Don’t ditch the tools to tackle racism

The government are planning to water down race laws. Karen Chouhan says it’s time to recognise  reality and strengthen protection against race discrimination, not weaken it

The hard won gains of the Race Relations (Amendment) Act 2000, which required the fulfilment of specific duties to assess, monitor, and publish statistics on race equality performance, are now all under threat.

The latest consultation meetings, to he held around the country in September, on the proposed Equality Act suggests that these duties be replaced with ‘objectives’. (See the full list of consultation dates at the bottom of this article).

Public bodies will set their own equality objectives. While this might be fine for public bodies that already work conscientiously on equalities, for those that don’t, or can’t, this will be problematic.

Who is going to measure their progress? And against what? If an authority under-performs what’s to stop them changing the goalposts? Or chopping and changing targets at will?

Imagine a scenario where a public body sets objectives so easily obtainable that at the end of the year it puts on its website ‘we have achieved all of our equality objectives we award ourselves five gold stars!’ The rigour and vigour required by the specific duties for a Race Equality Scheme under the Race Relations (Amendment) Act will give way to an immature and “soft” approach – the Jelly Baby approach.

The argument for this is that many authorities got tangled in a spiral of self spawning; a process either as a deliberate ploy or because they simply did not understand.

However this argument is fallacious. If the tools have been misused, abused or underused that doesn’t mean the tools are wrong, but that the craftspeople need better training and monitoring.

How come complex concepts of performance management have been so easily incorporated in to businesses and authorities in the last decade but these same bodies find it so difficult to take on board equality related process?

Performance management is their bread and butter – it’s what they are supposed to be good at. The specific duties need to stay, and in fact be strengthened. But just as we thought, this potentially useful tool to tackle institutional racism is under threat.

This reflects the recent phase in a culture of denial of the ‘R’ word (race) and any of its derivatives.

For example, at a conference in February to mark 10 years since the Lawrence inquiry, organised by the National Policing Improvement Agency in partnership with the police and Home Office, you might expect that the cabinet ministers Jacqui Smith MP and Jack Straw MP, and the Met police commissioner Sir Paul Stephenson, would say something like:

‘We were humbled by the Lawrence case from his death in 1993 through the inquiry 1997 -99 by the persistence of his family and supporters to see justice done. The inquiry led to the acceptance of Institutional Racism in the police and many other institutions in Britain, and to the RRAA for providing the best tools for tackling Institutional Racism across Europe.

‘So now on this 10th anniversary we can report that it has led to a rethinking of policy and approaches all over the UK. For many though there is still much to do and some have got stuck in the muddy swamps of process – citing bureaucracy, meritocracy and democracy as excuses. Well, we stand before you today to say we will not accept this.

‘Although targets have not been met Institutional Racism has proved more stubborn than expected. We call for more resources to improve the headway we’ve made.’

Instead of this, Trevor Phillips, Sir Paul Stephenson, Jacqui Smith and Jack Straw followed the line that Institutional Racism was no longer an appropriate term. But who said? Who said they could say that? Did anybody ask us? Did anybody ask you?

For that matter who said it was ok to be changing any conceptualisations and terminology for race? For example:

• Race equality schemes… being replaced with single equality schemes
• Race relations… with community cohesion and the Prevent Agenda
• Race units… with diversity units
• Institutional racism… with systemic bias
• Multicultural… with integration

Is this a reflection of the United States right-wing view that its time to ‘go beyond race’ To replace race with any face in any space?

Some say words are not important – but they are signifiers of what’s in the mind. Maybe because it’s too uncomfortable, and because the slow build of the anti-terror reactionary policies and ‘Cohesion Creep’ has allowed the climate to be such that key figures can attempt to white wash the equality agenda.

Equanomics UK have now held five roundtables in Liverpool, Leicester, London, Nottingham, and Manchester to ask ordinary people who are not in a position to change language from a position of privilege, but can do it through collaboration and coalition working.

The full report will be out later this summer but in the meantime tell us what you think? Maybe we have this wrong but Equanomics – as an organisation was set up to tackle structural injustice via economic lens – cannot stand idly by. We need to reclaim race and the language of race until the racial disparities are gone. For example:

• Stop and Search (black people 7 times more likely to be stopped)
• Poverty (72% Bangladeshi children live in Poverty in the UK, 56% of African Children, 60% Pakistani children)
• Employment (still a 20 year old 14% gap between White and Black employment)

We still don’t have a level playing field. We keep following the rules, trying to shoot for goal – but the goalposts won’t hold still.

We all need to respond to the consultation on the specific duties. Visit the government Equalities Office website and attend one of the consultation meetings.

We should also ask of those in powerful positions who want to change the language of race: ‘Who says? Who speaks for me, and who speaks about me?

‘Stop! I can speak for myself. We can speak for ourselves’.

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Equality Bill Consultations in September

• 1st – Cardiff
• 2nd – Birmingham
• 3rd – Edinburgh
• 4th – London

To find out more information about the events and to secure your place, click here