The third part of the Mosaic Justice Network 'Facing up to race' series will be on Sunday August 30, 7-8:15pm. 'Generating Justice' will be a conversation between 3 activists passionate for racial justice for young people and for bringing the next generation into leadership in shaping and building a future society of fairness and equality for all. Download a leaflet here.
Recordings of parts 1 and 2, Two Pandemics and Church Complicity, are now available to watch and listen.​

The first two parts of the Mosaic Justice Network 'Facing up to race' series took place in the last few days. Both featured excellent presentations and honest and deep discussion. Recordings are now available to watch and listen.

1. Two Pandemics.
2. Church Complicity.

Part 3, 'Generating Justice' will be on August 30. More information here.

The Mosaic Justice Network in Manchester are holding a short series of conversations via Zoom called 'Facing up to race: contested identities and realities' on issues arising from the murder of George Floyd.

1. TWO PANDEMICS​: Health and race with Faye Bruce of CAHN and Dr Steve Taylor. How the higher incidence of COVID-19 among Black and Asian people has exposed another underlying health issue in our society. Sunday, August 2, 7-8:15pm. Download leaflet.
2. CHURCH COMPLICITY: Historical complicity going back to slavery and current issues of racism within. With Dr Joe Aldred, Ben Turpin and Prof Robert Beckford. Wednesday, August 5, 7-8:15pm. Download leaflet
3. GENERATING JUSTICE: A conversation between 3 activists passionate for racial justice for young people. With Gabriel Oyediwura, Christie Spurling OBE and Beatrice Smith. August 30, 7-8:15pm. Download leaflet.

​For more information and Zoom info go here or send an email. Zoom info is also on the leaflets.

In this opinion piece Dr Justin Thacker, director of Church Action for Tax Justice, states that Africa contributes $41 billion more to the world that it receives. Tax dodging by multinational enterprises is costing the continent far more than its receives in aid. The myth believed in the global north is that Africa is poor, but the reality is that it is rich, and we have become wealthy and stayed wealthy because we have been taking its wealth. "If we truly want to help Africa, we must begin by stopping the stealing".

Global Justice Now's 2017 Honest Accounts report detailed how money moved between Africa and the rest of the world. Each year while $162 billion flows into Africa, $203 billion flows out making Africa a net annual contributor to the rest of the world to the tune of $41 billion. In the colonial era past these funds were taken through slave trade, but in the contemporary period ways include debt servicing and especially the way in which the global north facilitates tax dodging.

Africa has the gold and diamonds we like to wear; the oil that fuels our lifestyles, and the copper and cobalt that go into much of our technology. So each of is probably using or wearing something right now which was dug out of African soil. Zambian copper, South African gold, Ghanaian oil and more are all very profitable and taxes, when paid, go to support the Zambian, or South African or Ghanaian public services – paying the salaries of teachers, funding healthcare. However, companies extracting these minerals use ingenious ways to avoid* paying those taxes, and they do this to the tune of $60-70bn a year – three times the amount the continent receives in official aid. Thacker points out that while each of us may not be personally stealing from Africa, "we are the ones who buy the goods from those companies and it is our government that is facilitating these practices. We may not be directly involved but through our consumer decisions and through our lobbying (or lack of it) we bear some responsibility."

​Read the full article here.

* The result arenot dissimilar to this UK property developer avoiding payment of £45m to a new community-benefit levy in one of London's poorest boroughs with a 49% BAME population.

The latest newsletter from Greater Manchester Poverty Action focuses on the recent Social Metrics Commission report which highlights the shocking extent to which certain parts of our community are at much greater risk of poverty. The report found that nearly half of BAME UK households live in poverty and many in deep poverty, and BAME families are between two to three times more likely to be experiencing persistent poverty. Coronavirus has exposed many existing inequalities, making talk of the virus being a great leveller, affecting rich and poor alike as nonsense. GMPA asked several leading figures from Greater Manchester's Voluntary, Community and Social Enterprise Sector (VCSE) to comment on the Social Metrics Commission figures and what they mean for the fight against poverty in light of the pandemic.

Read their comments in the newsletter here.

An article and video from US network CNN on the situation of Black nurses in the NHS. One of those interviewed said she feels she's been fighting "two battles at once: Racism and coronavirus". Each of 12 nurses interviewed said they acted without hesitation when faced with the challenge of the Coronavirus virus; each of them was putting their life at increased risk, simply through being Black. Minorities make up about 20% of England's NHS medical workforce, but early analysis shows they have accounted for 60% of healthcare worker deaths due to the virus, according to media reports. One in five of all nurses across England are from Black or minority ethnic backgrounds, but about 95% of executive directors of nursing are white, according to a 2019 report from NHS England. The interviewees speak of higher chances of being put on the front line than white colleagues, and of poor levels of adequate PPE (a survey by the Royal College of Nursing (RCN) showed that "only 43% of BAME nursing staff had enough eye and face protection equipment.")  They also speak of a reluctance to complain due to fear of being seen as a trouble-maker or lazy. All evidence of systemic racism in the NHS.

Read the article and watch the video here. 

Six weeks on from the widespread public outrage at the murder of George Floyd and the upsurge in support for #BlackLivesMatter, a crisis point has been reached. Will the tipping point leading to real and actual change be reached, or, as so many times in the past, will support ebb away as the news-cycle and headlines move on, and with them, the short-attention span of the public and politicians?

This article by Nesrine Malik, titled "It seems black lives don't matter quite so much, now that we've got to the hard bit" takes a pessimistic view, listing recent actions such as the BBC banning its hosts and presenters from "wearing Black Lives Matter badges because it is seen as an expression of some sort of 'political' opinion" as evidence of a reversion back to as we were. Malik states that protest is easy – the hard part is sustaining the movement after that first adrenalin rush to the point of first realising what real change will cost, systemically and for individuals, and then actually making it happen.  Getting past that first hurdle may prove too difficult: "Everyone applauds a movement for social justice until it 'goes too far; – when it starts making 'unreasonable demands' in the service of its 'political agenda'"

"We have a great knack for supporting victims once the injustices are out in the open – when David and Goliath have been clearly identified, and a particularly British sensibility of fair play has been assailed." But... when it comes to the "underlying injustice – to making the links between the deportation and death of a Windrush citizen, the NHS worker impoverished by Home Office fees and unsettled by cruel hostile environment policies, the unelected special adviser breaking lockdown rules, and the political party we keep voting in – we’re not so good."

"The same is now happening with the Black Lives Matter movement. Everyone is on board with the principle, but when it comes to the change that is required, the idealistic passengers the movement picked up along the way suddenly come down with a case of extreme pragmatism. Part of the reason for their belated reluctance is that the course of actual change is unflashy. After the first moment passes, the supportive ally has nothing to show for their continued backing for the cause: there are no public high-fives for your continuing solidarity. You can’t post it, you can’t hashtag it; most of the time you can’t even do it without jeopardising something, whether that’s your income, status, job prospects or even friendships. But the main reason for the ebbing support is that change is just hard."

Read the full article here. And ask: Is this fading away inevitable? How do we keep the momentum going?