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Racism is still here just in another guise
 Discrimination
against the Irish may have dropped in recent years but PAUL DONOVAN warns
racism has still not gone away as recent events prove.
THE RECENT comments of Nobel laureate Professor Sir James Watson and
President of the Black Police Association Keith Jarrett on race and stop
and search respectively have stirred much controversy.
Professor Watson’s scheduled lecture was cancelled after he said
he was “inherently gloomy about the prospect of Africa” because
“all our social policies are based on the fact that their intelligence
is the same as ours whereas all the testing says not really”.
He continued saying that while he hoped everyone was equal “people
who have to deal with black employees find this is not true”.
Black Police Association President Keith Jarrett called for stop and search
to be stepped up in a bid to tackle youth gun and knife crime.
Mr Jarrett claimed he was merely reflecting what he had been told up and
down the country over recent months.
He said: “I am talking about young people right across the board.
They seem to be carrying weapons for protection and we can disrupt that
by carrying out random stop and searches.”
Irish people will understand the discontent such comments have caused
amongst the Black community. It was not long ago that the No Blacks, No
Irish signs could be regularly seen in windows.
Irish and Black people have suffered under insensitive use of stop and
search powers by the police — the former particularly so under the
Prevention of Terrorism Act during the Troubles.
As the mental health charity Mind has noted: “Like people from the
African-Caribbean community, Irish-born people experience considerable
police harassment.”
The campaigning organisation Inquest has also found Black and Irish people
to be disproportionately represented among death in custody victims.
A Commission for Racial Equality study found that Irish-born people face
discrimination in the fields of employment, health, housing and education.
All of these factors have helped fuel the campaign to get the Irish recognised
as a separate category for the Census.
A more positive aspect of developments over recent years has been that
the open racism typified by the No Blacks, No Irish signs in front windows
appears to have disappeared.
The telling of racist jokes whether directed at Black, Irish or other
ethnic minorities has also largely become a taboo.
Race relations legislation and changing attitudes in society have meant
this overt racism no longer exists.
However, racism is still rampant in our society — though the targets
may have changed and the form become more invisible.
While the blatantly racist notices and TV comedies like Love Thy Neighbour
may have disappeared this did not stop black teenager Stephen Lawrence
being stabbed to death in 1993.
More recently there was the murder in Liverpool of another Black teenager
Anthony Walker.
The MacPherson inquiry that followed the death of Stephen Lawrence showed
institutional racism to be rampant in many public and private organisations
across the country.
This provided evidence of racism going from being overt to covert. Over
more recent years targets have changed.
Asylum seeker has become a term of racist abuse ramped up by newspapers
like the Daily Mail and Express.
Since 9/11 Muslims generally have been attacked in the media.
For Irish, now read the Muslim community. Indeed much of the racism has
been almost repackaged from racial to religious hatred.
Migrant workers have been denigrated with even the Prime Minister joining
in on the sport referring to British jobs for British workers at the recent
Trade Union Congress.
There always seems to be a need for some group or other to be scapegoated
in society.
It is clear that while no doubt attitudes have changed over the years,
racism remains — only more hidden than before.
It can be argued that the sight of someone like Professor Watson expressing
his views in public can provide a reality check for those in denial who
maybe think racism has now gone away.
On the other hand it is a fine line between reality checking and providing
the oxygen of publicity that could make such views seem somehow more acceptable
in the mainstream.
It could also fortify those who hold such views.
In past decades how much did the atmosphere created by the media, comedians
and other parts of popular culture prepare the ground for someone like
Enoch Powell to deliver his infamous rivers of blood speech? Or Tory politician
Norman Tebbit to launch some of his attacks on the Irish?
Stop and search has been shown in the past to stir racial tensions normally
due to the way in which it is implemented.
Statistics show that a Black person is six times more likely to get stopped
than a white person.
“We have seen the police get it wrong over and over again on stop
and search. Stop and search is a too blunt and unsophisticated an instrument
to deal with this problem. It causes far more harm and anger when misused,”
said Father Sumner, who has played roles in intercommunity dialogue with
the police both in Moss Side in Manchester and more recently in Oldham.
“It is only possible to police effectively with the consent of
the community the unsophisticated approach set out by Keith Jarrett will
lead to the undermining of such consent leading to anger and alienation.”
If stop and search is to be used as a police tactic it has to be deployed
sensitively. Following Mr Jarrett’s advice seems guaranteed only
to increase racial tensions.
The way to confront racism when it appears in such overt forms as that
displayed by Professor Watson is to condemn those who articulate it but
not create a false reality that suggests racism no longer exists in our
society the Irish, Black and other ethnic minority communities know that
not to be true.
Far better to listen to people affected by racism in those communities
that allow those from privileged backgrounds the public platforms to spout
ill-informed and often racist views. |
