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In Macpherson’s footsteps: a journey through British racism

BNG — Sat, 28 Jan 2012 16:08:52 +0000

After Stephen Lawrence’s murder, a former High Court judge travelled round the country to produce the most significant report on racism in Britain for a generation. Ten years on, how much has changed?

Hugh Muir · guardian.co.uk

‘The police are still institutionally racist. The local authority doesn’t carry out the racial impact assessments that were envisaged. The thing had no teeth’ – Maxie Hayles, community activist, Birmingham.

Photograph: David Sillitoe

Sir William Macpherson was not an obvious choice to write the report into the murder of the black teenager Stephen Lawrence. Educated at Wellington College and Oxford, the son of a brigadier and once a captain in the Scots Guards, he was accused by critics at the outset of insensitivity to race issues. Certainly he seemed too immersed in the establishment to lead a process that would shake it. And yet that was exactly what he did.

No one who attended Macpherson’s hearings in south-east London can forget the key events. Neville Lawrence collapsing as he heard how his son was killed; the five suspects snarling and lashing out as they ran the gauntlet of the crowd outside the hearing, where the most senior police officers in the land would admit their force was guilty of “institutional racism”.

The inquiry was more than a series of meetings in a characterless suite of offices at Elephant and Castle. For the second part of his investigation, the former high court judge journeyed around Britain by train, to six places he and his team – Dr Richard Stone, vicechair of the Runnymede Trust, John Sentamu, now the Archbishop of York, and former police officer Tom Cook – had chosen for their racial significance. They intended to discover whether London was typical of the country.

Sir William has since retired to a life away from the public gaze. But were he to retrace his steps and tour the racial landscape again, as I did this week, he would find a country more at ease with itself, but one that is still struggling with issues he encountered a decade ago.

Ealing

Macpherson’s first stop had long been troubled by racial conflict. Historically, much of the attention focused on Southall but Macpherson set up his inquiry further north, at Greenford. As coordinator of the Stephen Lawrencecampaign, the grouping set up in the aftermath of the murder, Suresh Grover had been a regular at the Elephant and Castle hearings, but this, he recalls now, was a chance to give the local picture. “The local authority and the police were failing to protect black people and we told him so,” he says. “We had seen two racist murders and many people were suffering daily harassment.”

Initially, after the report came out, the black community felt progress wasbeing made, says Grover, but then things started to slide. His organisation, the Monitoring Group, has noticed a shift towards attacks on refugees. There has been a “terrible” official move away from anti-racism and towards community cohesion. “Groups like ours are in dire financial straits because race is well down the pecking order. We moved from Straw to Clarke to Blunkett – and Macpherson went out of the window.”

The Rev David Wise, the white English leader of the predominantly black Greenford Baptist church, was sharply critical of the police at the Macpherson hearings. But he has witnessed a substantial change in attitudes towards them. “The Met has made great efforts. What I don’t now get is people saying the police treated them badly because they are black. The police are not free of racism because they are human beings, but their structures appear to have made a difference. It’s the local authorities and other agencies that don’t treat people well.”

Manchester

In the 1980s and 1990s, Britain’s second-largest city had its own problems with racial violence. In 1986, 13-year-old Ahmed Iqbal Ullah was murdered in a racist attack at Burnage high school. Nasrullah Khan Moghal, head of the Manchester Council for Community Relations, recalls the start to proceedings. “Richard Leese, the leader of the council, spoke first and he immediately said that the city council was institutionally racist. Then the chief constable, David Wilmot, said his police force was institutionally racist too. Bishop Sentamu was dumbfounded.” The organisers were keen not to replicate the atmosphere in London where “virtually every speaker blasted the police”, he says. “We were critical, but things were improving. We felt we had a good story to tell.”

He still does. The authorities, police, council, voluntary sector, are big on partnership working, so “if the police are failing these days, it means we are failing as well”. Racial attacks and incidents of harassment are down over the decade and people are “increasingly happy” about integration, says Moghal. But, like Grover, he has seen a evidence of a new wave of violence aimed at asylum seekers. “We are seeing migrant workers from eastern Europe being harassed. It is no longer black against white.” As in Ealing, the mantra is “community cohesion”, and in Manchester that must include the plight of white people. “Look at Wythenshawe and there is a problem with white unemployment. Many young people have gone into crime and drugs. Many don’t attend school.”

I head to Wythenshawe to see for myself. There are few non-white faces, and even less money. A Poundworld shop faces a Poundland across the street. By his florist hut, Terence Banks is preparing to close up after another slow day. “Look at these lads,” he says. “They’re always out here, school day or not. They don’t have anything to focus on so they get up to things. Sometimes you hear them say that if you’re a certain colour you get anything you want but if you’re white, you won’t. Some just use it as an excuse, but some believe it.”

Tower Hamlets

At his third stop, Macpherson set up camp in York Hall, one of Britain’s most famous boxing venues, in Tower Hamlets, east London. This one of the most diverse boroughs in the country, home to Brick Lane and Banglatown. Junaid Uddin, then 27 and a worker with the Campaign for Police Accountability, recalls: “The police had begun to make some moves towards the community but they were in denial. They certainly did not want to accept anything like institutional racism. Before the inquiry, when we gave our point of view, we were labelled black racists. Afterwards we were seen as specialists.”

Uddin, now a voluntary sector consultant, says the aftermath was beneficial: “The police were at the forefront of changing a whole range of organisations.” Then came September 11. Things have been sticky ever since. “There is something very dangerous going on. We have deep concerns here about Islamophobia and what is going on in the Middle East, but when we voice them we are painted as extremists.”

The Rev Vaughan Jones, who runs a support agency for refugees and asylum seekers, has seen a big change in race relations since he testified to Macpherson. “There are a lot more inter-racial relationships and a lot of learning,” he says. But he also sees a lot of suffering. “Irregular migrants face state harassment instead of community harassment,” he says. “The debate 10 years ago was about established communities, whether they were being treated equally. Now the issue is what defines us as a country: who is included and who is not. It is about exclusion not inclusion.”

Bradford

On 21 October 1998, Macpherson and his team walked into the minefield that was Bradford, the scene of terrible riots three years earlier. Tension between communities and police was still high.

But he knew little, one suspects, of the manoeuvring to try to prevent certain people from talking to him. One person he was never supposed to encounter was Muhammed Taj, a bus driver and an official in the Transport and General Workers’ Union who sat on a council-commissioned investigation into the disturbances but broke away to publish his own report, complaining that the majority document report lacked focus. “I told Sir William there had been so many reports on problems in Bradford and they were just gathering dust,” he told me. “The fault lines were well known. We needed to do something.” What was done wasn’t enough: two years after the publication of the Macpherson report, Bradford was in flames again, provoked by the far-right into the most serious disorder in the UK for two decades. There has been nothing like that since and the authorities have poured millions into the poorest areas. Officers are wedded to community policing. But Taj says he is worried that the explosive elements are all still there.

In Shipley Ralph Berry, a Labour councillor preoccupied with education and community cohesion, seems positive, not least when he reflects that the BNP had four councillors in 2004 and now it is down to two. “If you ask people if they are voting BNP because they hate black people, they will say no. They just want someone to take them seriously. That’s what we are doing.”

Bristol

In 1998, 100 people packed into the hotel function room Macpherson’s team had hired in Bristol. Then the outpouring began. Two men sat together at the inquiry to give evidence jointly. One was Paul Stephenson, who led a bus boycott campaign in Bristol in 1963 against a company that would not employ black people or Asians. The other man was Richard Stokes, the black British guardsman whose career was cut short by racial harassment.

Stephenson moved 25 years ago to a predominantly white suburb. He thought he would be a trailblazer. Instead, his is still the only black family on the street. “I bought this house thinking I was breaking down social barriers,” he says. “The man next door promptly sold his.” His hope has been for more integration and understanding. It still is and Macpherson and the police have helped, he says. “But for every step forward we have made two back.”

Stokes sees progress because “the range of people who will defend racism is decreasing” and “kids are definitely more accepting of different cultures”, but he fears Bristol is still racist. “You need only go two miles out of the city centre to see that attitudes are different. It is class and race. It’s a funny place.”

In the St Paul’s area on the eastern side of the city, where the faces are mainly black and brown, I see a shop filled with DVDs, CDs, trainers, caps and clothing, a shrine to black urban culture. Then I see the owner, who is white. Debbie Reeve’s late husband was Jamaican, she explains.

Birmingham

Macpherson’s final stop was Birmingham. Maxie Hayles, a veteran community activist, says he was responsible for getting the former judge to the city. Even now he is pleased. “We had a nightclub that would not admit black people and the death in custody of

Alton Manning. There were attacks and harassment – all this in Britain’s second city – and they weren’t going to come! It was a joke.” He began a campaign. Soon Macpherson was there.

The meeting itself was turbulent. “The council leader said they were not institutionally racist. The chief constable said the same. Then we spoke about the discrimination and the racial attacks. People knew we were right. We got a standing ovation.”

If there was elation that day, for Maxie and his Birmingham Racial Attacks Monitoring Unit there has been deflation since. “The police still kick and scream about stop and search. They are still institutionally racist. The local authority doesn’t carry out the racial impact assessments that were envisaged. The thing had no teeth.”

Things aren’t better, they’re different. “Few will call you a black bastard but we all saw the list of BNP people,” he says. “It’s about attitude. We know it’s there.”

In a church hall in Handsworth, where black and Asian communities live side by side, Leroy McKoy, a youth worker, tells local teenagers about police hostility and racial conflict in the 1970s. But it is just a history lesson for the boys, for they say they have black friends, white friends, Asian friends, Somalian friends.

“That’s the way it is these days,” says Craig Taylor. His mates agree.

The statistics

Ealing
Population 306,400 (2006) 59% white, 23% Asian, 8.6% black.
Jan-Oct 2008: 3,247 stop and searches; police say 53% were white, 27% “Asian appearance”, 8% “black appearance”.
2008 London mayoral elections BNP came fifth, behind Greens.

Tower Hamlets
Population 196,106 (2001) 51.4% white, 36.6% Asian, 6.5% black.
Jan-Oct 2008 10,236 stop and searches; police say 58% white, 26% “Asian”, 10% “black”

Birmingham
Population 687,406 (2001) 71% white, 20% Asian,
6% black, 3% mixed race.
School population 144,100 – 43.6% white, 35.5% Asian, 5.1% black.

Bradford
Population 467,655 (2001) 78% white, 19% Asian,
1.5% mixed race, 0.92% black.
2008 local elections two BNP councillors elected.

Manchester
Population 392,819 (2001)
81% white, 19% black and minority groups.
2007-8 stop and searches police say increase of 56.6% in people stopped from white groups, and 69.9% in Asian groups, in a year.
2007-8 22.4% of all murder victims were black and 14.3% Asian.

Bristol
Minority ethnic population increased by 62% between 1991 and 2001 to 380,615.
Office for National Statistics gave it a “diversity index” of 0.22 (ie the
probability that two people chosen at random will be from two different
ethnic groups)

http://www.guardian.co.uk/uk/2009/feb/21/stephen-lawrence-racism-macpherson-report?fb=native&CMP=FBCNETTXT9038

Child asylum-seekers targeted in Home Office budget cuts

BNG — Sun, 31 Oct 2010 21:20:57 +0000

By Robert Verkaik, Home Affiars Editor, The Independent on Sunday Monday, 11 October 2010

http://www.independent.co.uk/news/uk/home-news/child-asylumseekers-targeted-in-home-office-budget-cuts-2103184.html

Thousands of child asylum-seekers are to be removed from Britain under savage budget cuts being drawn up by the Home Office ahead of this week’s comprehensive spending review.

A briefing document sent to ministers sets out detailed proposals to remove child refugees before they reach 17 years old, and recommends bearing down on benefits given to asylum seekers. The UK Borders Agency (UKBA) plans to cut a third of its staff by 2014, prompting fears of security risks at British ports and airports Under the proposals, the UKBA says it would be able to reduce its annual £2.45bn budget by £346m.

Setting out a number of options for cutting costs, the document reads: “We need to resolve underlying trend on asylum support … On asylum support this will involve, for example, continuing recent tightening of entitlement to support, removing minors before they reach the age of 17 …”

But the Home Office is also considering saving money by offering a partial amnesty to asylum-seekers whose claims have been delayed by processing backlogs. The paper recommends “continuing to consider grants [of the right to stay in the UK] where agency delays mean even failed asylum-seekers are still in-country after several years”.

There are further plans to end the right of appeal to those applying for migration visas outside the UK, to reduce costs. But of greatest concern will be a policy of mass removal of unaccompanied children before they reach 17 and a half, the age when they are deemed to be adult asylum-seekers. Under current rules unaccompanied child asylum-seekers are usually granted leave to remain in the UK until they can make a fresh asylum application as an adult.

There are more than 4,200 unaccompanied child asylum-seekers in Britain, with most being supported in local authority social services homes. Emma Ginn, of the charity Medical Justice, said last night: “Many unaccompanied children are orphans. Many have escaped various forms of slavery, war and being made into child soldiers. To deport vulnerable unaccompanied children is despicable. To do it to save money is indecent … How we treat asylum-seeking children is already uncivilised, but to sink this low would cost our international reputation dearly.”

The document says: “In total these [cuts and policies] could deliver up to £346m of annualised cash savings by 2014/15 which would allow a reduction in taxpayer funding of £53m. It would mean around 3,500 more staff cuts (ie more than 7,000 from 2010/11 to 2014/15 or almost a third of our current complement).

This would imply a virtual doubling of caseworker productivity as a result of management culture and technology enabled redesign. It would mean a large percentage of travellers passing through automated gates at the border and more risk-based controls based on improved intelligence and scanning capability.”

But the officials warn: “These changes obviously involve significant level of management, project and implementation risk. … If bigger budget reductions are needed or to be able to deal with some of the funding and cost pressures from manifesto commitments we will need to go further.” Paul O’Connor, the Home Office group secretary of the Public and Commercial Services union (PCS), said that cutting staff would lead to security risks from international criminal smuggling gangs and child and sex traffickers. He said: “There should be no compulsory redundancies. In terms of frontline security our members are the first port of call to maintain proper border controls. If they decide to cut one in three this country will be less safe and lead to a massive exploitation of young people.” He warned that job losses would also have an effect on the backlog of asylum cases built up over the last few years. “We expect services to be diminished because there will be fewer people to deal with the backlog, which will get worse … All this experience and skill built up over the years must not be jettisoned on the altar of the cuts.”

One of the proposals outlined in the document has already been implemented. The £50m Immigration Impact Fund, which gives aid to local authorities to help support asylum-seekers living in their region, was quietly dropped over the summer. And it was reported earlier this year that the Home Office was preparing to set up a £4m “reintegration centre” in Afghanistan so that failed Afghan child asylum-seekers can be returned home. An organisation is being sought to run the centre in the capital, Kabul, which would aim to help their resettlement. The aim is to assist 12 boys a month, aged 16 and 17, and 120 adults.

A spokeswoman for the UKBA said no decisions would be taken until the Government had completed its comprehensive spending review. She said no budget figures or policies had been confirmed.

Devon & Cornwall Refugee Support

BNG — Thu, 30 Sep 2010 23:25:08 +0000

Why We Need Your Help

Although the Asylum Support Agency provides for housing and living expenses for asylum seekers whilst their claims are active, this support is erroneously withdrawn on frequent occasions. DCRS advocates for the reinstatement of this support, but in the meantime we help with subsistence through these temporary periods of destitution. We also provide food for some who have reached the end of their asylum claim and are no longer entitled to ASA support, are not allowed to work and have no means to support themselves. This includes people whose lives would certainly be endangered on return to their home country, but do not qualify for leave to remain in the UK.

Support Us Please!

Your donation of Money, Food or Clothing is gratefully received and much needed. Please make cheques payable to The Treasurer at ‘Devon and Cornwall Refugee Support Council’ (send with a completed gift aid form.)
If you are interested in being more involved with the work of DCRS, you may like to take on voluntary work for us. DCRS has approximately 40 volunteers in a variety of exciting, useful and challenging work. Places are limited, but if you are interested please send a CV and covering letter to THIS ADDRESS, marking your envelope ‘Volunteer Coordinator.

http://dcrsc1.cfsites.org/

EU Parliament Criticizes Roma Expulsion by France

BNG — Thu, 16 Sep 2010 21:55:50 +0000

The European Parliament has criticized the move by the French government to expel its Roma migrants.

Since August, France has deported about 1,000 ethnic Roma to Romania and Bulgaria. In a resolution passed Thursday, the European Union called for France to bring it to a stop.

European Parliament member for London Jean Lambert says France’s Roma policy is discriminatory.

“It is not saying you have committed a crime and therefore you as an individual should be expelled from this country,” Lampert. “It really is sort of state discrimination of a group, which is already one of the most disadvantaged in the European Union.”

The resolution was passed with 337 votes; 245 voted against.

Lampert says it is unusual for the European Parliament to make such an open criticism of a member state, but she says the current situation demanded it.

“Today a majority of the members of the European Union took the position that this was so bad that, yes, they were going to name member states responsible,” said Lampert.

The resolution was also critical of the European Commission. It said the Commission, as guardian of the EU treaty, should have made a strong, quick response when the expulsions first started.

Discrimination against national or ethnic groups is forbidden under EU law. The French government says it is not stigmatizing Roma or breaking EU law. It says the deportation is a question of public safety. Roma were recently involved in a few public order incidents, including a riot in southeastern France.

Christian Schweiger from Britain’s Durham University says discrimination is an ongoing problem in Europe.

“This has been an ongoing issue,” said Schweiger. “Racial division, religious division has been an issue and countries very often do not abide by these rules.”

The resolution passed by the European Parliament also criticized the treatment of Roma by other member states. This week, Italian authorities dismantled illegal Roma camps around Milan and Rome.

http://www.google.co.uk/search?q=roma+expulsion+from+france&ie=utf-8&oe=utf-8&aq=t&rls=org.mozilla:en-GB:official&client=firefox-a

LECP Training

BNG — Tue, 13 Apr 2010 09:17:54 +0000

Training the Young People’s Workforce in 2010 the UN International Year of Youth

On this site we will have:
- A list of all training that we are publicising (our own and relevant others)
- a discussion blog on training and related issues
- last minute free or discounted training offers for those signed up as friends
You can also contact us through our main site at:

http://www.lecp.org.uk/training/

Please feel free to contribute, please feel free to share this site with others

http://lecp-training.ning.com/

Black Mental Health UK

BNG — Sun, 24 Jan 2010 21:59:19 +0000

About us

Black Mental Health UK (BMH UK) was established in 2006 to raise awareness and address the stigma associated with mental illness.

The aim of our work is to see a reduction in the inequalities in the treatment and care of people from African Caribbean communities who use mental health services, and to inform these communities on how to influence the strategic development, policy design and implementation of services.

BMH UK’s focus is on empowering African Caribbean communities to improve the Black service user experience and reduce the over representation of Black people at the coercive end of psychiatric care.

Please note
The Black Mental Health UK does not provide help, treatment, counselling, care service or advice for those in crisis. We are not able to discuss individual cases.

http://www.blackmentalhealth.org.uk/index.php?option=com_content&task=view&id=22&Itemid=56

The scandal of ‘criminalising’ mental health patients

BNG — Sun, 24 Jan 2010 21:37:18 +0000

Community and faith groups condemn the rapid rise in prisoner suicide rates

Tuesday 2 January 2008

Human rights group Black Mental Health UK have added their voice to the growing numbers of community and faith organisation who have condemned the rapid rise in the numbers of suicides of people in prison over the last 12 months.

Government statistics indicate that black prisoners are currently in the system at a rate that is five times higher than that of white prisoners; this has led to fears that these latest stats will hit the black community hardest.

‘Clearly there are concerns about this and we need to have an ethnic breakdown of exactly who has died in prison in the last 12 months in order to establish current trends.

One suicide is one to many and we have seen figures on the over representation of ethnic minorities within prison settings but not been given any answers as to why this is not being addressed’ Lord Herman Ouseley, former head of the Chairman of the Commission For Racial Equality said.

The Ministry of Justice announcement has revealed that 93 people lost their lives last year and comes in tandem with a statement from The HLPR (Howard League for Penal Reform) which shows that 45 percent of those who died were either being held on remand, unsentenced or awaiting sentence after conviction.

‘It is disturbing to see that half of the people who have lost their lives in these institutions were not actually convicted of any crime but rather were on remand or awaiting sentencing,’ Rev Paul Grey, New Testament Church of God, Nuneatun branch said.

Penal reformers blamed overcrowding for the increase in deaths. HM Inspectorate of Prisons thematic review of mental health published last October showed staffing levels in prison mental health care are just one-third of what is needed with the majority of prisoners with mental health problems getting inadequate care and are being released with the same, or worse, problems.

‘It is not conducive to anyone’s mental well being to be behind bars, human potential was never meant to be locked away it was meant to released. The current models that are being used are flawed, if they weren’t’ then people staying in the system would not be dying,’ Rev Paul Grey, New Testament Church of God, Nuneatun said.

BMH UK have welcomed prisons minister Maria Eagle call for an inquiry into the reasons behind the increase, to look into measures to improve security for those suffering from mental health problems. ‘An inquiry is welcomed and urgently needed, what we must ensure is that there is appropriate and equal representation of all stakeholders, especially from communities group most adversely effected by this.

It is horrifying to think that there has been at least one death every week in 2007 in prison settings. We need an ethnic breakdown of these figures to gauge the extent of the problem so we can establish effective strategies to ensure that these figures come down.’ Matilda MacAttram director of Black Mental Health UK said.

For interviews please call M: 07852 182 750

Notes to the editor

* Black Mental Health UK is a human rights campaigns group established to address the over representation of African Caribbean’s within secure psychiatric care and raise awareness to address the stigma associated with mental health.

* African Caribbean’s are 44% more likely to be sectioned, 29% more likely to be forcibly restrained, 50% more likely to be placed in seclusion and make up 30% of in patients on medium secure psychiatric wards despite having similar rates of mental illness as British white people.

* African Caribbean’s make up 14% of the prison population but are less than 3% of the national population.

The Forum for Preventing Deaths in Custody report was published in September 2007

http://www.politics.co.uk/press-releases/bmhuk-community-and-faith-groups-condemn-rapid-rise-in-prisoner-suicide-rates-$483681.htm

The Destitution Trap

BNG — Tue, 02 Jun 2009 21:32:56 +0000

http://www.refugee-action.org.uk/campaigns/destitution/april09_mp_action.aspx

Please take action now to end destitution of refused asylum seekers.

An atrocity by stealth

BNG — Tue, 02 Jun 2009 21:28:03 +0000

Through my eyes

BNG — Sun, 19 Apr 2009 12:49:13 +0000

Alongside From War to Windrush, the Imperial War Museum is also launching a new online exhibition as part of the Their Past Your Future programme entitled Through My Eyes: Stories of Conflict, Belonging and Identity. The exhibition will illustrate the ways in which various twentieth century conflicts have made people rethink or reaffirm their own sense of identity and belonging. The online exhibition features a wide variety of personal stories from a range of different countries. Some explore the influence of the Empire and Commonwealth on personal choices to fight and serve, whilst other stories are from men, women and children forced to leave their own war-torn country and settle here in the UK.

The exhibition will be launched in two phases. The first, which goes live in June, includes stories from Windrush passengers, First World War volunteers, Kindertransport children, Basque evacuees, displaced persons from the Second World War, people affected by the Indian Partition and also those affected by the Mau Mau Uprising in Kenya. The second phase will be launched in the autumn and will include the experiences of Vietnamese boat people, refugees from Bosnia, refugees from Kosovo and survivors of the Rwandan genocide.

http://www.throughmyeyes.org.uk/?PHPSESSID=f5c4b3360f9d3729d5f6ba70e72a1256