Britain: One of the most ‘tolerant’ nations in the world?



Illustration/Stokely Baksh



Is Britain a post-racist society? The Governments view is that for the most part institutional racism and covert racism are relics of history. Britain, they are fond of saying is ‘the most tolerant country in the world. This hackneyed and much overused term is usually offered up in response to accusations that British society remains a racist society.

The dictionary definition of tolerant is to permit or to endure something or alternatively the acceptance of the existence of different views.

The loaded implication of this statement is that British Black people and other ethnic minorities are only here on sufferance. We are endured, not celebrated, as if we are some alien or foreign virus capable of somehow infecting British society.

Whilst Britain is a plural society I don’t believe, the usage of this term refers to the ‘acceptance of different views’ as that would mean that Black people or ethnic minorities would be considered to hold widely divergent views from the majority of white Britons.

I despise that phrase. British citizenship is not a gift for which we should be grateful. My citizenship has been secured by the struggle and self sacrifice of our ancestors from Africa and Asia whose forced labour under slavery and colonialism and the expropriation of those nations’ resources made this country what it is today. We’ve more than paid our dues.

Born here in Britain, born of a family now grown to include the fifth generation of Black Briton’s, why the hell should my children and I be ‘tolerated’?

My citizenship is not a legal fiction. I don’t want to be ‘tolerated’ in my own country. The term reflects a colonial mindset that is deeply patronising and relegates black people to the status of unwanted and unwelcome guests.

The use of this phrase is a form of paternalistic racism that tells us we are only here on sufferance and moreover we should be very grateful to Britain for allowing us to live here.

This phraseology is indicative of a broader view on racism held by almost all in Government and the majority of the British press. That view concludes that the back of racism in Britain has been broken and that the worst aspects of racism have been largely eradicated.

All that remains, they say, are the infrequent examples of individual prejudice that represent the last dying embers of a once powerful and ancient hatred.

Black people’s claims of institutional racism are defined as nothing more than political propaganda in pursuit of personal gain. They consider all such claims as overblown racial posturing and their claims are usually dismissed as a case of ‘playing the race card’ by ‘race activists’.

Despite the overwhelming evidence of the reality of widespread institutional racism and its deleterious affects on the life chance and human rights of Black and Muslim people in the UK, the evidence is simply ignored. 

Of course, there is nothing new here; claims of historical and contemporary racism in Britain are always met with outright denial;

• Stephen Lawrence killed by racists? Initial claim denied.
• Racism in policing? ‘Black people commit more crime’. Strenuously denied.
• Racism in council housing allocations? – ‘Don’t be stupid’. Denied.
• Racist immigration laws targeting Black people? Denied.
• Black men dying in police custody due to racism?  ‘He had superhuman strength’ - denied.
• Racism in schools?  ‘Educational failure is a result of parental failure and a dysfunctional black culture’ - denied.

This powerful culture of denial of institutional racism results in no serious action being taken to protect Black people from unfair discrimination. Far from being a post racist society, Britain is a nation in denial about the powerful social reality of institutional racism.

2013 is the 50th anniversary of one of the most famous speeches in the world. In August 1963, Dr Martin Luther King led the US civil rights movement in a March on Washington for Jobs and Freedom.

On the steps of the Lincoln Memorial, they gathered in their hundreds of thousands, united in confronting the Jim Crow segregation of apartheid era America.

Dr King delivered his ‘I have a dream’ speech that would resonate around the world. Dr King set out his vision of a post racist America in prophetic fashion encapsulating the essence of common humanity in declaring the God given equality of all men and women.

The dream of a world where racism is no more still resonates with many throughout the world.  You see I still hold to the goal of achieving greater level of equality in our lifetime. I don’t want my children to repeat our history fighting the same battles we fought. It is our duty as parents to move things on and secure the future for our children.

So is Britain a post racist society?

Take two healthy British babies, one white, and one Black, their new lives stretched out before them comforted in the bosoms of their grateful parents.

Both are British citizens, yet their life chances differ dramatically as a consequence of the colour of their skin and the polite, yet devastating overt institutional racism so perfected by the British.

Contemporary British racism has culturally transformed itself into a very ‘genteel overt racism’ that presents no obvious offence. It has none of the social embarrassment of times gone by and yet despite that, racial discrimination still manages to enforce deep economic and social exclusion.

These two British babies start their lives on an uneven playing field with the black newborn being twice as likely to die in next 24 months. In the first years of their lives, the black child and family are much more likely to suffer child poverty and live in low standard overcrowded houses.

Once at primary school, the black child will be more likely to be excluded, once in secondary school the black child will be more likely to fail their exams. They will be much more likely to be unemployed once they leave school. On the streets they are much more likely to be stopped and searched by the police, more likely to be arrested and if convicted they will receive a heavier sentence for a comparable crime committed by a white Briton. These are just a few of the most obvious areas of discrimination; there are many more examples in areas such as health, regeneration, and politics.

This is not solely a matter of class difference. Research has shown that even middle class black people can suffer the debilitating effects of racism. Middle class school children, wealthy black footballers, black politicians, prominent religious figures, celebrities; all suffer from racism despite their economic status. Black people and Muslims suffer higher levels of economic and social exclusion than their white working class counterparts.

Austerity and budget cuts have magnified racial disadvantage. Yes we are all on the same boat but some of are forced to inhabit the stinking bowl of the ship, some are working on the mid decks and some stroll in the sunshine on the top deck. Yes, we are all on the good ship Britannia but some sail in acute distress and some in relative comfort. 

One Nation: Divided by race.

Of late, there has been much talk about “One Nation” politics. This unfortunate term with a dodgy history has been recently co-opted by Labour from the Conservatives. Used in the 1980’s One Nation politics was an attempt at forced assimilation and a denial of difference encapsulated by this 1993 Tory election poster.

The message was clear and unambiguous: you can be British if you disregard your ethnicity and culture. Labour’s recent articulation of this theme echoes this assimilationist sentiment with its emphasis not on racism, but on the small minority of people who don’t speak English. Posed as a barrier to integration, Labour fails to explain why it is that Black Britons who have no such problems still face social and economic exclusion racism despite their ability to speak English.

Whilst we are ‘One Nation’ geographically when it comes to the equality of British citizenship, many Black and Muslin people are relegated to the status of third class citizens in a supposed first class democracy.

Today, politicians and the press mediate your citizenship, contingent on adherence to a nonsensical set of “British values”. The reality of British equality is that it is based on your race or religion, on whether you’re Black or Muslim, and whether you live in an area considered a ‘ ghetto’ having made a ‘deliberate choice’ to ‘separate yourself ’ from white society.

Whether you wear a hijab or a hoodie will affect the extent to which you can enjoy real equality of citizenship in equal measure to white Britons.

The Coalition Governments record on tackling racism.

David Cameron’s Britain’s Conservative Prime Minister and his Deputy PM and leader of the Lib Dem Nick Clegg don’t ‘get’ racism or discrimination or understand the profound consequences of Britain’s changing make up.

This island is no longer the bland monocultural place of the past.

Britain is undergoing dramatic demographic changes; these changes are seeping into the cultural fabric of the nation, enriching our daily lives and changing the culture, personality and character of Britain irrevocably.

The recent publication of the 2011 Census demonstrated just how much has changed in the big metropolitan areas of Britain. Research done at Leeds University suggests that the growth of ethnic diversity will reach 20% by 2051

Having been brought up in a life of spectacular privilege renders Cameron devoid of any real experience or understanding of either the reality of race discrimination or how best to tackle it.

As with most high profile politicians, Cameron talks a good talk when it comes to race equality. Take these comments made by Cameron in a video broadcast to the 2010 OBV ‘Black Britain Decides’ general election hustings;

‘We must tackle the deep and structural inequalities that all too often hold Black people back especially the young… We know something is extremely wrong when the colour of your skin dictates how likely you are to succeed at school, starting a business, employment, or ending up in prison.’

Or those of Nick Clegg Deputy Prime Minister and leader of the Lib Dems who was equally forthright in expressing his commitment to race equality.

Addressing the same OBV event Nick said;

“ I don’t want to live in a society where a child’s life fortunes are still determined by the circumstances of their birth, where if you’re from an ethnic minority you’re still more likely to be out of work, more likely to be on low pay, more likely to be hassled by the police when you haven’t done anything wrong.”

Powerful words that ring absolutely true today and still provide an accurate and informed description of the reality of racism in Britain. However as the sun set on Labour and a Coalition Government was formed, these fine words and political commitment were jettisoned as election rhetoric, designed to appeal to black voters in a tightly fought election.

We’ve been had, conned and bamboozled.

In the two years since the 2010 OBV hustings we have endured the most systematic political attack on the general and progressive concept of multiculturalism and an almost scorched earth approach to anti racist policies within local and central Government.

Both, bizarrely, are now designated divisive by this Government and have been wrongly identified as encouraging separatism and extremism. This political about turn by Cameron and Clegg simply illuminates the extent to which both parties have a thin veneer commitment to delivering race equality.

Looking back it is now clear that the OBV audience and the wider British black community were conned by two slick snake oil salesmen.

The Coalition has made a small number of symbolic gestures to tackling racism, but has collectively determined that structural racial inequality will remain untouched. Current economic policy is in fact exacerbating racism

As a result virtually nothing is belong done to eradicate structural racism, the consequence of which will see yet another generation of Black and Muslim citizens and their children sentenced to a lifetime of struggle against racism.

Let us examine the Governments efforts to tackle racism. 

The extent that this government is committed to race equality can be judged by the quality of their policies designed to respond to known areas of race discrimination.

The Governments has no specific race equality strategy preferring a ‘mainstream’ equality approach to tackling any areas of discrimination. The problem is that in terms of reducing racism without the adoption of a laser like specific focus on race, results in the bone achingly slow pace of incremental change.

There is no historical or contemporary example in Government of the huge scale of race discrimination faced by Black Britons being reduced in the absence of a clear and robust policy focus.

All evidence demonstrates that the most effective way to tackle racism is to adopt a specific policy focus with timescales, stated outcomes, targets, sanctions and a budget.

The Tory Lib Dem “colour blind” approach to achieving race equality, implemented in the broader context of a right wing political climate, ensures that this Government pays lip service to achieving the goal of race equality whilst remaining ideologically blind to structural racism.

Leadership comes from the top.

Other than some vague commitment to increase diversity in public appointments, I can see no real race equality strategy for one of the most important Offices in Government the Cabinet Office.

‘Public appointments of 50% women by end of this Parliament’ is the only policy commitment. Unfortunately, there is no base line information, no BME targets and no implementation strategy.

Civic engagement is mentioned; however this Government has failed to maintain a race equality policy consultation forum and subsequently dismissed national black group members from a legacy forum established by the previous Government.

Minster Eric Pickles has made his view clear that he sees no reason to convene such a group. As a result there is no national statutory policy consultation forum on the issue of race equality currently in the UK. Government has simply dismissed the Black Voluntary sector as irrelevant.

The PM talks about racism in football and Deputy Prime Minister Clegg about the racism of British banks and the inability of black business to access credit, loans, and investment funds.

Both are saying the right things but only in those areas where Government does not bear primary responsibility. The FA in terms of football and banks are easy targets for Government to target for tough talk: seeking to create the false impression of zero tolerance in relation to racism.

In November 2011 Clegg highlighted the difficulties that ethnic minority businesses and would-be entrepreneurs were reporting in accessing business loans. Clegg established a review to look at this issue and 15 months later the Government has failed to publish the findings of Clegg’s review. 

Meanwhile the fundamental problem of the strong economic character of institutional racism in the financial services sector cements black communities into a prison of poverty and disadvantage as banks exercise racial profiling and post code racism in determining creditworthiness and assessing loan and investment opportunities.  

Government inaction on race and our response.

Meanwhile Black Britons are expected to suffer racism with a smile, thankful that we are not living in Europe.

Black people have helped to build this country through slavery, then colonialism immigration and then settlement. Our legal citizenship rights were fought for and secured by preceding generations paying a heavy blood price for the privilege.

In the modern Britain of 2013 black people are still unable to achieve full-unfettered equality of opportunity.

Racism is on the rise and many of the gains made over the last 30 years have been squandered by a Government whose ideological attack on the poor will result in future generations facing a level of racism worse that that endured by their parents.

Can we achieve equality in our lifetime? Only through commitment to a dedicated, protracted, disciplined struggle focused on legislative change and democratic reform.

This Government is committed to conducting a largely symbolic campaign against racism. What initiatives do exist are well meaning, piecemeal, short term, lack consistency and are incapable of delivering the goal of securing race equality in our lifetime.

The result will be to condemn yet another generation of Black people to suffer increased rates of structural inequality and injustice. Is this the legacy we want to bequeath our children?

Since the first enslaved African decided to leave the plantation each successive generation of the African Diaspora has fought, struggle and died to ensure that the future generations did not face the brutal racism they endured. We may be the first generation to fail in this regard.

I say that we cannot afford to allow the future of our children to be destroyed by racism. We cannot allow their futures to be dominated by a lifetime of struggle against increased rates of racism that should have and could have been more effectively dealt with by their parents.

I believe that the future of our children requires that any price be paid whatever the cost. It is our genetic and historic destiny to strive to secure a better future for our children.

In terms of tactics I believe that having tried appealing to the better angels of the Government and failed, the Black voluntary sector having sought to work in partnership and having been shown the door , having appealed for understanding and received none, bearing witness to the increased evils of unemployment injustice and poverty magnified through the lens of austerity, facing the stark reality that our children will inherit a society where racism is worse than that faced by their parents, I say we must now urgently step up our fight against the evils of racism that strips our children of their God given innate human potential reducing them to a crude racial stereotype. We must engage in heightened campaigning, we must organize, agitate, and educate. We must never give up our struggle for equality and justice. That’s one lesson our parent taught us, they never did and neither should we.

Whatever the odds, whatever the challenge, never ever give up and on the 21^st January 7pm in the Betty Boothroyd Room, Portcullis House Victoria Embankment Black Activists Against the Cuts will be holding a public meeting. We will be setting out our plans to achieve equality in our lifetime. We invite you to join us. 

Lee Jasper



https://www.facebook.com/events/354049334702742/?fref=ts



 

Celebrating the life of Dr Martin Luther King and launching the 2013 MLK50: EQUALITY IN OUR LIFETIME Campaign taking place on Martin Luther King Day.

2013 marks the 50th anniversary of the March on Washington for Jobs & Freedom & Dr King’s iconic ‘I have a dream’ speech.

An evening of reflection, poetry & an exploration of radical approaches to tackling racism, asking the question from Dr King’s dream; ‘How long will it take to achieve race equality in the UK?’
Joint Chairs, Zita Holbourne & Lee Jasper BARAC UK

Speakers include:

Donna Guthrie. Trade Union Activist, Unison

Khi Rafe, Mary Seacole Campaign

VENUE: Betty Boothroyd Room, Portcullis House, (Parliament) Victoria Embankment, London, SW1 1AA

Portcullis House is next door to Westminster tube station on the Embankment, please note you cannot enter via the Houses of Parliament.

DATE: January 21st 2013
TIME: 7pm to 9pm

Due to limited places please book in advance by emailing:

barac.info@gmail.com

with ‘MLK50’ in the subject box & names attending in the main body of the email

Take the sending of this email as confirmation of your place. We will only contact you if we become fully booked.



Twitter: @BARACUK
Web: www.blackactivistsrisingagainstcuts.blogspot.com
Facebook: ‘black activists rising against cuts’

David Goodhart and the myth of 'post racist politics'.

(Article from OBV: Operation Black Vote - The home of black politics http://www.obv.org.uk)

David Goodhart

If David Goodhart wanted to open up a debate about 'New race politics', he certainly achieved that. Although some would argue that it is at best a distraction and worst a ploy that stops us effectively tackling race inequality.
Whatever view you take on the merits of discussing these issues, at the least it does give us a space to articulate why we do what we do.

Here the veteran campaigner Lee Jasper writes an indepth analytical piece:

Is Britain now a post racist society and as a consequence are we now seeing the emergence of a “ new black politics”? That was the question posed by a Mr David Goodhart on a recent BBC Radio 4 programme Analysis.
David Goodhart is former editor of British current affairs Prospect Magazine and now the Director of the London based think tank Demos’

Goodhart of course is no stranger to debates about race. In recent times he made it his mission to prove that Britain is a ‘post racist society” He has sought to make his name by constantly and controversially revisiting the issues of race, culture and immigration.

His main assertion in this programme in brief is that as a consequence of the British lefts shift in the 1980’s to “cultural politics” and attempts to develop a “ rainbow coalition” of the disenfranchised and discontented Blacks voted Labour en masse. Then racism was crude and violent. Political anti racist alliances were easier to make and black solidarity was high given the demographic make up of the time.

Racism has been defeated
Today that 1980/90’s crude racism, has all but been defeated and with much progress being made in terms of elected black politicians and other black faces in high places “old style racism” has been consigned to the dustbin of history leaving just the remnants of discrimination in a few remaining areas of British life.

Goodhart fails to recognise that what little progress against racism has been made has come about because of the dedicated campaigns against racism led by black radicals.

Offering “proof” of his distorted view of British society he cites the views of people like Conservatives Shaun Bailey, Tory MP Kwesi Kwartang, Sir Trevor Phillips ( my new name for his Lordship ) and others as providing evidence that when it comes to the issue of race Britain has “moved on”. Look at the response to the riots in August he argues and contrasts Bernie Grants MP’s refusal to condemn rioters in the 1980’s with that of David Lammy MP condemnation of rioters today.

Shaun Bailey with David Cameron

He speaks to Stafford Scott form the Tottenham Defence Campaign who rejects his “ post racial “ analysis and calls for the return to the tradition of “ radical black politics” illustrating his frustration by speaking about “politicians who happen to be black” as opposed to “black politicians “like Grant.
Goodharts conclusion is that the simple elevation of a few black people into the middle and upper echelons of public life is evidence of a ‘post racist politics”. He argues the rise of a new and influential black politics that is free for the deterministic chains of history and the liberated from the race identity politics of the past.

Stafford Scott speaking out after the Tottenham uprising

He argues that this new generation of black leaders are politicians who just happen to be black and in a post racist Britain that is as it should be. He reminds me of the man who saw a swallow and thought it was summer. His evidence was largely impressionistic and anecdotal.

I found the programme to be in part charmingly romantic, funny in part but nevertheless dangerously naive. One could almost hear the polite but never the less keen desperation of those who took part, who at times demonstrated an almost embarrassing eagerness in seeking to confirm Goodhearts flawed thesis. What was interesting was they did so without offering a shred of real evidence. They all offered impressionistic views with the exception of Sir Trevor Phillips who views were in stark contradiction to the hard evidence that demonstrates the huge scale and depth of racism detailed in his Equality and Human Right Commission Triennial Review.

Apologists for racism
What was clear from most of those who took part in the programme was that they were engaged in a determined political project that seeks to downplay and dismiss racism. I have great respect for David Lammy MP for example but he increasing out of step with the views of the black community in Tottenham and London.

Lammy and others like him seek to argue that their own personal successes and experiences provide objective evidence to prove that the obstacles of race are in fact more imagined than real. The danger for them is that they have allowed Goodhart to portray them as apologists for real racism and the fact is that most black people would say completely the opposite.

I contend that the majority view of black people in Britain would agree that whilst the crude violent racism of the recent past has been vastly reduced as a result of strong anti racist campaigning, the structural socioeconomic effects of structural racism have in fact become much worse.

Conceding to racism is the favourite pass time of centre left and centre right liberals, strange bedfellows herded together terrified in the aftermath of 9/11and 7/7. Together they have conspired to declare that multiculturalism leads to extremism and is inimical to core “ British values.
Immigration is seen as a threat not an opportunity and diversity is viewed as undermining social cohesion. Old style racism” of the past is dead.

Black people are the “ architects of their own misfortune”
Goodhart cites “ black street culture particularly Grime music as fostering a pervasive culture of victimhood. This of course follows David Starkey’s attempt to portray British urban culture as black culture per se. A gross and disgusting caricature if ever there was one. Both Starkey and Goodhart opinions share startling similarities with the views of the racist parliamentarian Enoch Powell. The idea that difference is a weakness not a strength, is central to their political understanding of race.

In short, both Starkey and Goodhart , like Powell before them seek to pathologise black people and our culture. For them only the full assimilation of black people into a common British culture can hope to create a new sense of “progressive British nationalism”.

Internationalism and a sense of shared citizenship
The fact that black people in the UK are intrinsically international in their outlook and concerns usually having responsibilities for family members in desperate circumstances in many countries around the world is totally lost on them. We are forced to acknowledge and confront geo political realities. These are life and death issues faced by our families and loved ones and cannot be ignored.

Goodharts sense of citizenship and nationhood is imbued with the formal history of Britain a history that is conservative, narrowly conceived and racist. Their view of British Empire is that by and large British colonialism was a benign and benevolent force for good. Sometime’s when reading or listening to British history in relation to transatlantic slavery one get the impression that Britain only joined the iniquitous and barbaric slave trade so they could then go onto abolish it.

A shared sense of citizenship cannot be based on such a partisan view of history and as such an inclusive and progressive notion British citizenship remains elusive.

Britain’s historical amnesia on slavery and colonialism
The reality is that the canon of formal British history refuses to acknowledge the scale of racism, oppression and exploitation that helped build modern Britain preferring to explain Britain’s economic ascendency in term of British ingenuity and entrepreneurship.

Developing an inclusive sense of British citizenship requires a proper acknowledgement of the historical crimes committed in the name of England and Empire.
This programme represents a new form of historical revisionism, one that seeks to airbrush racism from the face of British history. Not only do they deny the historical importance of racism and colonialism in the building of Empire, but also by extension they deny contemporary racism and its effects.

Stripped of their historical understanding they misunderstand the reality of racism today in terms of both its causes and effects. As such black disadvantage is seen as resulting from the personal moral and political failure of black people themselves. If you misunderstand the past you cant understand the present.
Another routine neoconservative political con trick central to Goodharts approach is the “ blame the victim” approach. Adopted as a favourite hobby horse by the right wing this nonsense has a long and inglorious history within black politics and denial of racism generally

In Goodhearts analysis, supported by an assorted collection of the Victorian ‘pull yourself by your bootsraps ” brigade, black people suffer huge psychological hardwired “victim chips” on their shoulders.
This means that they are the “authors of their own misfortune”. This “ culture of victimhood” explains black disadvantage not racism.
'It’s the reason they can’t get jobs.' 'Black kids are from dysfunctional families explains why they can’t get a decent education.' 'The police stop and search black youth incessantly because they are more involved in criminality.'

To add insult to injury during the course of the programme Goodheart attacks young black radicals whose primary form of articulation is music. Following in a progressive black tradition that started with enslaved Africans who sang songs of redemption in the sweltering heat of British plantations through to the civil right movements up to Bob Marley and Tupac Shakur including UK artists such as MC Lowkey all have made huge contributions to politicising and raising awareness of the reality of racism on a global scale.

What strikes me listening to some of the participants in this curiously one sided and detached programme is their almost palpable sense of embarrassment at being black.

One gets a sense listening to them that they feel ashamed of their own communities. Its as though having climbed the ladder of success, they have now pulled up that ladder behind them. They then reinterpret their personal success as down to their own genius. In doing so they are reinforcing the false notion that black disadvantage in 21st century Britain is primarily self inflicted and further, in doing so they confirm their own exceptional genius. White liberals reinforce that idea by pointing their exceptionality the thing that makes them “different” form those other blacks. It’s a cunning trap whose principle lure is the flattery of inflated ego’s.

Goodhart and this merry band wilfully confuse inner city social integration and a handful of black successes with real equality and justice for black British citizens.

The scale and long term legacy of historical racism and its consequences are summarily dismissed and rearticulated as being a consequence of cultural or personal failure. The reality that blacks have been economically excluded and deeply marginalised for the last 30 years as a result of discrimination is of no consequence.

Yes of course , I agree things have improved in terms of black representation in public life in no small part thanks to the work of Operation Black Vote.
Unfortunately whilst true this does not equate to full equality and protection form discrimination for British black citizens who in large numbers remain third class citizens in a supposedly first class democracy.
The reality is that British society still remains more of a pigmentocracy than the idealistic meritocracy envisaged by these post racist romantics.

Evidence of long term poverty and racism and its contemporary effects are conveniently dismissed and in repeat of the classic neoliberal political con trick where he consequences of long term racism and poverty, crime, family breakdown, drugs, youth violence are all now cited as evidence of the personal and cultural failures of a dysfunctional black community rather than systemic and persistent race discrimination

When Stafford Scott points out that racism on almost every level has either remained fairly constant and has in most cases actually got worse was factually correct and was unchallenged by Goodheart. Sir Trevor Phillips retorted that on every indicator its clear things have improved. The reality is Scott is right Phillips is wrong.

Racism in the UK has got worse and if one were to do a large attitudinal survey among black communities tomorrow I have no doubt that the results would confirm that the vast majority of black people would agree with the assertion that racism is in fact worse today than it was in the 1950’s. Then we had violent racism but we had the opportunity to work today we have very little violent racism and no work. The violence of long term poverty and unemployment is much more corrosive. Social mobility is at a standstill for poor communities.

The disjuncture between the mass lived experience of the mass of black people and their experience of racism and the elite advocates of the so called “new black politics as cited by Goodhart is huge.
These advocates site the fact that black crime was never dealt with by the left despite the overwhelming victims of crime being black people. That’s a lie and as one of the founders and architects of Metropolitan
Police Services Operation Trident, the fact is it was the black left not the black right that first raised these issues. In fact the black left on the issue of crime and black communities were the first to articulate the need for black individual, familial and personal responsibility. The black left argued for the reduction of stop and search not its abolishment recognising its importance. The recent huge increases in stop and search have led including me to fundamentally doubt its efficacy and question if the police can ever be trusted to get it right.

Of course the simple fact is the Goodhart project is doomed.
The economic reality is that whatever the small signs of successes for the few what we seen over the last 30 years is an increasing level structural racism that enforces economic segregation, poverty and breeds with it an insidious culture of poverty of aspiration and ambition for the many. That black reality of institutional is becoming seriously aggravated by the current economic climate.

All history teaches that when the economy is in crisis racism increases as politicians engage in the politics of mass distraction by blaming poor people for their poverty, black people for racism, black youths for crime, women in hijabs are a threat to national security, travellers are a threat to law and order and the green belt, East Europeans for unemployment.

This is another example of such a distraction. Goodheart cant be entirely blamed he is a white liberal whose exotic forays into this field are reminiscent of the ignoble tradition of the academic and media pimping of black communities. Those who give him comfort and cover who in his delusion should be held to account. At time when racism is set to get worse by virtue of our current economic crisis we need an honest debate about race and a new sense of British history that provides the foundations for a new and inclusive sense of citizenship.

Lee Jasper

Recommended - Article by Simon Wooley: David Goodhart: More dangerous than Nick Griffin?  http://www.obv.org.uk/news-blogs/david-goodhart-more-dangerous-nick-griffin