#UK failing to address “systemic racism” against Black people

[reasoningdaily]

Listen to this article hereIt may come as no surprise to Black people in North America that the United States’ closest European ally, the United Kingdom, has been accused of widespread, systemic discrimination against people of African descent.

After wrapping up a 10-day fact-finding mission on the treatment and experiences of Black people in the UK, a United Nations committee expressed “extreme concern” in a letter to the British government last week about its failure to address “structural, institutional, and systemic racism” against people of African descent.

“We have serious concerns about impunity and the failure to address racial disparities in the criminal justice system, deaths in police custody, ‘joint enterprise’ convictions and the dehumanising nature of the stop and (strip) search,” the working group said in a statement.

UN working group on people of African descent finds continued systemic racism in UK

Established a year after the 2001 World Conference Against Racism, Racial Discrimination, Xenophobia and Related Intolerance, the UN Working Group of Experts on People of African Descent (WGEPAD) is composed of five independent experts appointed on the basis of equatable geographic representation.

The group sent a 19-page summary of recommendations to the British government on Friday after speaking to hundreds of citizens throughout the country during a 10-day fact-finding mission.

Among the findings, the UN body discovered many Black elderly populations were made to feel like they don’t belong, school police officers regularly intimidated Black children, and the criminal justice system’s practices disproportionately targeted Black people.

What is the Windrush scandal?

Windrush refers to the people who arrived in the UK from Jamaica, Trinidad and Tobago and other Caribbean islands between 1948 and 1971. The ship they sailed on was called the MV Empire Windrush, according to the BBC.

Speaking at a press conference on Friday in London, Dominique Day, one of the five members of the UN working group, said: “I’ve never visited a country before where there is a culture of fear pervading Black communities – relating to a range of asylum, residency, policing issues. An entire community experiences constant and ongoing human rights violations as a routine and normalized part of daily life.”

It’s unclear whether Day had ever visited the United States. 

British government denies systemic racism

For its part, the British government pushed back against the report’s findings.

“We strongly reject most of these findings,” a British government spokesperson said, per the Guardian.

“The report wrongly views people of African descent as a single homogeneous group and presents a superficial analysis of complex issues that fails to look at all possible causes of disparities, not just race. We are proud that the UK is an open, tolerant and welcoming country but this hard-earned global reputation is not properly reflected in this report.”

The denial of racism comes just eight years after the UK finished forcing taxpayers to pay the descendants of slave owners as a bribe for abolishing slavery nearly two centuries ago.

Meanwhile, officials said they had a “robust” discussion about the report with the UK equalities minister Kemi Badenoch.

As part of its fact-finding mission, the UN working group visited London, Birmingham, Manchester and Bristol. It spoke with senior government officials, local city council representatives, Metropolitan police and members of the Human Rights Commission.

The UN working group will present their full findings and recommendations to the UN Human Rights Council in September 2023.

[ukrfeminism]

Women and children have been failed by the Metropolitan Police, with racism, misogyny, and homophobia at the heart of the force, a blistering review says. 

Baroness Casey says a "boys' club" culture is rife and the force could be dismantled if it does not improve.

Her year-long review condemns systemic failures, painting a picture of a force where rape cases were dropped because a freezer containing key evidence broke.

The Met's Commissioner Sir Mark Rowley admitted "we have let Londoners down".

The report has prompted a strong reaction, with the mother of murdered black teenager Stephen Lawrence saying the force was "rotten to the core".

Home Secretary Suella Braverman warned it could take years to address some challenges, but was confident Sir Mark and his team would deliver the change the public expects.

Baroness Casey was appointed to review the force's culture and standards after the abduction, rape and murder of Sarah Everard by serving police officer Wayne Couzens, in 2021. 

During the course of her review, another Met officer, David Carrick, was convicted of a series of rapes, sexual offences and torture of women. 

The 363-page report condemns the force as institutionally racist, misogynist and homophobic, referencing racist officers and staff, routine sexism, and "deep-seated" homophobia. 

But Sir Mark told Radio 4's Today programme that while he accepted the "diagnosis" of the report he would not use the expression "institutional racism", describing it as ambiguous and politicised.

He said "hundreds" of "problematic" officers have been identified since he took over the force, and said the report has to be "a new beginning". 

Baroness Casey said the capital "no longer has a functioning neighbourhood policing service" and policing by consent was broken, especially for "communities of colour", who are "over-policed and under-protected"

The report says leadership teams at the top of the Met have been in denial for decades, and there has been a systemic failure to root out discriminatory and bullying behaviour.

It says the force, the biggest in the UK, has failed to protect the public from officers who abuse women and Baroness Casey said she could not rule out more officers like Couzens and Carrick being in the Met.

Teams tasked with tackling domestic abuse are understaffed, overworked and inexperienced, despite cases doubling in 10 years, it said.

The Met has not made its publicly-stated policy to crack down on abusers an "operational reality", the report found.

Baroness Casey told the BBC that rape detectives are working with insufficient resources while "the guys that hold the firearms get any toy they want".

The report says that discrimination "is often ignored" and complaints "are likely to be turned against" ethnic minority officers, to the point where black officers are 81% more likely to be in the misconduct system than white colleagues.

It concludes: "Deep in its culture it is uncomfortable talking about racism, misogyny, homophobia and other forms of discrimination."

The report also reveals:

Dilapidated fridges were repeatedly found overpacked, and when a freezer broke down during last summer's heatwave the evidence inside had to be destroyed, meaning cases of alleged rape were dropped

Discrimination towards female colleagues; bags of urine being thrown at cars; male officers flicking each other's genitals; and sex toys being placed in coffee mugs

Initiation rituals included people being urinated on in the shower

One Sikh officer had his beard trimmed; another had his turban put in a shoe box; and a Muslim officer found bacon in his boots 

Almost one in five of Met employees surveyed had personally experienced homophobia

Baroness Casey said austerity had "disfigured" the Met, and pressures like court backlogs and London's expanding population have put the force under further strain.

But she says not enough had changed since the 1999 Macpherson report, published after Stephen Lawrence's murder, which labelled the Met "institutionally racist".

Baroness Doreen Lawrence said the force has had almost 30 years since her son's death and the recognition of institutional racism by Sir William Macpherson to put its house in order.

"It has not done so, either because it does not want to or it does not know how to," she added.

In a Commons statement, Ms Braverman said there have been "serious failures of culture, leadership and standards".

She said it is vital that the law-abiding public "do not face a threat from the police themselves", and that officers not fit to wear a uniform are "driven out".

Shadow home secretary Yvette Cooper said she was concerned her counterpart had delivered a "dangerously complacent" statement by "astonishingly" setting out no action.

She called a lack of mandatory requirements for vetting and training underpinned by law a "disgrace", and urged Ms Braverman to ensure any officer under investigation for domestic abuse or sexual assault is automatically suspended.

The review made 16 recommendations, including for:

A new team to reform how it deals with misconduct cases, and an immediate overhaul of vetting 

Greater independent oversight and scrutiny, regular progress updates overseen by the mayor, and independent progress reviews after two and five years

A process to "apologise for past failings and rebuild consent"

The Parliamentary and Diplomatic Protection unit - which Couzens and Carrick had been members of - to be disbanded in its current form, and all firearms officers re-vetted

A dedicated women's protection service and a broad new strategy for protecting children, including preventing "adultification"- where black children are treated as adults and as a threat

A fundamental reset of stop and search in London, including introducing an independent monitor

If sufficient progress is not made, dividing the Met into national, specialist and London responsibilities should be considered, Baroness Casey concluded.

Asked if he would tell his daughters they could trust the police, Prime Minister Rishi Sunak told BBC Breakfast: "I need the answer to that question to be 'yes' and at the moment trust in the police has been hugely damaged."

Responding to the report, Labour leader Sir Keir Starmer said Sir Mark should "go further and faster" to uncover the Met's systemic problems.

He said: "The biggest danger today is that this just becomes another report."

London Mayor Sadiq Khan said today was "one of the darkest days in the 200-year history" of the Met, but he was not surprised as it chimed with his own personal and professional experiences.

He insisted the force did not need to be broken up, but said systemic issues needed addressing.

Four groups - the Runnymede Trust, Inquest, Liberty and Stonewall - said they "stand united in our call for the roll back of the policing powers" of the Met, and it was increasingly clear communities "do not consent to the violent, predatory and discriminatory policing that we are currently offered".

[gaast]

To say that Democrats' politics over the last few decades was completely divorced from the country's harsh rightward turn is to be ignorant at best and lying at worst.

When Obama was elected with a popular mandate to right the economy and bring justice to everyone who was harmed by the 2008 financial crisis, he used it instead to pass legislation that authorized Reagan-era trickle-down economics by giving huge payouts of public dollars to the very C-suite criminals who had just put so many people out of work, out of their homes, and out of their futures. He allowed Wall Street lobbyists to guide the direction of the legislation that was written in the wake of the financial crisis, and everybody watched it happen in real time. America limped towards recovery thanks to the billions of dollars used to help it recover--money taken, again, from taxpayers--went into the pockets of the obscenely wealthy.

Following that, charged with a completely dogshit health care system, Obama's signature legislation, dubbed Obamacare, forced people onto expensive marketplace plans that often offered minimum (read: inadequate) coverage. Rather than use their mandate to reshape the health care system based on models provided by Canada, Finland, or the UK, Democrats decided the better option would be to leave the system fundamentally undisturbed, except now if you don't get on your employer's plan, you can lose all the money you don't have on absurd premiums for health care you still can't afford.

Meanwhile, the Ferguson protests made all the more salient the fact that structural racism is alive and well in America. As countless people filled the streets to face an overmilitarized police force, the Democrats went to bat for the police, as they always do, wagging their fingers at the people who just want to not get murdered--or to at least see their murderers punished when they do get murdered. By failing to meaningfully address people's grievances over this issue, the Democrats ensured that more protests would erupt, guaranteeing condescending news coverage from a media environment that always kisses the rings of both the government and its police. Allowing these for-profit enterprises to cast the Black Lives Matter movement as a struggle between Black and white people, instead of as another theater of the class war raging in the country since Eisenhower, meant that further divides were made between people who should have been standing together in solidarity.

But even still, Democrats' fingers are in the many pies of the Bush administration's myriad failures. Check how many of them voted to authorize pretty much everything about the War on Terror. Hell, just check the votes on a handful of legislation. The Patriot Act? Passed the House 357-66 and the Senate 98-1. I don't think I need to tell you that there weren't 357 Republicans in the House, nor 98 in the Senate. No Child Left Behind? 381-41 in the House, 87-10 in the Senate.

The rise of the American Right was enabled by the Democrats' failures, at every turn, to work meaningfully for the working class, for immigrants, for women, for queers, for EVERYONE against the fucking CEOs, the oil executives, Wall Street, all the assholes prosecuting the class war on the side of property. To say that Donald Trump was made by Newt Gingrich and Fox News alone is to ignore the many, MANY ways that Democrats' legislative and political failures and missteps further stoked the very divisions among the working class that Fox and Gingrich and Trump prey upon. Biden's administration as President has done plenty to fight the working class. It has served as a weapon of the rich. Biden forced railroad unions to accept a contract they wanted to strike to improve. His Transportation Secretary actively refused to do anything to regulate the railroad industries' safety protocols following numerous high-profile rail disasters. Biden ran on a promise to give everyone $2000 in stimulus money, only to give us $600, less than Trump did, and tried to gaslight us into believing that we all knew that that's what he meant. He's sending weapons to Israel to kill Palestinians. He continued pretty much every single Trump-era immigration policy, including caging up kids at the border. Rather than fight for legislation to improve the lives of queer people, he just issued executive orders and pardons, the former of which can be easily and immediately overturned and the latter of which, while a good move, doesn't really help the fact that those people were treated as criminals for how fucking long, partially because of DOMA and Don't Ask Don't Tell, policies, lest we forget, that came into being in the Bill Clinton presidency (the former of which passed by veto-proof majorities). We make jokes about being unable to afford groceries largely because Biden refused to replace the Fed Chairman who said that he was managing inflation in such a way as to curb labor's power. He said that! He saw all the inroads that unions were making and said that he was going to use inflation to weaken them! And Biden let him stay! Biden agreed with him! Biden did! And he didn't fucking have to!

To sit here and wag your own goddam finger at anyone who doesn't want to participate in a system that has never, at any point, done any good for any of us is just fucking disgusting. It ignores the broader context of who and what Trump is, and who and what Biden is. It further enforces the goddam fucking class infighting that we all seem to love so fucking much, where it has to be Us against the Boomers and Trump country Voters and whatever the fuck else, like we aren't all fighting the same struggle, like we don't need to stand in solidarity with fucking racists and transphobes because we are ALL the ones who will suffer at the hands of fuckwits like Musk and whatever Exxon executive they want to take the fall for shaping climate-denial policy for decades to come. To say that I SHOULD, that I MUST do my part to legitimate the very system of my own fucking execution is fucking revolting.

The government is a fascist system no matter who's at the fucking levers and a fascist system will always seek to annihilate the working class. To even pretend that because one hand is "better" than the other is like saying that it's better to swallow arsenic than cyanide because at least arsenic doesn't kill you as fast. Newsflash: you're dead either way.

"The revolution is not the answer" "the revolution will leave behind the very people you say you want to protect" you are a bootlicker. You are a bootlicker.

You are a bootlicker.

You refuse, you REFUSE to imagine a better society. You have been defeated. You let your fatalism, your nihilism, overcome your idealism. You don't believe in solidarity. You don't believe in mutual aid. You don't believe in anything except making your own wretched little life as easy for you as you possibly can. You are content to fucking die.

Leave me out of it.

[dutty-lingo]

💥UK failing to address systemic racism against black people, warn UN experts💥

[arcticdementor]

Thread: I was sent this and felt the need to thread it here on Twitter. It will be long. It is purported to be an anonymous, open letter from a professor at UK Berkeley in the History Department. The only comment I will make is to say it is worth every moment of the read.

C Berkeley History Professor's Open Letter Against BLM, Police Brutality and Cultural Orthodoxy

Dear profs X, Y, Z

I am one of your colleagues at the University of California, Berkeley. I have met you both personally but do not know you closely, and am contacting you anonymously, with apologies. I am worried that writing this email publicly might lead to me losing my job, and likely all future jobs in my field.

In your recent departmental emails you mentioned our pledge to diversity, but I am increasingly alarmed by the absence of diversity of opinion on the topic of the recent protests and our community response to them.

In the extended links and resources you provided, I could not find a single instance of substantial counter-argument or alternative narrative to explain the under-representation of black individuals in academia or their over-representation in the criminal justice system. The explanation provided in your documentation, to the near exclusion of all others, is univariate: the problems of the black community are caused by whites, or, when whites are not physically present, by the infiltration of white supremacy and white systemic racism into American brains, souls, and institutions.

Many cogent objections to this thesis have been raised by sober voices, including from within the black community itself, such as Thomas Sowell and Wilfred Reilly. These people are not racists or 'Uncle Toms'. They are intelligent scholars who reject a narrative that strips black people of agency and systematically externalizes the problems of the black community onto outsiders.

Their view is entirely absent from the departmental and UCB-wide communiques.

…

A counternarrative exists. If you have time, please consider examining some of the documents I attach at the end of this email.

Overwhelmingly, the reasoning provided by BLM and allies is either primarily anecdotal (as in the case with the bulk of Ta-Nehisi Coates' undeniably moving article) or it is transparently motivated. As an example of the latter problem, consider the proportion of black incarcerated Americans. This proportion is often used to characterize the criminal justice system as anti-black. However, if we use the precise same methodology, we would have to conclude that the criminal justice system is even more anti-male than it is anti-black.

Would we characterize criminal justice as a systemically misandrist conspiracy against innocent American men? I hope you see that this type of reasoning is flawed, and requires a significant suspension of our rational faculties. Black people are not incarcerated at higher rates than their involvement in violent crime would predict. This fact has been demonstrated multiple times across multiple jurisdictions in multiple countries. And yet, I see my department uncritically reproducing a narrative that diminishes black agency in favor of a white-centric explanation that appeals to the department's apparent desire to shoulder the 'white man's burden' and to promote a narrative of white guilt.

If we claim that the criminal justice system is white-supremacist, why is it that Asian Americans, Indian Americans, and Nigerian Americans are incarcerated at vastly lower rates than white Americans? This is a funny sort of white supremacy. Even Jewish Americans are incarcerated less than gentile whites. I think it's fair to say that your average white supremacist disapproves of Jews. And yet, these alleged white supremacists incarcerate gentiles at vastly higher rates than Jews. None of this is addressed in your literature. None of this is explained, beyond hand-waving and ad hominems. "Those are racist dogwhistles". "The model minority myth is white supremacist". "Only fascists talk about black-on-black crime", ad nauseam. These types of statements do not amount to counterarguments: they are simply arbitrary offensive classifications, intended to silence and oppress discourse. Any serious historian will recognize these for the silencing orthodoxy tactics they are, common to suppressive regimes, doctrines, and religions throughout time and space. They are intended to crush real diversity and permanently exile the culture of robust criticism from our department.

Increasingly, we are being called upon to comply and subscribe to BLM's problematic view of history, and the department is being presented as unified on the matter. In particular, ethnic minorities are being aggressively marshaled into a single position. Any apparent unity is surely a function of the fact that dissent could almost certainly lead to expulsion or cancellation for those of us in a precarious position, which is no small number.

…

The vast majority of violence visited on the black community is committed by black people. There are virtually no marches for these invisible victims, no public silences, no heartfelt letters from the UC regents, deans, and departmental heads. The message is clear: Black lives only matter when whites take them. Black violence is expected and insoluble, while white violence requires explanation and demands solution.

Please look into your hearts and see how monstrously bigoted this formulation truly is.

No discussion is permitted for nonblack victims of black violence, who proportionally outnumber black victims of nonblack violence. This is especially bitter in the Bay Area, where Asian victimization by black assailants has reached epidemic proportions, to the point that the SF police chief has advised Asians to stop hanging good-luck charms on their doors, as this attracts the attention of (overwhelmingly black) home invaders.

Home invaders like George Floyd. For this actual, lived, physically experienced reality of violence in the USA, there are no marches, no tearful emails from departmental heads, no support from McDonald's and Wal-Mart.

For the History department, our silence is not a mere abrogation of our duty to shed light on the truth: it is a rejection of it.

…

Most troublingly, our department appears to have been entirely captured by the interests of the Democratic National Convention, and the Democratic Party more broadly. To explain what I mean, consider what happens if you choose to donate to Black Lives Matter, an organization UCB History has explicitly promoted in its recent mailers. All donations to the official BLM website are immediately redirected to ActBlue Charities, an organization primarily concerned with bankrolling election campaigns for Democrat candidates. Donating to BLM today is to indirectly donate to Joe Biden's 2020 campaign. This is grotesque given the fact that the American cities with the worst rates of black-on-black violence and police-on-black violence are overwhelmingly Democrat-run. Minneapolis itself has been entirely in the hands of Democrats for over five decades; the 'systemic racism' there was built by successive Democrat administrations.

…

Given the direction our history department appears to be taking far from any commitment to truth, we can regard ourselves as a formative training institution for this brand of snake-oil salespeople. Their activities are corrosive, demolishing any hope at harmonious racial coexistence in our nation and colonizing our political and institutional life. Many of their voices are unironically segregationist.

MLK would likely be called an Uncle Tom if he spoke on our campus today. We are training leaders who intend, explicitly, to destroy one of the only truly successful ethnically diverse societies in modern history. As the PRC, an ethnonationalist and aggressively racially chauvinist national polity with null immigration and no concept of jus solis increasingly presents itself as the global political alternative to the US, I ask you: Is this wise? Are we really doing the right thing?

As a final point, our university and department has made multiple statements celebrating and eulogizing George Floyd. Floyd was a multiple felon who once held a pregnant black woman at gunpoint. He broke into her home with a gang of men and pointed a gun at her pregnant stomach.

He terrorized the women in his community. He sired and abandoned multiple children, playing no part in their support or upbringing, failing one of the most basic tests of decency for a human being. He was a drug-addict and sometime drug-dealer, a swindler who preyed upon his honest and hard-working neighbors.

And yet, the regents of UC and the historians of the UCB History department are celebrating this violent criminal, elevating his name to virtual sainthood. A man who hurt women. A man who hurt black women. With the full collaboration of the UCB history department, corporate America, most mainstream media outlets, and some of the wealthiest and most privileged opinion-shaping elites of the USA, he has become a culture hero, buried in a golden casket, his (recognized) family showered with gifts and praise. Americans are being socially pressured into kneeling for this violent, abusive misogynist. A generation of black men are being coerced into identifying with George Floyd, the absolute worst specimen of our race and species. I'm ashamed of my department. I would say that I'm ashamed of both of you, but perhaps you agree with me, and are simply afraid, as I am, of the backlash of speaking the truth. It's hard to know what kneeling means, when you have to kneel to keep your job.

It shouldn't affect the strength of my argument above, but for the record, I write as a person of color. My family have been personally victimized by men like Floyd. We are aware of the condescending depredations of the Democrat party against our race. The humiliating assumption that we are too stupid to do STEM, that we need special help and lower requirements to get ahead in life, is richly familiar to us. I sometimes wonder if it wouldn't be easier to deal with open fascists, who at least would be straightforward in calling me a subhuman, and who are unlikely to share my race.

The ever-present soft bigotry of low expectations and the permanent claim that the solutions to the plight of my people rest exclusively on the goodwill of whites rather than on our own hard work is psychologically devastating.

No other group in America is systematically demoralized in this way by its alleged allies. A whole generation of black children are being taught that only by begging and weeping and screaming will they get handouts from guilt-ridden whites.

No message will more surely devastate their futures, especially if whites run out of guilt, or indeed if America runs out of whites. If this had been done to Japanese Americans, or Jewish Americans, or Chinese Americans, then Chinatown and Japantown would surely be no different to the roughest parts of Baltimore and East St. Louis today. The History department of UCB is now an integral institutional promulgator of a destructive and denigrating fallacy about the black race.

[sexydeathparty]

After Child Q, This Is The Change Black British Women Really Want To See

Two days can tell you a lot about the state of racism in the UK. Two weeks, even more so. And two years?

It was less than a fortnight ago, on Tuesday March 15, when the ‘Child Q’ safeguarding report was published, which ruled racism to have been a likely factor in a 15-year-old Black school girl from Hackney being taken out of her exams and intimately strip-searched by police at school, while she was on her period and without parental consent or any suitable supervision. 

Naturally, Black people all over the country were horrified and upset at the disturbing details that emerged about the incident, which occurred in December 2020 after a teacher wrongly accused the child of possessing cannabis, and which left the girl “traumatised”, according to her mother.

The next day, Wednesday March 16, saw the publication of the government’s long-awaited response to the Sewell report into racial disparities. Entitled Inclusive Britain, the 100-page action plan recommended a suite of more than 70 measures, including changes to policing, health and education.

The irony of the timing was not lost on many. 

Only last weekend, thousands of people turned out in Parliament Square for a rally against racism, Islamophobia, antisemitism and fascism for the United Nations Anti-Racism Day, and thousands more marched in Hackney and beyond in protest and support of Child Q.

As Diane Abbott, Labour MP for Hackney, who attended both rallies, said in a comment piece for the Guardian, the schoolgirl was “failed in so many ways”.

“The police abused her and no teacher thought to contact her parents, to ask the girl afterwards how she was: certainly they don’t seem to have grasped the gravity of this awful situation,” Abbott wrote. A stark conclusion could be drawn, she added, “that black schoolgirls are not safe from police abuse, even at school, supposedly a place of safety. What kind of society tolerates this?”

Launching the Inclusive Britain report that same day, MP Kemi Badenoch, Cabinet Minister for Equalities and Levelling Up Communities, wrote in its ministerial foreward: “If there is one thing at the heart of this government’s agenda, it’s that anyone in this country should be able to achieve anything, no matter where they live or come from.

“As a black woman, a first-generation immigrant and the Minister for Equalities, I passionately believe in this idea too. It is my lived experience. I also know, however, that not everyone in this country has had this experience.”

Measures recommended in the Inclusive Britain action plan include:

A new, national framework for police powers, such as stop and search, with greater scrutiny at a local level

An automatic “opt-in” pilot to help ethnic minorities and others receive legal advice when in police custody

A new Office for Health Improvement and Disparities to improve health for everyone

A diverse panel of historians to develop a new knowledge-rich Model History Curriculum by 2024, exploring Britain’s historical past

Guidance to employers on how to measure and address the ethnicity pay gap.

These key recommendations – and the report’s many others – were drawn up based on the findings of the Commission on Race and Ethnic Disparities, which was established in the wake of global Black Live Matters protests in June 2020, although the commission did not release those findings until March 2021.

Led by educationalist Tony Sewell, the commission gave suggestions under three key themes: building trust, promoting fairness, and creating agency. 

However, the Sewell report was discredited by many directly after publication for the commission’s central conclusion that Britain is “no longer” a place where the system is “deliberately rigged against ethnic minorities”.

It’s almost two years since the death of George Floyd and a year since the Sewell report, and the global fight against racism isn’t over.

Though Floyd’s killing took place in the US, outrage over the case of child Q demonstrates how much more work is needed to address racism at home. So, will these new ‘Inclusive Britain’ measures help tackle racism in the UK?

Not if the government can’t acknowledge racism exists, say Black women.

Bukola Adisa is CEO of Career Masterclass, a career development platform for Black, Asian and ethnically diverse professionals, and has read the full report.

“Too many people from ethnic minority backgrounds feel that the ‘system’ is not on their side, as the Inclusive Britain action plan rightly says,” says the 38-year-old from St Albans. 

The key themes from Sewell’s report are well articulated in the new plan, but one of the three is crucial, she tells HuffPost UK, and only time will tell if the government and other institutions like the police can follow through on it.

“Building trust is the foundation, in my opinion, as there is much work to be done around restoring faith in the government, its agencies and institutions,” says Adisa, who points to the recent uproar around Child Q as just “one of many incidences where trust in the system has been broken”.

Racism exists

The first thing the government needs to do to mend that trust is acknowledge that racism exists, Adisa says.

Adisa continues: “A statement like this one: ‘Put simply, we no longer see a Britain where the system is deliberately rigged against ethnic minorities. The impediments and disparities do exist, they are varied, and ironically very few of them are directly to do with racism...’ by Dr Sewell, minimises the daily lived experiences of millions of black and ethnically diverse individuals in the UK.”

Blessing Mukosha, a 26-year old entrepreneur and podcaster from London, thinks the new measures will go some way to addressing racism at a structural level, but won’t guarantee change in the everyday experiences of minorities. 

“However, if these structural changes are accompanied by investment in arts, culture, education and media to create more opportunities for diverse voices and faces in the most influential spaces in our society, they may then be said to be capable of solving racism,” Mukosha says.

Adisa agrees on this. “Much more can be done in using mainstream media to shape public behaviour. We are beginning to see how influential this approach can be with football and anti-racism messaging in advertisements, such as the Premier League’s recent campaign, No Room for Racism,” she says.

“The government can come up with a similar campaign or partner with organisations to push messaging that promotes inclusion and celebrates diversity.” 

Demanding accountability and transparency in the workplace is also a tool for change, she adds – and this needs to go beyond simply  ‘pay gap’ work.

“If the government mandates businesses and institutions to share data around ethnicity in their hiring and promotion practices, it may become easier to track which companies are being deliberate about diversity and inclusion, and eliminating racial bias,” Adisa says. 

The case of Child Q

Sandre Igwe, an author and Black Maternal advocate from south-east London, says she was “horrified, and disgusted but not as shocked as I thought I should be” by the details that emerged from the Child Q report.

“Unfortunately, the system is wired to not protect Black young girls, but harmful stereotypes are still being perpetuated: such as black girls being perceived as more mature, less innocent, and requiring less protection and support than their white counterparts,” says the 32-year-old founder of The Motherhood Group and author of My Black Motherhood. “Not only is this not true, but it’s rooted in racism, both unconscious and conscious bias.”

As a mother of two Black girls, Igwe fears for the protection of her children.

“I have the responsibility to teach my daughters right from wrong, to positively offer guidance, support them to be accountable for their behaviour as well as show respect to other members of society – especially those in positions of authority, like their teachers,” she says.

“But unfortunately, what are the repercussions of pouring so much into my daughters if they won’t be treated like their counterparts – with care, respect, dignity, and with autonomy? These are basic human rights that everyone should be entitled to”

Asked what she thinks can be done, she says: “The onus shouldn’t be on Black people to solve racism in the UK, and most certainly there shouldn’t be more pressure for little Black girls to assimilate to ‘whiteness’ to be treated with care.”

She continues: “I think structural racism needs to be addressed at a structural level, such as reframing policies and practices that disadvantage Black people, implementing training that will allow harmful stereotypes and biases to be dismantled, and the recruitment of more Black employees at the senior level to ensure both diversity and an anti-racism work culture.”

Mukosha wasn’t shocked at the treatment of child Q either.

“In my experience as an advocate for children excluded from school, I saw first hand how adults in positions of responsibility can fail to treat Black children like children by criminalising and adultifying them,” she tells HuffPost.

She adds: “I believe that this case has shown Black women and girls that we are universally expected to withstand violations of our boundaries and safety, because society does not recognise us as human beings and therefore fails to treat us humanely.”

Mukosha believes that Britain will change only when the nation’s cultural identity changes, that measures such as those outlined in the Inclusive Britain plan are only effective if the nation as a whole understands and accepts itself as diverse.

“A national identity that is white, ‘Anglo-Saxon’, Christian, and heterosexual but where the society is multi-ethnic and culturally diverse, is bound to lead to everyday racism and alienation of minority groups,” she says.

“If through arts, culture, education and media, Britain is able to truly recognise and value a diverse national identity, then it may change as these new measures are applied.”

Adisa thinks “systemic challenges of racism, prejudice and bias have been entrenched in our culture over many decades, and it will be wishful thinking to imagine that they will vanish overnight.

“However, if the government shows true commitment to these actions and strategies, we will definitely be on the path to true and lasting change.”

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[ukcorruptpolice]

MPs rebuke police for ‘systemic failure’ to improve record on race

Failings have led to ‘unjustified inequalities’, says landmark report that finds little progress in 22 years since Macpherson Police and governments have done too little to stamp out racial injustice in the ranks, with the failings being systemic and leading to “unjustified inequalities”, a report by an all-party committee of MPs has found. The report by the home affairs committee was heavily critical of the progress made in the 22 years since the Macpherson report into why the white killers of Stephen Lawrence were allowed to go free, which blamed “institutional racism” The report castigates the police for failing to reform themselves, but also successive governments of both main parties for failing to take racial justice seriously enough. It condemns “deep-rooted and persistent racial disparities” and finds guidelines and recommendations ignored over the past two decades, or not followed through. Amid this, racial disparities affecting black and minority ethnic (BAME) people, especially black Britons, remain and cannot be explained or justified, the report says. Police leaders responded by accepting the report, saying the slow pace of reform was of “deep regret” and promising real change. The report describes as “unjustified inequalities” the fact that black people remain nine times more likely than white people to be stopped and searched in England and Wales, with most found to be innocent. Black people are more likely to be stopped for drugs but are less likely to use them, the report says. On Tuesday the prime minister described stop and search as “loving”, as he launched a new crime strategy derided by some as being a collection of gimmicks including government approval to make stops without suspicion easier. The report found the recruitment of ethnic minority officers was too slow and it is “inexcusable” that forces would take decades to be representative of the areas they police. Currently 7% of officers are from ethnic minorities compared with 14% of the population, with demographic predictions for the Guardian projecting that the race gap will grow even bigger. Retention of BAME officers who have joined is also a problem and they are twice as likely to be dismissed as their white counterparts. In a highly unusual move, the committee described as “wrong” a big expansion by the Met in its use of stop and search in London during the first months of lockdown in 2020. That saw the equivalent of one in four of all black males aged between 15 and 24 searched, and found to be doing nothing wrong. The report says: “It should never have been possible for the equivalent of one in four black males between the ages of 15 and 24 in London who were not committing a crime to be stopped and searched during a three-month period. “This finding undermines arguments that stop and search was being used judiciously during this time.” The report notes: “Those we heard from in London expressed strong sentiments of anger and frustration towards the police, particularly about the way in which they felt police officers did not treat them fairly or with respect, and also expressed the lack of confidence they had that the police would keep them safe.” One rationale offered for the racial disparity in stop and search figures is the challenge of tackling knife crime. The committee rejected this argument: “We recognise the importance of the police being able to take action against knife crime, and their concern that victims and perpetrators of knife crime are disproportionately black, but we also note that this does not explain the fact that there are significant racial disparities in stop and searches in every force in the country, with some of the highest levels of disproportionality in areas with very low levels of knife crime.” Neville Lawrence, father of Stephen, said: “I am very concerned that black people are continuing to be disproportionately subject to police powers such as stop and search, a situation that is worsening. It is also concerning that black people remain disproportionately the victims of violent crime. Lawrence backed the committee’s calls for a new steering group to oversee changes: “Given these failings, increased oversight is clearly needed and I am pleased the committee has recognised this.” The report calls for the appointment of a race tsar for policing; for the home secretary to take a greater lead in steering reform; and for police forces to look like the communities they serve by 2030. They were first set that target in 1999, given a decade, and missed it. The report adopts as a key finding an admission made in a Guardian interview by Martin Hewitt, the chair of the National Police Chiefs’ Council, that race undermines policing’s legitimacy and effectiveness. It also says confidence in the police is lower among some BAME communities than among white people, and that the gap is growing. Hewitt welcomed the report: “ thorough report does justice to the significant impact that Sir William Macpherson has had on society since 1999. Since then, policing has changed, but as this report makes clear, not far or fast enough to secure the confidence of all communities and especially black people,” he said. “This is of deep regret for policing and of course those who knew Stephen. Putting that right is an operational imperative because the legitimacy and effectiveness of UK policing is built on relationships between the police and the public.” The Macpherson report said that community confidence in policing should be a priority, but the committee found it was not “a policing priority or as a ministerial priority today”. The committee praises some forces for progress made since the Macpherson report in 1999, but says it has been patchy and too little. In a key passage, setting out the challenges policing needs to meet, the report says: “Policing today is very different from 22 years ago and there have been important and welcome improvements … We have also found persistent, deep-rooted and unjustified racial disparities in key areas. “The failure to make sufficient progress on BAME recruitment, retention and progression, troubling race disparities in the police misconduct system, unjustified inequalities in the use of key police powers such as stop and search and a worrying decline in confidence and trust in the police among some BAME communities all point to structural problems that go beyond individual bias. “There has been a systematic failure on the part of the police service and government, over many years, to take race inequality in policing seriously enough. “The Macpherson report’s objective at the end of the Stephen Lawrence Inquiry to ‘eliminate racist prejudice and disadvantage and demonstrate fairness in all aspects of policing’ has not been met.” The committee makes no finding on institutional racism, which police deny, or the effectiveness in tackling crime of stop and search, instead calling for more research. The report is a rebuke to those in policing and government that have tried to underplay or deny the race crisis that has gripped policing. That saw hundreds of thousands take to Britain’s streets in support of Black Lives Matter, triggered by the murder of George Floyd by a police officer in the US in May 2020. Last month in the UK a police officer who kicked a black man, Dalian Atkinson, in the head in Telford was convicted of manslaughter, the first such conviction of an officer in more than 30 years. Andy George, president of the National Black Police Association, said: “The denial of institutional racism has prevented initiatives to bring about racial equality in policing. Not only are we failing to recruit enough officers from ethnic backgrounds, we are falling to retain them. “This highlights the need to change the internal culture of policing.” The report says it is “deeply concerned” that some victims of race hate crime say they have been treated by the police as suspects rather than victims, and warns that the police are failing to tackle racist hate crime on the internet. Since George Floyd’s murder, police leaders have promised reform but little has been announced, and those with knowledge of draft plans tell the Guardian they are little different from what has gone before. Yvette Cooper, chair of the home affairs select committee, said: “Without clear action to tackle race inequality we fear that, in 10 years’ time, future committees will be hearing the very same arguments that have been rehearsed already for over 20 years. That cannot be allowed to happen.” Achievement was possible, the report found: “The recent progress by forces in Greater Manchester and Nottinghamshire has shown that it is possible rapidly to increase the proportion of new BME recruits into line with the proportion of BME residents in the local population.” The Met said the criticism of its increased stop and search in 2020 at the start of lockdown was because “officers were redirected in their duties, as overall crime levels reduced, and saw many more of them on the streets undertaking proactive policing in violence hotspots and on general patrol duties. “This led to an increase in the number of stop and searches carried out but was not the result of any direction to officers to increase stop and search.” In a statement, the policing minister, Kit Malthouse, did not address key points in the report such as the need for government to do more. He said: ”We know there is much more to do – that is why attracting more officers from a wide range of ethnic and socio-economic backgrounds is a core ambition of our drive to recruit an extra 20,000 officers. “Stop and search along with other preventative activity set out in the Beating Crime Plan is also vital to ensuring we create safer streets and neighbourhoods.” Read the full article

[kidsofcolourhq]

Mea (20): The Reality of School-Based Police Officers and the Mental Well-Being of People of Colour.

On the 25th of August 2020, Kids of Colour and Northern Police Monitoring Project will release a report on police in schools in Greater Manchester. Ahead of its public release, Mea, a project officer at Kids of Colour, reflects on the report’s content.

Over the past few months, at Kids of Colour we have been working to establish the true consequences that deploying police officers into schools is having on students. As a person of colour myself, I have my own personal fears and anxieties towards police presence. I was lucky enough to never have an active police presence whilst I was at school, however, the extensive data that has been collected as part of our report has confirmed all of my fears about what having a police presence will do to the state of mind of young people of colour, solidifying the need for our no police in schools campaign.

As we already know, the over-policing of people of colour is already a very serious issue. With black people being nine and a half times more likely to be stopped and searched by the police and being over-represented in the prison population, there is a clear unbalance in the justice system. It is inevitable that the same imbalances will transfer into schools, especially seeing as there is already a high exclusion rate for black students in comparison to their white peers. 

From the survey results that we have received as part of gathering community insight into police in schools, it is clear that many students of colour are being unfairly pulled up and stereotyped by police officers in schools. In one instance, a student detailed how a police officer in school told them that they ‘would end up nowhere in life’ and proceeded by asking what ‘gang’ they were affiliated to. This is clear racialised stereotyping and the aggressive nature of this language will inevitably lead to a lack of self-esteem and anxiety for students of colour who are having to deal with SBPOs addressing them in this way. That lack of self-esteem is likely to interfere with student learning; if they are being continually told that they will never succeed, it will become increasingly difficult for them to fight against these expectations.

With the clear recurring theme in the coming report of students feeling ‘threatened’, ‘intimidated’ and ‘fear[ful]’ around police in schools, I cannot help but dread the effect that this constant feeling of threat is having on their state of mind. Schools are supposed to be a safe space for young people, not a place for them to feel as if they are being treated as criminals; being encouraged to feel on edge, as if they have to constantly be watching over their shoulder. It was heartbreaking to read the harmful rhetoric these kids are facing on a regular basis, especially since the verbal abuse they are enduring is coming from people who are supposed to be protecting and empowering them. As people of colour, we are constantly having to battle the misconceptions that people have of us, which is something that is extremely mentally draining. We are told we are too loud, angry, aggressive and that we won’t amount to anything. These messages become very tiring and the distress that they cause undoubtedly affects our well-being. Being in the education system and constantly being worried about failure is enough to push anyone into a state of anxiety, but having to deal with racist and harmful verbal abuse by people who are ‘gatekeepers’ to your success adds a whole other level to the stress-inducing experience of being at school. There are multiple pieces of research detailing the ways in which dealing with daily racism can then lead to serious mental health issues such as depression, anxiety and PTSD. We cannot ignore the role that schools, specifically those with SBPOs in, will play in the deterioration of young people of colours’ mental health.

On top of this, people of colour are not given the support or space to recover from such trauma. There is so much stigma around people of colour showing emotions or seeking support for their mental health and often there aren’t adequate resources to be able to support us. White tears and emotions are seen to have so much more value than those of people of colour, meaning that when we do reach out for help we can be belittled or rejected. Currently in the UK ‘Black British people are four times more likely to be sectioned than white people and more likely to be given psychoactive medication instead of a talking therapy’. Not only is racism a strain on our mental health, but these statistics show the clear disparity in the treatment of mental health issues in people of colour, particularly black people, in comparison to white people. Why is it assumed that we will not benefit from talking therapy, and why is it that we are so highly institutionalised? It all stems from stereotypes. Stereotypes about our cultural differences, stereotypes about expressing our emotions and stereotypes that enforce the idea that professionals will not be able to understand us and our struggles. Then, not only does our mental health suffer as our struggles aren’t taken seriously, but things are made worse by exacerbating the oppression in our current systems, for example, by putting police into schools.

Time and time again I am reminded of the lack of support given to people of colour from the government and the police, I think it is time to accept that the only way to make a change is to limit the amount that police exist in the spaces we do. There are so many other ways to empower students to pursue a positive future and I do not believe that the police play a part in this. Instead of investing money in more school-based police officers, why not invest in youth workers to run workshops, counsellors or experts to come in and educate young people about the variety of careers they have the ability to pursue? The government should invest more in mental health support and equip people with racial literacy so that they have the ability to approach and solve the issues that young people of colour are having to conquer on a daily basis. Currently, they are failing us as people of colour. 

We will no longer accept that we should just get used to feeling afraid at the hands of the police. Let our concerns be heard and get rid of the police from our schools.

[ladystylestores]

George Floyd: Thousands protest against racism in Washington DC

Media playback is unsupported on your device

Media caption“Fifty plus years later we’re still dealing with the same thing”

Tens of thousands are marching against racism and police brutality in Washington DC, as protests sparked by George Floyd’s death enter a 12th day.

Crowds gathered near the Capitol, the Lincoln Memorial and Lafayette Park, where security forces blocked any approach to the nearby White House.

Meanwhile, people paid their respects to Mr Floyd in North Carolina, where he was born, before a memorial service.

Large anti-racism rallies also took place in a number of other countries.

In the UK, Parliament Square in central London was filled with people supporting the Black Lives Matter movement, despite calls by the government to avoid mass gatherings for fear of spreading the coronavirus.

In Australia, there were major protests in the cities of Sydney, Melbourne and Brisbane that focused on the treatment of indigenous Australians.

Mr Floyd, an unarmed black man, died in police custody in Minneapolis on 25 May. Video footage showed a white police officer, Derek Chauvin, kneeling on Mr Floyd’s neck for almost nine minutes while he is pinned to the floor.

Mr Chauvin has been dismissed and charged with murder. Three other officers who were on the scene have also been sacked and charged with aiding and abetting.

What is happening in Washington DC?

Tens of thousands of protesters, many of them carrying placards saying “Black Lives Matter”, gathered peacefully outside Lafayette Park, near the White House, at the newly renamed Black Lives Matter Plaza.

Mayor Muriel Bowser welcomed people, saying the crowds in the capital had sent a message to President Donald Trump. On Monday, federal law enforcement officers fired tear gas to clear a protest in the area ahead of a visit to a church by the president.

Image copyright Getty Images

Image caption An area near the White House has been renamed Black Lives Matter Plaza

“If he can take over Washington DC, he can come for any state, and none of us will be safe,” she said. “So today, we pushed the army away from our city.”

Ms Bowser has requested the withdrawal of all federal law enforcement officers and National Guard troops from the city, saying their presence is “unnecessary”.

“Our soldiers should not be treated that way, they should not be asked to move on American citizens. Today, we say ‘no’; in November, we say ‘next’.”

Image copyright Getty Images

Image caption Demonstrators in Washington DC said they would not stop pushing for change

A 35-year-protester, Eric Wood, told the BBC: “I’m here because I really couldn’t afford not to be here. Racism has long been a part of the US.”

Crystal Ballinger, 46, said she felt hopeful about the movement this time. “I feel something different about this protest… I’m hopeful that the message of solidarity and equality is getting out.”

‘We’re just getting started’

By Helier Cheung, BBC News, Washington

The crowd was diverse – with people of different ethnicities, and families with children – and there was an upbeat, if determined, mood. Music was being played and food, water and hand sanitiser handed out, as protesters chant “George Floyd”, “Breonna Taylor”, and “No justice, no peace”.

Image caption Sarina and Grace Lecroy were among the crowd at Lafayette Park, near the White House

The protest’s movements appeared quite spontaneous – at one point, demonstrators did an impromptu march through the streets, walking down Pennsylvania Avenue before looping back towards the White House. At another point, the entire street of demonstrators dropped on one knee at the same time, in a mark of solidarity.

Sisters Sarina Lecroy, 20, and Grace Lecroy, 16, said they were protesting for the first time, and that they believed the extent of the public outrage and the nationwide nature of these protests could lead to police reforms.

“We’re just getting started this time, but it [the movement] does feel much more collective than in the past,” said Sarina.

Many placards also reflected the growing debate about how white people should help the cause. One placard held by a demonstrator read: “I may never understand, but I will stand with you.”

More on George Floyd’s death

What’s happening elsewhere in the US?

Hundreds of people paid their respects to Mr Floyd in Raeford, North Carolina, laying flowers at a public viewing of his body in a church near where he was born.

A private memorial service was then held for members of his family. Governor Roy Cooper ordered that flags be flown at half-mast from sunrise to sunset on Saturday in Mr Floyd’s honour.

Image copyright EPA

Image caption In North Carolina, George Floyd’s family held a public viewing and a memorial service

In the city of Buffalo, New York, two police officers were charged with second-degree assault after they were filmed shoving a 75-year-old protester, who remains in hospital in a serious but stable condition. The officers pleaded not guilty and were released without bail.

On Friday, the Minneapolis City Council and the Minnesota Department of Human Rights agreed to ban police neck restraints and chokeholds.

Seattle’s mayor banned the use by police of CS gas against protesters, and a federal judge in Denver ordered police to stop the use of tear gas, plastic bullets and other non-lethal force.

Meanwhile, the National Football League reversed its policy on protests against racial injustice by players during the national anthem.

What do protesters want?

An end to police brutality is undoubtedly at the forefront of protests nationwide.

But it is not the only concern. Repeated incidents of police brutality may have become the flashpoint, but issues with law enforcement are emblematic of the wider problem of systemic racism and inequality.

Media playback is unsupported on your device

Media captionWatch: ‘I remember George Floyd as me’

On social media and on the streets, those in support of the movement have called on elected officials to address these longstanding inequalities, from law enforcement to mass incarceration to healthcare.

Black Americans are jailed at five times the rate of white Americans and sentenced for drug offences six times more, often despite equal rates of drug use, according to the National Association for the Advancement of Colored People (NAACP).

Black mothers die in childbirth at over twice the rate of white mothers, according to national health data. Decades of government-sanctioned segregation have also seen inequalities across school systems, housing and other public resources.

Media playback is unsupported on your device

Media captionThe US’s history of racial inequality has paved the way for modern day police brutality

A 2019 Pew Research Center study found more than eight-in-10 black adults say the legacy of slavery still affects black Americans’ position today. Half say it is unlikely America will ever see true racial equality.

As demonstrator Kyla Berges told BBC Minute: “The system has failed me for 300 plus years, so what do I have to do to make it change?”

US protests timeline

25 May 2020

Image caption Tributes to George Floyd at a makeshift memorial Image copyright by Getty Images

George Floyd dies after being arrested by police outside a shop in Minneapolis, Minnesota. Footage shows a white officer, Derek Chauvin, kneeling on Mr Floyd’s neck for several minutes while he is pinned to the floor. Mr Floyd is heard repeatedly saying “I can’t breathe”. He is pronounced dead later in hospital.

26 May

Image caption Demonstrators in Minneapolis Image copyright by AFP

Four officers involved in the arrest of George Floyd are fired. Protests begin as the video of the arrest is shared widely on social media. Hundreds of demonstrators take to the streets of Minneapolis and vandalise police cars and the police station with graffiti.

27 May

Image caption Protesters lie on the streets in Portland, Oregon Image copyright by Reuters

Protests spread to other cities including Memphis and Los Angeles. In some places, like Portland, Oregon, protesters lie in the road, chanting “I can’t breathe”. Demonstrators again gather around the police station in Minneapolis where the officers involved in George Floyd’s arrest were based and set fire to it. The building is evacuated and police retreat.

28 May

Image caption President Trump tweets about the unrest Image copyright by Reuters

President Trump blames the violence on a lack of leadership in Minneapolis and threatens to send in the National Guard in a tweet.  He follows it up in a second tweet with a warning “when the looting starts, the shooting starts”. The second tweet is hidden by Twitter for “glorifying violence”.

29 May

Image caption Members of a CNN crew are arrested at a protest Image copyright by Reuters

A CNN reporter, Omar Jimenez, is arrested while covering the Minneapolis protest. Mr Jimenez was reporting live when police officers handcuffed him. A few minutes later several of his colleagues are also arrested. They are all later released once they are confirmed to be members of the media.

Derek Chauvin charged with murder

Image caption Former Minneapolis police officer Derek Chauvin after being charged over the death of George Floyd Image copyright by Getty Images

Former Minneapolis police officer Derek Chauvin, 44, is charged with murder and manslaughter. The charges carry a combined maximum 35-year sentence.

31 May

Image caption Demonstrators set fire to rubbish in New York Image copyright by Reuters

Violence spreads across the US on the sixth night of protests. A total of at least five people are reported killed in protests from Indianapolis to Chicago. More than 75 cities have seen protests. At least 4,400 people have been arrested.  Curfews are imposed across the US to try to stem the unrest.

1 June

Image caption Trump posing with a Bible outside a boarded-up church Image copyright by EPA

President Trump threatens to send in the military to quell growing civil unrest. He says if cities and states fail to control the protests and “defend their residents” he will deploy the army and “quickly solve the problem for them”. Mr Trump poses in front of a damaged church shortly after police used tear gas to disperse peaceful protesters nearby.

2 June

Image caption George Floyd’s family joined protesters in Houston Image copyright by Getty

Tens of thousands of protesters again take to the streets. One of the biggest protests is in George Floyd’s hometown of Houston, Texas. Many defy curfews in several cities, but the demonstrations are largely peaceful.

4 June

Image caption Mourners gather to remember George Floyd Image copyright by Getty

A memorial service for George Floyd is held in Minneapolis.  Those gathered in tribute stand in silence for eight minutes, 46 seconds, the amount of time Mr Floyd is alleged to have been on the ground under arrest. Hundreds attended the service, which heard a eulogy from civil rights activist Rev Al Sharpton.

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[96thdayofrage]

Because Black people don't exist as a monolith, relationships with each other are mostly defined by common experiences. Arguably, no communities within the Black diaspora have exhibited animosity between themselves than Africans and African Americans. To understand the friction between these communities is to closely examine white supremacy as a culprit. White supremacy is a system, or power structure, established to prioritise the feelings, interests, care, attention, and prosperity of White people even at the expense of other racial groups.

Its role in colonisation, violent capture and forceful removal of native Africans from their homelands is well documented. In truth, a significant number of African Americans today would have remained in Africa were it not for the disruptive event of the transatlantic slave trade. And although this has since been abolished, it has left internalised racism as a by-product for Black people to grapple with. To stay in context, Black Americans and Africans.

Source Of Tensions

African immigrants in America not only have to navigate systemic racism, but also microaggressions within African American spaces. But the migration regime that has enabled Africans to arrive in America to seek education, economic opportunities and others was made possible by the Civil Rights movement.

''I don't think this represents how all Black Americans think but I think the reason for this tension between Africans is that some Black Americans feel African immigrants come to America to take away opportunities,'' says Chanel Johnson, a Black American residing in Baltimore, Maryland, ''We are talking about opportunities in colleges that award scholarships and other educational or welfare packages to Black immigrants to thrive. We are also talking about opportunities away from academia. I also think dealing with racism and discrimination as Black Americans is pushing some of us to see how we are neglected and impoverished by the system.''

Although the friction between Black Americans and Africans predates social media popularity, a platform like Clubhouse for instance, is showing how this discord is ever-present. The voice-only app launched last year to massive reception, allowing for real-time conversations. Along the line it has produced xenophobic attitudes, misogyny, racism, homophobia, transphobia and antisemitism. Black Americans and Africans are no different when it comes to propping up long-held sentiments against each other.

''This in-fighting is such a regular theme on Clubhouse that whenever I enter the app and see no room with an inflammatory title targeting Africans or Black Americans, I always think something is wrong,'' shares Nigeria-based Tracy Imafidon. ''I have been in a room where a Black American man was openly xenophobic towards Nigerians and said we always cause problems wherever we go, even in America. On the contrary, Nigerians are doing well for themselves in America and becoming successful, whether it is school or work. And maybe this is what is eating Black Americans up? On the other side, I have also witnessed Nigerians and Africans be rude and uncouth towards Black Americans, using police brutality against them.''

Before Clubhouse, these kinds of interactions existed on Instagram, Facebook and Twitter. Interestingly enough, anything can act as a trigger. The cultural meltdown around the release of Beyoncé's Black Is King visual album last year, where Africans criticized it for flattening various African experiences pitted them against Black Americans. Or even this tweet that proclaims Black American culture as the blueprint for other Black cultures.

Common Struggles Much?

Despite the differences in realities that Black groups have, the news cycle has shown how Black people around the world and their political struggles are intersecting across white supremacy, imperialism and capitalist exploitation. The establishment of the police system during colonialism and slavery was primarily to subjugate people and protect capitalist interests. With anti-police brutality movements like Black America's #BlackLivesMatter and Nigeria's #ENDSARS, Black people are finding commonalities in their struggles.

Chris Edeh, a Nigerian-American currently residing in the UK, is more curious about solutions. ''What I have noticed about these divisions is that you don't actively need White people to divide Black people. We as Black people have internalized what white people have said about us and we use it against each other, and this is why we should embrace Pan-Africanism and read the works of Pan-Africanist thinkers. This doesn't mean we should ignore our differences. There are different groups of White people, but history shows how they had one thing in mind — capitalist expansion and accumulation of wealth via slavery and colonization. Likewise, Black people need to be united for the goal of liberation. I'm talking about having a Pan-African consciousness.''

Not all Black people subscribe to Pan-Africanism, an anti-slavery and anti-colonisation movement formed in the 19th Century and built on the premise that people of African descent should be in solidarity to achieve common goals. And while Pan-Africanism pushed for the liberation of Africans and those in the diaspora, the era of independence installed African dictators who once espoused Pan-African ideas but still went ahead and oppressed their own people. It's also why Pan-Africanism failed to deliver socio-economic prosperity for Africans.

''I don't believe in Pan-Africanism as the approach to address issues within Black communities,'' argues Joan Agyapong, a Ghanaian feminist living in Accra. She adds: ''Africa itself is too polarized and there's also the need for the continent to decolonise or break away from colonial notions that have been instilled in us. What I will recommend for individual Black communities is to continue to build enough political and revolutionary power to combat its issues on small levels. And you know what? It's already happening. We all in Ghana admired the END SARS movement in Nigeria and what it sought to achieve. I think it's rather lazy to suggest Black universality as a revolutionary praxis when today's Black realities contain more nuance than before.''

The existing tensions between Africans and Black Americans can also be seen through the lens of American exceptionalism and imperialism. America as a global power wields much cultural and political clout that it provides a ready infrastructure for Black Americans to be hyper-visible than other Black groups. Unwittingly, their experiences and culture is framed as a kind of 'superior Blackness,' filtering into their interactions with others on the Black spectrum. At least, mutual respect and understanding are necessary for Black Americans and Africans to co-exist courteously.

[goldenharryvol6]

This is something I wrote last night. I have been posting it on all my social media platforms and thought I should post it here too.

BLACK LIVES MATTER. They always have and they always will. The way black communities and other minorities have been and are still being treated is sickening. As a child I grew up listening to stories of racism from my dad who saw the social effects first-hand. My dad grew up as a white South African during apartheid; he would tell me horror stories of seeing black men lynched from trees and all non-white communities being forced into slums and shanty towns. He saw black women being raped and used because they were ‘easy targets’, military and police beating and murdering innocent black people in the streets. He saw black communities turning to gang crime and drugs because they had no other way of life; killing each other and leaving children orphaned. He told me of the racism and oppression and just how truly vile it was and still is. The last time he visited South Africa was in 2012, he came home and said he didn’t want to have to go back again. He talked about how things had changed but still felt the same; there were still shanty towns, there were still dead bodies in the street, there was still a massive disregard for black lives. These facts are still true to this day, 30 years on from apartheid. It is utterly heart wrenching to me that this still rings true in our modern society still.

What is currently going on in America is harrowing and has been going on for years. I am aware that the exact same issues are happening in the UK too, however given the recent murder of George Floyd and the protests that are currently taking place I want to talk about America. Systematic racism and oppression at the hands of the law enforcement in America is taking innocent lives. The American government is continuing to reinforce the narrative that black lives are less important than white lives every time they fail to persecute and punish officers of the law who wrongfully murder and abuse people of colour. They reinforce this narrative every time a person of colour gets a longer prison sentence than the white person who committed the same crime or, every time the police respond to peaceful unarmed black protests with mace, tear gas and violence, yet when white supremacists arm themselves with guns and protest violently in the street they do not take the same action. Its reinforced by the fact that black Americans are 30% more likely to be pulled over by police, that 40% of the prison populations are black. That black students are 3x as likely to be suspended and black graduates are 2x as likely to be unemployed. There are so many examples of how America are reinforcing this narrative and failing their own people. Racism is a prevalent issue in our society, anyone who argues otherwise is part of the problem. Many people brush past racial inequalities and injustices by saying ‘we have made so much progress’ and ‘we have come so far from where we were’ and while this may be true, it is clear that we have not come far enough and that prejudice is still deeply rooted in the bases of our society. A blatant disregard for black lives.

Education is the key to everything, no one can ever be ‘too educated’. I feel that we have all been let down by our education systems when it comes to the topic of racism. Trevor Noah wrote in his book ‘Born a Crime’ that the history of racism and apartheid in South Africa was taught to him the way that America teach the history of their own racism and slavery. He said it is taught without judgment or shame, no moral or emotional dimension. He says he was taught ‘Apartheid was bad. Nelson Mandela was freed. Let’s move on.’ the same way that Americans teach ‘There was slavery and then there was Jim Crow and then there was Martin Luther King Jr and now it’s done’. The sole purpose of teaching history this way is best described as saying ‘whatever you do, don’t make the kids angry’. I can truly say that in my 15 years of education I have never been taught about the history of racism or slavery. Black history is pushed to one side, it is confined and whitewashed into ‘black history month’. The notion of ‘black history month’ is crude and disappointing and further goes to show the systematic racism and oppression in our society. Black history month is incredibly important, it is the only time we are actively taught about black history. However it’s not enough, black history should be part of the curriculum all year round, it should be taught with the same if not higher importance than white history so that we are able to understand how deeply racism and oppression is rooted in the foundations of society so that we can work towards dismantling the maltreatment of POC and work towards a truly equal future, free of bias and prejudice.

The time to be angry is now and if you are not angry about what you are seeing, you need to ask yourself why. If your response to the black lives matter movement is ‘well actually all lives matter’ you are missing the whole point. Black lives matter doesn’t exist to say that all other lives don’t matter, it exists to bring light to the fact that black communities are being grossly discriminated against in our society. We don’t need a movement to say ‘all lives matter’ because white lives are not discriminated against. We are not attacked and murdered simply because of our skin colour; we are not oppressed for being who we are. A good analogy I saw is that if you had five children and five plasters, one for each child; should they get hurt. One child falls and cuts their knee so you give them a plaster to help them heal, you wouldn’t then give the other four children a plaster because it isn’t needed, they are not hurt. Anybody who does not understand the difference between black lives matter and all lives matter is wilfully ignorant.

I am unbelievably privileged in my life for a long list of reasons. The simple fact that I am white is the very reason that sits in the number one spot of why I am so unbelievably privileged. This privilege certainly does not mean that I have not experienced hardships in my life but instead means that the colour of my skin is not the dependent variable of the hardships I have endured, nor will it ever be. I see so many people feigning ignorance about their white privilege brushing it off by choosing to ‘remain impartial’ or simply stating ‘racism isn’t something that affects me’. This is simply not true. The truth of the matter is, being white means that you directly benefit from the oppression of people of colour. We are the majority; we are dominantly represented in media, we are dominantly represented in the workplace, we are dominantly represented in education and we are dominantly represented in positions of power. We have inherited wealth and power and with that, we have forced ourselves into cultures and whitewashed them to ‘fit in’ with our own. We have forced these minorities to conform to how we want them to look and behave all while stealing the aspects of their cultures that we think are ‘trendy’ or ‘cool’. White privilege is the fact that we are not questioned about our citizenship, we are not harassed or attacked for existing in public spaces, we are catered to and accommodated wherever we choose to be and most importantly; WE ARE NOT OPRESSED AND VILLIANISED BY OUR GOVERNMENT AND LAW ENFORCEMENT. We are thought of first, we are protected first and we are last to be held accountable for our actions. If you cannot see this then you need to open your eyes and look around. Consciously look at the media you consume. Look at the TV shows you watch. How many POC do you see? And how many of those POC are included just for diversity points? This is just one area where it is blatantly apparent that black lives and POC are branded as undesirable and less than in western society. IT. NEEDS. TO. CHANGE.

White privilege is having the option to turn a blind eye and be blissfully ignorant to what is going on without consequence. It is watching from the side-lines and not having to suffer ourselves. It is knowing that at any moment we can log off social media and act as if nothing is happening. Black communities and POC do not have this luxury, they do not have the option to turn a blind eye, they have no choice but to suffer the oppression being forced upon them.

Those of us with privilege need to do better. We need to use our privilege to enact a change and support minorities. Simply being not racist is not enough. If you do not speak out, you are part of the problem. If you do not educate yourself, you are part of the problem. If you are not actively anti-racist, you are part of the problem. Stand up to casual racism, even if its from your family members. Constantly educate yourself on what is happening. Sign and share petitions, donate if you can and protest if you are able to. Speak out about racism even when it is not all over the media. I will hold my hands up and say I have not been the best ally I could be, I have been ignorant in the past, I have and still am uneducated on a lot of the issues that minorities are facing, I did not actively look for petitions to sign and share, I remained quiet on social media about these topics and would often turn a blind eye feeling as though there was nothing I could do to help; which is not true. However, I am continuing to educate myself on these issues and starting to speak up about them. I am actively looking for petitions and organisations everyday and will continue to do so. I’m not going to be quiet about racism any longer.

There is so much more that I want to say and that is needed to be said, but for now, I wanted to open-up this discussion so that I can address these topics often without the need for introduction. With that I want to make one last point that; it is not the job of the oppressed to teach you of their oppression, go and read a book, watch a documentary, watch the news and pay attention to the media, educate yourselves, google is free so use it.

#blacklivesmatter #BLM #justiceforGeorgeFloyd

[nchyinotes]

Race, Mental Health and State Violence: A Two-Day Symposium. (Panel 1 - Critical Intersections)

April 9 2018

https://www.eventbrite.co.uk/e/race-mental-health-and-state-violence-a-two-day-symposium-tickets-43160409948?aff=erellivmlt

Thoughts: I was only able to attend Day 1, Panel 1: Critical Intersections. All of these talks were important and provided some really great statistics & sources, but the one I found most interesting was the first by Fatima. I found her insights about personal experience as a (female) researcher fascinating, and I enjoyed hearing select interviewee’s stories in detail. I also appreciated distinction she raised between the perception of Black vs Muslim looking men and that intersection, as that was actually a conversation my Muslim Egyptian friend (hi Alshymaa!) and I were talking about at a war on terror exhibition a few days before this talk. While I still found the talks informative, I felt like they definitely focused a lot more on race than they did mental health. While I don’t know much about mental health in the criminal justice system, I did my final year research essay on mass incarceration in the US, so I am quite aware of how race factors in. So while the British statistics were different from the sources I studied (and it was helpful to see UK centric numbers), I personally wish that there was more about mental health in these talks.

intersections of muslimness, race, gender & mental health (fatima rajina)

form of biological racism - south asians perceived to be muslim even if they aren’t. stopped & searched based on how police perceive them.  

black muslims?

grenfell, palmers green, london bridge, manchester, ??? bridge - all the attacks last year happened during research period

muslim men, a lot of people were getting paranoid in being interviewed in public about (counter)terrorism

female interviewer - men more comfortable in crying & opening up & showing emotion in front of rather than men

one young interviewee, 20 yo been harassed since 16: active on college campus in east london, group of muslims organised a petition against a legislation, teachers weren’t happy about it & saw them as a nuisance. thinks one of his teachers gave his name to counterterrorism (prevent officers)??, wakes up and saw two police outside his house in the morning, being interrogated there & then.

way they spoke to and addressed him —> lots of coercion

offered a role as a snitch (role in counter terrorism)

got random no caller ID phone calls at ridiculous hours, asking if they’ve thought of their proposition as a snitch

really struggled during this time, was wetting the bed

felt like an attack on his masculinity - cannot express himself, how he was treated by police

white irish in SE london, muslim convert:

was accused of being a terrorist within 2 years of converting

in 2006 he travelled to syria (way before the conflict kicked off in 2010), looked like your typical white backpacker. was interrogated at this point, visited by the police + put on control order (“secret evidence” used against you, essentially on a tag, like severe bail conditions)

https://www.theguardian.com/commentisfree/libertycentral/2009/feb/03/civil-liberties-control-orders

https://nearlylegal.co.uk/2007/11/control-orders-and-secret-evidence/

felt his masculinity was constantly being questioned, wasn’t offered any compassion

was unemployed, forced to go to this police station an hour away

2 year legal battle to be freed [famous case, been covered nationwide]

whiteness has been stripped off of me because of my religion (when became visible muslims in public - gets questioned where they are from)

they tried to break him down - he had to seek therapy, be put on medication. they were aware of the context of him breaking curfew etc but still treated that as a penalty

black jamaican, muslim convert

when police stop him its not because he’s muslim (or has a beard), only when his name (arabic) comes up does the intersection kick in

black male supersedes whether they’re muslim or not

interviewed about 8 girls (non/muslim)

female muslims have experienced violence from CT officers through male in their lives - “the conversation" was had at like 11. sisters responsibility to look out for brothers, if they’re present may calm things down with officers?

south asians, generally associated with islam already: paki bashing (her parents gen) —> muslim bashing  (her gen)

terrorists - white or brown. black people are “gangsters”, not terrorists. they never get told to go home ??

arrested safety: intersectional police violence, neoliberal securitisation and abolitionist visions (Vanessa-Eileen Thompson)

increasing securitisation (ie. policing) in parts of post colonial europe - urban policing, slow violence

recognisability of criminals?

“districts of danger” - police can check anyone without any individual suspicion, generally where (san p?? in hamburg, in 2001)

criminalisation of right to exist, to space and to move

forces you to decriminalise yourself in front of others

institutional racism makes it hard to counter racist policing on legal basis - swiss legal ?? black person ??

policing as a form of property, appropriating radicalised bodies

black people call police for help, but they are then being abused by the police instead - outside of the safety they’re supposed to enforce. repressive measures + criminalisation that can lead to death.

death of dominic ?? in germany, 2006

christy schwundeck - shot in job centre. struggling with depression, trying to get child out of foster care

race, gender, migration status, mental health —> threat, unworthy of safety + protection

pathological threat instead of a subject worth of safety and care

for them the police never means safety

mental inferiority is so much part of colonial projects (slavery) —> mental health is at centre

quality of life crimes - public nuisance

police + prisons have become substitute solutions to mental health crises

more likely to cause them to get in contact with these institutions + everyday triggers & makes it worse

starts with racist profiling

networks of communications + warnings - counter control maps, text messages, calling someone became the primary ???, stoplecontroleaufacies.fr (documenting cases to stop the normality of this phenomenon)

how does a society without policing look? caring instead of punishment. rooted in methods of care rather than institutional violence

reinstitutionalisation in an age of deinstitutionalisation (Zin Derfoufi)

S136 Mental Health Act - police detention power

to remove people who appear to be in “immediate need of care or control”

can use reasonable force if necessary, detain for 72 hours + possible extension

really about social control at the end of the day

reliable numbers by NHS digital vs detentions recorded by police (FOI requests) - 352 people are detained by a police force every year

lack of continuation of care —> many people end up back in

race and differential experiences - completely ignored in the debate about mental health

people from ethnic minorities are more likely (esp. black) to be detained

there isn’t much good data out there, because the forces have not been recording it properly

“mixed ethnicities” much higher to be detained under mental health act?? (even than just black - v surprising)

social control actors - general rise in use of powers

law and violence at the intersection of race and mental health in custody environments (Dinesh Napal)

public sentiment - demonising victims of police brutality + increased militarisation and state violence

law has failed to act as an apparatus to protect people from state violence

data is a medium for representing scale of issue, should never be held in higher regard than stories of individuals

in 2012, blacks 30x more likely than white to be stopped and searched (in england/wales)

dismantle idea of BAME/POC - dilutes the ways in which distinct racial groups face unique ways of oppression

black people targeted under MHA

chinese at the bottom (even below white)

laws on use of force: reasonability and responsibility, lack of clarity in enforcement

no convictions

statutory provisions are not enough

deaths in custody = state sanctioned deaths, extrajudicial killings

scope to rethink definition of ^ - no accountability for over 500 deaths of POC in police custody

should be treated as murder/homocide cases from outset

summary executions, state sanctioned murders? burden of proof moved on to individual officer + institution

channel 4 documentary released over weekend

panel

one sided reproduction of an argument, using police numbers, rather than critically investigating

security state is criminalising + capitalising on poor

parents generations likely to call police, because they come from bangladesh / ghana (where the perception is corruption), and there’s an element of trust here in britain. —> youth centres are the ones that get the respect - community orgs.

black/brown police are even worse bc they have to prove their loyalty to institutions / white colleagues — way more traumatic

role of trade unions

creating archives of resistance - what worked, what didn’t, why, how this can be applied transnationally

the police state is organising transnationally - they are traveling + communicating all the time (biometric systems for asylum seekers)

pro restraint should be eradicated

[rightsidenews]

‘Diversity’ is Anti-White Racism

Ash Sharp Editor Editors Note: At RSN we've hit the ground running with a series of commentary about white people and their place in the world. While our intent is to cover the political world in all its shades and cover as many topics as possible, it seems to be that this particular topic is a hot-button with the early contributors. A short while ago I published a series of articles exploring the roots of Neo-Marxist thought and the relation to anti-European bigotry we ecounter in the media at large. The first of these is republished below. Enjoy!

How did it come to pass that the political left turned into a segregationist movement?

Our tale begins with grasping one key concept. Feminism, Critical Race Theory, Intersectionality and Socialism form today what we can comfortably label as Neo-Marxism. If you’re still fumbling around in the dark denying that Neo-Marxism exists, please, read on. It’s going to be a wild ride. Through this article, I will deconstruct the logic of Neo-Marxism, and show you how to defend against it.

I will reiterate this for the hard of understanding later, but criticising racist Neo-Marxist Theory is not an endorsement of the Alt-Right. Nor is it racist to do so. I utterly reject racism, and I would hope that you do too.

“All races have the right to exist, but only white people are openly discriminated against when we stand up for that right, lawfully I might add. If this issue is not addressed, we are on the cusp of a full-blown white civil rights movement.” A.B

Neo-Marxist theory leads to an abuse of Intersectional Theory. neither Marxism or Intersectional Theory is extreme in essence. They are forms of critique, that have become weapons in an ideological war. This war has been so far fought solely by leftist ideologues, fueled by Frankfurt School-inspired indoctrination and employing Alinskyite tactics. Their opponents have submitted like Hindu cows. Why? Because for many years, the totalitarian threat to freedom came from the religious right, not the so-called liberal left.

“Everything is sexist, everything is racist, everything is homophobic, and you have to point it all out.” ~Anita Sarkeesian, displaying her programming in the clear.

In the UK, Australia, Canada, and the United States in particular, we have become afraid of taking an ethical point of principle and applying it to race. Perversely, as the Neo-Marxists have deployed critical theory on everything, the counter from the centre has been to capitulate. For fear of being labelled racist, sexist or Islamophobic: the centre has given up. The lack of belief in true liberal values has spread wide. Many people now do not understand what Liberalism is, let alone that it is one of the greatest concepts in human history- imperfect thought it surely is. Without a whimper, we are forgetting what truly made our nations great. That the market should be free. That we understand life, liberty and property are the supreme values of law and authority.

That no one should be discriminated against based on arbitrary factors over which one has no control.

We must recognise that more kids in Universities understand Intersectional Theory than understand Liberalism. Indeed, this year has seen Neo-Marxists equate Liberalism with white supremacy itself.

A Subversion of Western Values

In place of these Western liberal values, Neo-Marxism has spread through schools, universities and social and legacy media. The concepts of oppression, intersectionalism and even overt demands for socialist government are widespread. Were it not for the duplicitous and underhand dealings of the Democratic National Convention in the USA, we might well have seen a run-off between socialist Bernie Sanders and populist Donald Trump for the Presidency. Unbelievable, that the Liberal tradition (meaning in American parlance the Democrats AND the Republicans) could only toss up Hillary Clinton as a candidate. This is a damning indictment of the system as a whole.

In previous times the Left/Right dichotomy in democratic nations has been a process of balance. One side achieving hegemony should be frightening to all with a moderate grasp of politics. You might imagine the process as that of a swinging pendulum. The pendulum swings this way and that over the years, sometimes quickly. Sometimes slowly. But it swings, and the momentum of the swing is the conflict between the governing party and the opposition, the friction of ideological difference in service of the people.

So goes the theory.

But today the Neo-Marxists cannot be reasoned or negotiated with. they’ve shown us they don’t care about balance; or values for that matter. Whether the field of debate is race, or gender, or religion- the Neo-Marxist is never, ever satisfied with the response from society at large or you in particular. The Neo-Marxist is a revolutionary. The demands are simple. All they want is more control, over every aspect of society. There are no bad tactics- only bad targets. For your entertainment, it is on the tactics deployed by Neo-Marxists that I write on today.

Curious in the extreme is the adoption by Neo-Marxists of Orwellian doublethink when it comes to the topic of race.

Imagine if I were to say the following.

Let me state, emphatically, that I do not hate black people. Quite to the contrary, I love black people. I just hate what black people have done and continue to do to White bodies, to White words, to White thoughts and White appeals and White feelings.

This reads like something from The Daily Stormer. In fact, it is from an article on Medium. I have merely switched the races around to prove a point.

This is fine and not racist

The capitalisation of Black and the lower case ‘w’ in white is deliberate also- an implicit but subtle signal of one’s racial supremacy. I love my Blackness. Your whiteness is toxic. This is a dog-whistle.

Our author Joel Leon isn’t done there. he continues:

In other words, race is a simultaneously a social construct and real at the same time. The logic is illuminated within this sentence screen capped above. At the start, race is not real. By the end, race exists. It depends on which point the writer wishes to make as to which concept is real at that moment.Race is wished into existence to serve ideological goals.

For example, race is a social construct. So, white people is a construct to which we can ascribe certain qualities; whiteness -oh, excuse me- Whiteness, is a role to be played. The role that Whiteness plays in this psychodrama is whatever the writer wishes to rail against that day. Police brutality, economic inequality, black-on-black crime; all can be laid at the feet of Whiteness.

It is this concept that enables an Asian woman to sell a course to White people about getting rid of those dastardly racist Thetans that are clogging you up. Imagine how awful it must be to be a White person. Toxic, indeed.

When it suits writers like Joel Leon, he can switch to his other definition of race. As race isn’t real, but it exists, this is the sophist’s way of saying; race is real. This is not meant in the way, for example, a forensic scientist might understand race being real. This is to say, that the races are different in character. One is innately different from the other.

This is race realism, perpetuated by people who want to punch Nazis.

I asked Mr Leon to explain what he meant, and I received the following response.

This I find highly illuminating about the mindset of a Neo-Marxist Race Realist. Duplicity in thought is fine. What you might consider cognitive dissonance is accepted, so one can logically say race is real and a construct simultaneously.

As someone who is not a Neo-Marxist, I reject this concept of race utterly.

When we reject the central conceit of racism- that one race is superior to another- then, as people of principle, we must also defend that definition. The Critical Race Theorists say:

“[Critical Race Theory] recognizes that racism is engrained in the fabric and system of the American society. The individual racist need not exist to note that institutional racism is pervasive in the dominant culture.”

For America, we can now substitute any other English speaking nation, Western Europe and some parts of South America. The prevailing narrative is that this is so. The truth is always a runner-up in such circumstances- and this is where Classical Liberalism has failed- or rather, has been failed. We have allowed Critical Race Theory to become dominant in universities and schools because we are afraid of being called a racist if we oppose it.

Don’t you agree that black people are oppressed? Racist. Don’t you feel white guilt? Racist. Do you criticise multiculturalism? Racist. Do you value your own culture? Racist and a liar, White people have no culture. The only culture White people have is that which they appropriate from people of colour. It has become so normalised that Whites cannot experience racism that on Medium, posts like this are commonplace.

We should not be concerned with people liking to associate with people like themselves. This is natural. I understand that we like being around people like ourselves. I would say that race is the least important aspect in a healthy level of tribalism- the in-group feeling of belonging that all humans seek out and crave.

Language, culture, ethics and shared goals all feed into our in-group preferences. For example, I have much more in common with a Black or Asian person from the village I grew up in than I would with a direct blood relative who grew up in Japan and speaks no English.

We also exhibit bias on a biological level for people who look similar to ourselves. The effect of this bias in the real world? It appears minimal. If we take the example of police shootings as a metric (I find this to be particularly useful as it is not laboratory or survey-based) a white person, per capita is more likely to be shot by police in the USA. Why? Well, it would appear that culturally the police have overcome any historic racism when gunning down citizens. Though the study did find that black people are more likely to experience non-lethal force during arrest — with (Hispanics and Blacks 50 percent more likely) White suspects in situations where guns are fired are more likely to be shot than other races.

If I were a Neo-Marxist, I would argue the following counterpoint.

Minorities are more likely to be beaten by cops, so that means that they are oppressed by a White Supremacist System. Whites being shot more often by cops might mean that we are having a positive effect with our activism against police shooting minorities, so we should carry on with that. #BLM. White people don’t need guns to kill Blacks, just look at Eric Garner. #ICantBreathe. Also, Whites not catching hands from cops is a clear example of White Privilege.

I have tried to steel man this position as concisely as possible. I think it should appear familiar to you if you have engaged with these social justice advocates. The narrative from Neo-Marxists is that Black people are murdered by the state because the state is racist.

In the USA between 2011 to 2013, 38.5 percent of people arrested for murder, manslaughter, rape, robbery, and aggravated assault were black. This figure is three times higher than the 13% black population figure. Black males aged 15–34, who account for around 3% of the population, are responsible for the vast majority of these crimes.

The narrative collapses as soon as one pays attention statistical evidence. This is why the Neo-Marxists will also lay claim to nebulous concepts as ‘lived experience.’ It is quite correct that I, as a white, straight British male will never know the lived experience of a Black female from Guam. But she cannot know mine either.

The Neo-Marxist demands that phenomenology, the study of experience and consciousness, be categorised and utilised in the same way as data and statistical evidence. So, an opinion that France is a rape culture or that Blacks are victimised by the police is a fact and the evidence that disproves such fancy is products of White Heteropatriarchy.

How about… no?

It should come to the surprise of no-one that the response to identity politics entering every facet of life has been for more identity politics, in the shape of the furthest extreme of the Alt-Right. Identity politics is fine until those toxic Whites want to play.

I do not wish for one moment to provide credence to the Hard Alt-Right or White supremacists by pointing these things out. I wish to illuminate for you dear reader that the far right is far less of a threat than the left would have you believe. While the far right tie themselves in knots about the Jewish Question and the ins-and-outs of how to make an ethnostate, the Neo-Marxists are already teaching our kids. I do not suggest that the far right go unopposed. I do suggest that we consider critically how the media builds boogeymen about Nazis to further their own agendas.

In any case, these particular culture warriors deserve an article of their own, so we’ll move on.

I can come to no other conclusion that as part of an overarching desire to subvert the dominant paradigm of Western culture, Neo-Marxists have embraced racism. It is a racist ideology. There can be no other conclusion. At the same time, we are told that White Supremacy is everywhere, but Whiteness is toxic. If that is so, it seems quite strange that so much greatness has come from European origins. I suppose that advanced technology, culture, music, art and politics are all aspects of oppression. Somehow. If only it wasn’t for those terrible White people.

In the service of diversity, we have reshaped our societies. A non-racist and liberal society has no desire to discriminate against people based on their race. Liberal society has allowed the growth of the cancer of Neo-Marxism to take place without critique- proving that Liberalism is inadequate to defend Liberalism.

We cannot say that racism is over in the West while we persist with diversity quotas, so-called positive discrimination and affirmative action. Diversity is not our strength if it is an ideological tool for social engineering, leaving us paralysed by doublethink and a crippling lack of self-awareness.

Diversity, as it is understood by liberalism, is a diversity of opinions.

Diversity, as it is understood by Neo-Marxism, is Anti-White bigotry.

And I can prove it to you.

Neo-Marxists are concerned with colonialism. Cultural appropriation, the influence of ‘Western Imperialism.’ The same people demand open borders in countries that they live in so that more diversity can occur. The concept that this leads to the understanding that non-white is better than white because to be white is to be privileged, and thus bad. If reverse racism does not exist, can we call this reverse colonialism?

Neo-Marxists also demand incredible scrutiny of White history while lionising non-White history and whitewashing (pun intended) the uncomfortable parts of it away. What do you mean, Islamic slave trade? How dare you.

A double standard that persists to this very day is the demand, through Privilege Theory, that the sins of slavery in the Americas that took place over 150 years ago be visited on all Whites still alive. The very real occurrences of slavery in the modern era, endemic across parts of Africa and Asia, is hand-waved away through the use of Cultural Relativism. All cultures are equal in the eyes of Neo-Marxists, but Western Culture is just the worst.

Remember, all the good parts of Western Culture were appropriated. All the bad parts of Western Culture are things that you must atone for, personally.

This is a Kafka Trap. It is impossible to win against the Neo-Marxist by allowing the Neo-Marxist to frame the discussion. This is what has led to Apple’s Head of Diversity having to apologise for saying that a room full of white people can be diverse, based on their experiences.

The Neo-Marxists cannot allow such heresy to stand, even when it is objectively true and even conforms to Neo-Marxist ideology. The only problem with her statement was to use the example of White people. A room can be diverse when it is filled with Black women. It cannot be diverse if filled with White men. The implicit statement is that White men are somehow… Untermensch.

This is Anti-White. This is what underpins the vast majority of this ersatz intellectualism from the Left. A Neo-Marxist, racist ideology that divides nations, peoples. The proponents of this ideology are Anti-White, the same as Neo-Nazis are Anti-Jew. The singular problem for liberal society remains that we are unable to confront the Neo-Marxists in the same, effective way that we have confronted Neo-Nazis.

While we talk about Free Speech and Hate Speech and the line between, remember that Antifa and other Neo-Marxist groups are also racists. They are Anti-White. Witness the abuse doled out to any Person-of-Colour who dares rebel.

It’s not OK for Larry Elder to be a conservative. It’s not OK for you to think the wrong way. Or you will be called a racist and ostracised. In a piece on Harvey Weinstein, I mentioned Sargon’s Razor:

We should always remember that those who make character judgements about their opponents based on nothing are usually guilty of that flaw themselves.

The Neo-Marxist is a bigot of the worst kind. Resist them at all costs. Demand that these people accept that they are the racists. Their ideology hinges entirely on Anti-White bigotry.

Ironic, that a prominent Neo-Marxist and Black Lives Matter leader should provide such a fitting end to this article. Thanks, Deeray. You are wiser than you could ever know.

Irony: The Tweet.

So, the next time you encounter a Neo-Marxist, ask them: Why are you Anti-White?

It makes no sense at all to persist in mindless bigotry. The only cure to this madness is to reject Neo-Marxism utterly, and oppose it wherever it lies. There is nothing wrong at all with paying particular attention and favor to your own culture. When you denigrate another culture solely for the fact that it is better than your own- this is racist.

http://bit.ly/2zxzjZn

[i-am-very-very-tired]

Days after the announcement that model Munroe Bergdorf was a face in L’Oréal Paris UK’s Truly Match campaign, the company has fired the model over a Facebook post she wrote in the wake of white supremacist violence at the Charlottesville protests. Bergdorf was, as she pointed out in one of several Facebook posts about the gig, the first transgender woman to feature in a L’Oréal Paris UK campaign. Bergdorf’s response to Charlottesville has since been deleted, but The Daily Mail posted alleged text from it. The original Daily Mail post, under the headline “L’Oreal transgender model says all white people are racist,” was published yesterday before Bergdorf’s firing and seems to have been the thing that tipped off the brand to Bergdorf’s Facebook post. The Daily Mail headline now reads: “L’Oreal’s first transgender model is SACKED by the cosmetics giant after claiming ‘ALL white people’ are racist in extraordinary Facebook rant.” Bergdorf’s words, per the Daily Mail’s reporting were: "Honestly I don’t have energy to talk about the racial violence of white people any more. Yes ALL white people. Because most of ya’ll don’t even realise or refuse to acknowledge that your existence, privilege and success as a race is built on the backs, blood and death of people of colour. Your entire existence is drenched in racism. From micro-aggressions to terrorism, you guys built the blueprint for this shit. Come see me when you realise that racism isn’t learned, it’s inherited and consciously or unconsciously passed down through privilege. Once white people begin to admit that their race is the most violent and oppressive force of nature on Earth… then we can talk. Until then stay acting shocked about how the world continues to stay fucked at the hands of your ancestors and your heads that remain buried in the sand with hands over your ears." The cosmetics company announced they were firing Bergdorf this morning: L'Oréal Paris UK: "L’Oréal champions diversity. Comments by Munroe Bergdorf are at odds with our values and so we have decided to end our partnership with her." Additionally, L’Oréal has deleted Bergdorf’s video about her experience as a trans woman she filmed for the Truly Match campaign from its YouTube channel. You can watch it via Bergdorf’s Facebook. The model has since responded on social media to her ousting: ""Sit still and smile in a beauty campaign 'championing diversity'. But don't actually speak about the fact that lack of diversity is due to racism. Or speak about the origins of racism. It'll cost you your job". This makeup brand cares about nothing but MONEY. I urge you to boycot L'Oréal Paris. I can't express how disappointed I am in the entire team in dealing with misquotes that were entirely placed out of context." She urged a boycott of the company, saying that she was misquoted and also her words were taken out of context. She called out the company for firing her for speaking out about the origins of racism. In a much longer, exacting response to the Daily Mail’s original post, Bergdorf contextualized her original statement, admitting to writing “all white people are racist,” but explaining that she did so to address “that western society as a whole, is a SYSTEM rooted in white supremacy - designed to benefit, prioritise and protect white people before anyone of any other race". You should read all of the post because it’s fire point after fire point. "First up, let's put my words in context, as the Daily Mail failed to do so. This 'rant' was a direct response to the violence of WHITE SUPREMACISTS in Charlottesville. It was not written this week. Secondly, identifying that the success of the British Empire has been at the expense of the people of colour, is not something that should offend ANYONE. It is a fact. It happened. Slavery and colonialism, at the hands of white supremacy, played a huge part in shaping the United Kingdom and much of the west, into the super power that it is today. Whether aware of it or not, in today's society the lighter your skin tone (people of colour included) the more social privileges you will be afforded. Whether that's access to housing, healthcare, employment or credit. A person's race and skin tone has a HUGE part to play in how they are treated by society as a whole, based on their proximity to whiteness. When I stated that "all white people are racist", I was addressing that fact that western society as a whole, is a SYSTEM rooted in white supremacy - designed to benefit, prioritise and protect white people before anyone of any other race. Unknowingly, white people are SOCIALISED to be racist from birth onwards. It is not something genetic. No one is born racist. We also live in a society where men are SOCIALISED to be sexist. Women are SOCIALISED to be submissive. Gay people are SOCIALISED to be ashamed of their sexuality due to heterosexual people's homophobia. Cisgender people are SOCIALISED to be transphobic. We do not need to be this way. We are not born this way and we can learn to reject it. We are just socially conditioned to think this way from an early age. With the right education, empathy and open mindedness we can unlearn these socialisations and live a life where we don't oppress others and see things from other people's points of view. So when a transgender woman of colour, who has been selected to front up a big brand campaign to combat discrimination and lack of diversity in the beauty industry, speaks on her actual lived experience of being discriminated against because of her race and identifies the root of where that discrimination lies - white supremacy and systemic racism - that big brand cannot simply state that her thoughts are not "in line with the ethics of the brand". If you truly want equality and diversity, you need to actively work to dismantle the source of what created this discrimination and division in the first place. You cannot just simply cash in because you've realised there's a hole in the market and that there is money to be made from people of colour who have darker skin tones. The irony of all this is that L'Oréal Paris invited me to be part of a beauty campaign that 'stands for diversity'. The fact that up until very recently, there has been next to no mainstream brands offering makeup for black women and ethnic minorities, is in itself due to racism within the industry. Most big brands did not want to sell to black women. Most big brands did not want to acknowledge that there was a HUGE demographic that was being ignored. Because they did not believe that there was MONEY to be made in selling beauty products to ethnic minorities. If L'Oreal truly wants to offer empowerment to underrepresented women, then they need to acknowledge THE REASON why these women are underrepresented within the industry in the first place. This reason is discrimination - an action which punches down from a place of social privilege. We need to talk about why women of colour were and still are discriminated against within the industry, not just see them as a source of revenue. Racism may be a jagged pill to swallow, but I suggest you force it down quickly if you want to be part of the solution. Doing nothing, does nothing and solves nothing. Empowerment and inclusivity are not trends, these are people's lives and experiences. If brands are going to use empowerment as a tool to push product to people of colour, then the least they can do is actually work us to dismantle the source, not throw us under the bus when it comes to the crunch. At times like this, it becomes blindly obvious what is genuine allyship and what is performative. I stand for tolerance and acceptance - but neither can be achieved if we are unwilling to discuss WHY intolerance and hate exist in the first place." This part gets to the root of how the company’s mission makes the firing of Bergdorf such a betrayal: "The irony of all this is that L’Oréal Paris invited me to be part of a beauty campaign that ‘stands for diversity’. The fact that up until very recently, there has been next to no mainstream brands offering makeup for black women and ethnic minorities, is in itself due to racism within the industry. Most big brands did not want to sell to black women. Most big brands did not want to acknowledge that there was a HUGE demographic that was being ignored. Because they did not believe that there was MONEY to be made in selling beauty products to ethnic minorities. If L’Oreal truly wants to offer empowerment to underrepresented women, then they need to acknowledge THE REASON why these women are underrepresented within the industry in the first place. This reason is discrimination - an action which punches down from a place of social privilege. We need to talk about why women of colour were and still are discriminated against within the industry, not just see them as a source of revenue." We have reached out to both L’Oréal and Bergdorf for additional comment, and will update this post if and when we hear back.