives imprisoned by the worst fears and nightmares of white imagination. This is intolerable and it behoves us to radically articulate and organise in defence of our human rights, and those of our children.
In these turbulent times, where the future is uncertain and racial inequality on the rise, the responsibility lies with this generation to do whatever'snecessary in order to secure full citizenship rights, as is our birthright.
Fundamental citizen rights, secured by the blood price, stolen sweat equity and 500 year oppression of our ancestors and our countries of origin, whose people and resources were stolen and used to enrich the "mother country".
Hugh, metaphorically, we need angry raised fists, not open acquiescent palms.
I was a little more impressed with Guardian journalist contributor Afau Hirsch’s[9]article in terms of it’s insight and attempts to "join up the dots" of our lived experience of racism.
She describes how racism destroys, and distorts social and civil relationships, to the point where humanity is no longer recognisable, where pain, depression and rejection replace hope, optimism and opportunity.
Hirsh ably sets out the day-to-day drubbing we endure as black British citizens.
One of the most pernicious aspects of our oppression is the physical and psychological degradation of our common humanity, citizenship and integrity, which comes at great personal cost to our physical and mental health and well-being.
The consequent psychological stress we suffer, comes from having to constantly legitimise and justify our presence in this country. We are rarely believed as black British citizens; we live our day-to-day lives under constant watch, criticism and suspicion.
However, here again, the language used, even in her article, lacks the urgent acknowledgement and articulation of the scale of, what are without doubt, the most fundamental human rights abuses seen in a generation.
It's almost as if, as described by Franz Fanon, we feel somewhat constrained in our own articulation of our real reality
I’m all for conversations that foster understanding, but the unpalatable truth is most White people are no longer listening to us when it comes to the issue of racism.
They have concluded as a consequence of their experience, that we are a people so redundant in ethical leadership, so politically and economically marginalised, that we are easily bought off, and seemingly incapable of maintaining any degree of political unity around any given subject.
They paid attention for a brief moment around the racist murder of Stephen Lawrence, when they recognised how easy we could be played, it was a no-brainer, to walk away.
That's precisely why, this government felt so emboldened as to literally take black British citizens, the Windrush generation, and illegally detain and deport them, without batting an eyelid. The extent of theses bare faced, liberties being taken by this government and wider British society, should give us a crystal clear indication of the general loathing and contempt we are all held in.
Do not discount the rising anger of a new generation of young black people that are simply not prepared to sit quietly and be denied their hard-won citizenship rights.
That will be achieved by challenging racism as consumers, providing challenges to business and legal challenges to Government in the Supreme Court, whilst mobilising communities. .
First we have to change the paradigm and that requires that we replace liberal confusion with radical black certainty.
We know what it takes to achieve equality, now lets go out and get it, uncompromisingly, head held high, ditching the moderate expressions of the past and delivering a powerfully confident assertive vision of our futures.
To the Guardian, those who know better, should do better.
[1]Guardian Newspaper: Bias in Britain; A series of reports on the hidden impact of everyday racism. Sunday 2nd December to Friday the 5thof December 2019
[2]UN rights experts voice concerns about ‘structural racism’ in United Kingdom. UN News 27thApril 2018
[3]UN expert warns of 'stark increase' in hate crimes across UK, post-Brexit vote. UN News 11thMay 2018
[4]Malcolm X, July 1964 The Second Organization of African American Unity Rally. http://malcolmxfiles.blogspot.com/2013/07/the-second-oaau-rally-july-5-1964.html
[5]The Stephen Lawrence Inquiry. Sir William McPherson of Cluny. February 1999
[6]Police still 'institutionally racist' 25-years after Stephen Lawrence murder, Archbishop of York suggests. “Independent 22ndApril 22018
[7]Widespread inequality risks increasing racial tensions, wans Commission. 18thAugust 2016.
[8]Bias in Britain: explore the poll results. Guardian 2 December 2018. 18.00GMT
[9]This is a vital study of racial bias. Now will Britain take heed? Afua Hirsch. Guardian Newspaper 2nd December 2018.
Thursday, 12 July 2018
Brexit Racism: Britain's most deadly of addictions.
What the current toxic debate around Brexit tells us- is that Britain is hooked on racism.
Like some old colonial junkie, British political culture weaned on the fallacies of white supremacism, British exceptionalism and the innate supremacy of Western culture, has become addicted to the perceived political benefits of expressing racist sentiment.
Today wholly objectionable views and sentiments can be conveniently hidden behind the rhetoric of Brexit patriotism and love for one's country.
Time and time again throughout modern British political history, we see the reality that when Britain faces economic stress, then racism inevitably rises.
Why ? This is a result of generations of Britons that has been historically groomed over the last 100 years, to be sympathetic to ideas of British exceptionalism and white supremacist thought.
After the 2008 financial crash British politicians were quick to use the colonial political strategies of scapegoating, divide and rule and the promotion of racism/xenophobia, as a means of deflecting anger and criticism away from those responsible for the country's economic crash, i.e. bankers, politicians and the wealthy elites.
British politicians can be regularly heard describing old Blighty, as one of the most "tolerant nations" in the world.
This term is usually deployed in defence against some allegation of racism or bigotry and as counter prevailing point, seeking to demonstrate that isolated incidents of prejudice do not translate into Britain being a racist nation. Usually deployed with both pride and vigour and sometimes with a sense of outrage.
How can it be that a country like Britain, with such a proud history of anti-facism/racism and a commitment to equality can be so grievously accused, particularly when compared with the lack of access to justice and gross human rights abuses of other less civilised countries.
Personally, I despise the term "tolerance" and have written about why… extensively here.
In short you don't tolerate your fellow citizen, you tolerate an alien virus.
It's a deeply revealing and accurate choice of words, describing feelings of annoyance, sufferance, bearing up under great duress and indicating a toxic perspective that pathologies black communities as being an "alien" presence; living on England’s pleasant, pastures green.
This is the fundamental problem with the notion of an inclusive British citizenship and it's a problem that slows all progress in defeating racism and tackling racial inequality, whose negative effects can be seen everywhere, from school exclusions to British immigration policy and beyond.
We all know that Britain’s historical imperial legacy is one dominated by the politics of global white supremacy. A wretched politics, fuelled by scientific racism, armed conquest and colonial theft and all done in the glorious name of King and Empire.
The persistent refusal of Great Britannia alongside other European colonial powers, to formally acknowledge and pay reparations for the brutal and long-lasting, legacies of colonialism and slavery has been an enduring and stubborn resistance, to demands for justice.
That unrepentant attitude and sense of British arrogance and entitlement I believe is now set to destroy the very country itself and possibly Europe too
Today we see a Europe refusing to acknowledge the sins of the past and its own history of racism and prejudice and appears condemned to repeat its past bloodied and tragic history.
Dramatic statements huh…bear with me and I’ll try to explain…
The sense of innate British superiority and exceptionalism, that so drove and informed the project of colonial conquest, today lingers like a toxic, bad smell that emanates from an unattended collapsed and antiquated, sewage dump.
It’s my humble opinion that the very dysfunctional, but profitable in the context of white supremacy, attitudes, beliefs and sentiments, that made Britain so greatin the past, i.e. racism, oppression and exploitation, are now making a dramatic and repulsive return. It's my contention that these irrational attitudes, covered with the cloak of modern day Brexit patriotism, provide the psychological backdrop to a nation that is violently tearing itself apart.
As we saw recently, Prime Minister May’s attempt to fashion a Tory consensus over Brexit, failed dramatically. The so-called Chequers Agreement had failed before the ink had dried. 'The whole Europe issue provides a existential crisis to a Tory party that has seen itself, torn apart in violent contortion as it attempts to reconcile its historical deep schism on the issue of Europe.
The whole debacle reminds me of one of the world's greatest and most profound historical truths,
And its simply this, when one considers the rise and fall of many a great empire, their ultimate demise can usually be traced, not always to some external or existential threat, these empires often fell because they contained within them the seeds of their own destruction.
Any student of history will observe that the universal lesson world history, that emerges for all to see is that what made these empires "great" - can be the very thing that ultimately destroys them.
Britain’s constant and dogged refusal to acknowledge its colonial crimes, the political and economic advantages it provides, has led to the political establishment and media addictions to racism. It’s this, now widespread ignorance in the form of the nations, popular social addiction, to bigotry, racism and xenophobia, that that has now brought the country to the brink of this catastrophic Brexit abyss.
And let's remember how we got here. The hard line racism and xenophobia of the now defunct UKIP party of Nigel Farage, terrified the Tories in 2010. Then PM David Cameron, sought to harvest the UKIP vote by conceding to racism, proposing Draconian immigration policies, in addition to offering an in/out referendum, he no doubt thought he’d win, and the rest, as they say, is history.
Harried by a racist UKIP then, Cameron’s Tories caved in to racism and instead of challenging UKIPS wretched politics, they cut and run to a referendum.
The brutal truth is that the Tories conceded to racism. And that needless and unnecessary concession has now plunged the county into talking chaos. What’s indisputable is the fact that popular British racism and xenophobia triggered this disastrous series of political events.
Today the unwanted legacies of colonialism are haunting its present day beneficiaries.
Don’t believe me? Then look to the extent to which the Northern Ireland border question, yet another unresolved and profound legacy of colonialism, appears to a straw that will ultimately break Brexit Britain’s back.
I know, when it comes to colonialism, slavery and contemporary racism, we've all been told repeatedly to "move on" and get over it. Despite this, you and I know that when it comes to world history, deep historical unacknowledged wrongs, never really go away. Time after time, we see unresolved historical issues burst onto the contemporary world scene with an energy and vigour that would have you believe such injustice only occurred yesterday.
Such fundamental historical issues don't fade away as time passes, they remain raw in the consciousness of its present day victims, a history passed on from one generation to the next. They fester and become cancerous, eating away at the moral consciousness of the nation, morally corrupting both the present day beneficiaries and those irresponsible politicians and media continue to feed on its toxic legacy. Whilst all the time inflicting further injustice and oppression on the living victims of the descendants of the oppressed.
British Black people today continue to suffer from the legacy of both historical and contemporary injustices.
The universal truth is simple and profound; those that doggedly refuse to learn the lessons and acknowledge their mistakes of their past, are tragically destined to repeat them in the future.
The popular notions of British exceptionalism and white superiority informed, justified and underpinned the British Imperial project. This reinforcing ideology, often articulated being nothing more than patriotic, has been faithfully maintained and maintain for decades.
Modern-day contemporary British racism, the modern-day legacy of colonialism, has been a constant feature of modern British political life.
Throughout the post war period, the constant popular demonisation of migrants, Black’s and Asians has today created a social and economic environment that is most definitely hostile, but also reflects a national attitude, and long held unspoken sentiment, that if only all these bloody foreigners would all go home, Britain could be great again.
Since the Brexit referendum, British skies have become dark with colonial chickens, coming home to roost.
Former colonial subjects, now British citizens (allegedly), are now subjected to increasing institutional racism, racial inequality, rancid immigration rhetoric and illegal deportations.
Hate crimes, violent racism and religious bigotry have all risen since the EU referendum, having been given a green light by irresponsible politicians, who along with sections of the media who together have fanned the flames of racism for short term electoral gain.
We all know that racism and discriminatory sentiment, by there very nature are both illogical and irrational. Facts and objective reasoning cannot convince those who are addicted to bigotry to change their views.
Immersed in a popular British culture of xenophobia and racism, large sections of British public are largely immune to the rational and economic appeals of civil society and big business about the dangers of Brexit.
Racism siren call is almost irresistible to a groomed, inducted, largely uneducated and badly informed nation. Many Brits believe that immigration is a tolerated social evil, and not as can be objectively evidenced, a hugely positive force for social and economic good.
Brexit has challenged the idea that racism, long seen as purely a function of capitalist exploitation, is ultimately designed to ensure profit. However what this bout of racist sentiment demonstrates is that unrestrained and extreme racism, will even over power the profit margin. In some senses British people knowingly voted to become a poorer, less diverse nation.
This is a populace infected and groomed by the elite, who now regularly need their perennial fix of racism, a social fever agitated to extreme as we saw with the brutal murder of Joe Cox MP and resulting in a bout of Brexit insanity, with Britain, despite the profound negative economic consequences seeking to cut of its own nose, simply to spite it’s face.
What recent elections in Britain, Europe and North America are showing us is that in the worlds political economy, bigotry and racism are the political equivalent of crack Cocaine and twice as addictive.
The country has been brought to its knees I believe as a direct result of the unresolved legacy of British colonialism and the ever popular notions of tolerance, exceptionalism, xenophobia and racism.
We all know, and despite the fervent denials of Brexiteers, that issues of racism and immigration were, for many, the deciding factors, the key issues, that convinced then to vote to leave the European Union. That results have been that the type of racism long thought dead in the UK, has been resuscitated and given a new lease of life by Brexit debate.
The British populace, fed historically on a constant diet of xenophobic and racist propaganda, has been perfectly groomed by the elite right-wing media, into concluding that ethnic, cultural, religious difference and plurality are the reasons for Britain’s slow economic decline and not the flagrant irresponsibility of casino Banks, high rolling, asset stripping, hedge fund managers, that caused the economic crash 2008.
Many Brits have been convinced their non-English neighbours are the reason for their economic misfortune. In that sense, (given the consistent thread of racism that runs through the contemporary history of modern Britain), is it any wonder that the many of the public came to the conclusion, that the "others" were primarily to blame for all the ills they face?
Scapegoating is an enduring British colonial tradition, used by those in power to distract ordinary people from the real authors of their misery. Divide and rule was a classic colonial strategy and hooked on the racism, colonialism left behind, sections of the British view the “other” with a growing sense of division, separation and enmity.
So, after two years of utter chaos within the Conservative Party Prime Minister, Teresa May faces her toughest test yet, as she desperately seeks to maintain her dwindling and deeply divided Cabinet.
It’s the single most important political discussion Britain has had since the war, and both the implications and consequences of whatever’s decided will be profound.
And to think that, in part, Britain's dogged refusal to acknowledge racism, colonialism and ultimately their failure to apologise and pay reparations for these historic crimes, has now brought the UK to this point in history, is ironic and demonstrates the extraordinary resilience and
Played with like a political football, stoking racist sentiment can have explosive, tragic and sometimes devastating results.
Britain needs urgent treatment to detoxify its addiction to racism and xenophobia and that process starts with acknowledgment, apology and reparation. Either that or it must learn to live with the universal reality that what goes around, comes around… baby.
Lee Jasper
@LeeJasper
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