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Race Back To Racial Equality Focus
London, UK
March 19, 2015
With the General Election looming, we can expect politicians, pundits and the media to highlight issues around race, racism and immigration. And politicians will conflate race with immigration.
Instead of us marking the 50th anniversary of the 1965 Race Relations Act with some optimism, it seems race equality is at a tricky crossroads. Tonight, UKip leader Nigel Farage, will claim he’s racially “colour-blind”, and say on Trevor Phillip's Channel 4 documentary 'Things We Won't Say About Race That Are True' that he'll be tearing up Britain’s race equality laws, instead of strengthening them should he come to power.
Last week,Channel 4 aired ‘Britain’s Racist Election’, which recounted the shock in British politics when in 1964 the safe, long-standing Labour constituency of Smethwick near Birmingham (in the Black Country not the Deep South) swung to the Conservatives, whose candidate and supporters used unashamedly racist language. The most notorious being the phrase daubed around the constituency, which read: “If you want a n****r for a neighbour, vote Labour”.
It’s so easy to think we’ve come a long way, but it would seem it’s a case of one step forward, two steps backwards. Because in 2015, racism can be still be overt, though perhaps not as crass as the ‘No Blacks, Irish, Dogs’ 1950s/60s. But let’s not forget last month’s racist chants in Paris and London by some Chelsea football fans.
Today’s racism can be camouflaged by its institutional nature, whilst racist talk can be conflated with talk supposedly on immigration.
With the responsibilities and duties on statutory bodies reduced within recent years, and the unravelling of the 1980s anti-racism culture embedded by GLC’s‘London Against Racism’ campaign across the statutory and commercial bodies under its ambit, we sorely need an environment within which racism can be openly and objectively addressed and policy put into place to improve race equality.
This Saturday March 21 (chosen to mark the Sharpeville Massacre of March 21 1960 in apartheid South Africa), an opportunity that reminds us that we need to talk about, challenge and redress racism, presents itself with the UN Anti-Racism Day (official title is International Day For The Elimination Of Racial Discrimination). In London, the demonstration starts off at 12noon from outside BBC at Portland Place, making its way to Trafalgar Square , where we can expect speeches from politicians, union reps, race activists, including The Specials’ Jerry Dammers, who wrote the anti-apartheid anthem ‘Free Nelson Mandela’. Click here to watch last year's march and rally.
In a Mail article ahead of transmission of his TV documentary, Phillips talks about a silencing of debate or discussion on race issues by ‘intimidating’ those who dare to ask questions. I partly agree with him, though from my limited experience, there’s hardly an environment that allows for serious engagement with race equality beyond the often, superficial tick-box exercises.
Umbrella terminology such as Equalities, Inclusion, Integration, Multiculturalism, and Diversity have redefined the space once occupied by terminologies such as racism, race equality or equal opportunity.
It is not uncommon to read documents on Equalities and Diversity and not come across matters concerning race or racism, or ethnicity. Perhaps race activists went to sleep from the ‘90s, or the demonisation and mis-information particularly from the right wing press of race, immigrants and multiculturalism, did the job of muting or “erasing” racism out of the equalities or diversity space.
In its stead, protected characteristics such as sexual orientation, gender, and lately, age and disability, have come to the fore. Those are often the focus of many equality or diversity policies and practice.
In two areas I interact with professionally – the music industry and higher education, it’s not uncommon to see organisations trumpeting their awards for sexual orientation, or providing awards for women.
If there’s nothing similar for that grand daddy of protected characteristics, race, perhaps there’s no institution out there to either do the job or lobby for it. When we had the Commission For Racial Equality (CRE), at least race could have some priority and profile. No such luck can be expected of its now almost-moribund successor, the Human Rights & Equality Commission (HREC).
With so many competing equalities to deal with, not to mention its recent drastic budget cuts, the HREC is simply not in a position to do what the CRE could. This is the reason why, like the gay community, who’ve made great strides up the equalities ladder with the help of its independent equality organisation Stonewall, race equality also needs an independent organisation that can focus on a single issue: racism.
In academia, there’s a move towards awarding a race equality charter mark later this year. At University College London, once the home of Sir Francis Galton’s racist “science” of eugenics, management has not only installed Dr Nathaniel Coleman as Britain’s first Research Fellow in the Philosophy of 'Race', but he’s also allowed to champion through Dismantling The Master’s House,which is “committed to righting racialised wrongs in our workplace and in the wider world”.
In the music industry, there’s the Musicians’ Union (MU), which like most unions, does have an equalities committee which deals with ethnic minority issues. I’m yet to see what it actually does to deal with racism. The MU, was one of several industry organisations that signed up to the Equality And Diversity Charter 4 Music.
Signatories were supposed to pledge to at least two areas they were going to focus on as part of their equalities remit. Like other signatories, MU General Secretary John Smith, whose organisation’s pledge included “rolling out further activism training for under-represented groups”, was effusive at the launch of the charter in early 2012. He said:
“We welcome the Equality and Diversity Charter, which represents a long-overdue coming together of all sectors of music working towards inclusivity, equal opportunity and full representation of artists and those who work with them in this richly diverse creative industry.”
But progress or lack of progress is hard to ascertain. There’s no published update on monitored outcomes. Some of the organisations have put the scheme on hold. And indeed, the last I heard, the charter was due for a re-jig.
Whilst racism isn’t spoken about openly within the industry – the success of black music and that of some African and Asian acts and producers can produce a false sense of racism not being an issue within the music industry. Having said that, I know there are certain key people and organisations definitely interested in diversity, and in particular the race/ethnicity issue.
Jo Dipple, CEO of the umbrella UK Music organisation speaks genuinely about the need to change the ethnic diversity from the lowly post to the boardrooms. For new entrants, the UK Music Skills Academy and Apprenticeship Scheme, are two ways in which young entrants, particularly from ethnic minority backgrounds are empowered and introduced into the industry.
When we published the ‘Look How Far We’ve Come: The Race/Racism Primer’, the BPI (British Phonographic Industry) advert pointed to its partnership with equality charity Creative Access, which BPI CEO Geoff Taylor said: “has led to the funding and placement of talented young graduates from African, Asian and ethnic minority backgrounds into paid internships in a wide range of roles in the record industry.”
So there are those within the industry that can deal with or champion racism and ethnicity issues. What we need is an urgency and impetusthat demands that these issues are engaged with and race focus issues and policy find space within equality and diversity.
It is to this end that RE:IMI (Race Equality: In Music Industry) officially launches on June 4, with a British Black Music Month 2015 debate at Queen Mary London University entitled ‘British Music Industry Gains From Black Music: What Have Africans Gained?’
This year, I’m part of promoting the British History 50:70 campaign, which aims to focus on the societal, political and economic gains of Africans, be they from the African continent or its Diaspora, in the light of key events in their histories in Britain.
Seventy years ago, the 5th Pan African Congress held in Manchester did not only concern itself with issues in Britain’s colonies, it looked at issues here, by calling for a law that criminalised racism then often called the colour bar. It was the year Eric Williams’ seminal text ‘Capitalism And Slavery’ was published. This documented how the forced labour of Africans trafficked to the Caribbean helped create the capital which built Britain.
It’s half a century since the death of community and political activist Claudia Jones, who is also said to be one of the mothers of Notting Hill Carnival, Europe’s biggest carnival. She campaigned against the first Commonwealth Immigration Act of1962, but died just before the first Race Relations Act of 1965 was enacted. This bedrock of British equalities law, came about in part as a consequence of the struggles and activism of Africans such as Bristol Bus Boycott leader Paul Stephenson, and progressive Europeans such as Tony Benn.
Last week, I had the pleasure of attending two Fifty Years Of Struggle: Gus John aA 70 events in London to mark the work of community activist and educationalist, Prof John. His work, which ranges from street activism, to race and education policy, includes working with Campaign Against Racial Discrimination (CARD) in gathering evidence which helped widen the Race Relations Act of 1968 to include housing and employment.
In marking British History 50:70, I’ll be launching the ‘Look How Far We've Come: Commentaries On British Society And Racism?' DVD’ on May14 at the Abbey Centre in Westminster. In addition to Stephenson, Benn and John, contributors expressing their views on where Britain is at with regards to racism and race equality schemes, range from the man who introduced Black History Month to Britain Addai Sebo, politicians David Lammy, Diane Abbott, and Ken Livingstone, equality activists Linda Bellos, Lord Herman Ouseley, and Lord Anthony Lester, trade unionists Lord Bill Morris, Wilf Sullivan and Martha Osamor, educationalists Prof Harry Goulbourne, Prof Paul Gilroy, and Dr Morgan Dalphinis, and community activists Toyin Agbetu, Lee Jasper, Marc Wadsworth, Zita Holbourne and Rev Hewlette 'Hewie' Andrew.
At a time when the Church is fast-growing within the African community and ought to be engaging with societal issues outside of the Church, such as racism, it falls on the likes of Andrew and a few men and women of the cloth to step out of the Church to deal with racism etc.
The May 14 event will be preceded by a presentation entitled 'Is Jesus White?' . It tackles more than what would be a simple answer, by highlighting history, identity and white supremacy. Perhaps men and women of the cloth would like to catch this bit.
2015 may not be 1985, but surely we can’t really believe Farage’s “colour blind” world in which we don’t need race equality legislation. Indeed what we need is the honesty and willingness to deal with race and racism, just in the same way some of the “star” protected characteristics.
Kwaku
BritishBlackMusic.com/Black Music Congress founder
RE:IMI (Race Equality: In Music Industry) co-ordinator
editor@BritishBlackMusic.com
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