This blog for the William Temple Foundation by Dr Sanjee Perera reflects on her research with the Minority Anglican Project and what the BAME death toll in the current COVID-19 pandemic reveals about how far both church and society still have to go. Dr Perera speaks of the Church of England's "dark legacy of belittlement and disregard for Black lives" and how it had "long been steeped in a racialised agenda. Its theology, and its framing of biblical hermeneutics, have justified slavery and Empire within the folds of its missiology."

Read the full post here. Read more about Dr Perera's research into racialised micro-aggressions and their consequences in the Anglican Church here.

A new “home school” competition for children and young people to explore Black British History and multicultural Britain has been launched. Sponsored by The National Education Union (NEU), the competition is part of the special launch of the 100 Great Black Britons campaign created by Patrick Vernon OBE to celebrate the continued legacy and achievements of Black people in Britain.

The competition is open to all age groups. Children and young people are asked to create a fun and unique project celebrating Black Britons and their legacy. There is also a special teacher's competition to develop resources that can be shared as part of a permanent online teaching resource celebrating Black history.

“The current crisis has highlighted the centrality of Black people in Britain, to the NHS and care work, transport systems, food supplies, utilities, research, education and so much more. The NEU supports this competition to celebrate what we have always known that Britain’s history is irrefutably rooted in Black and global history and that our members do a fantastic job in teaching this.  It will be a fabulous opportunity to showcase some of their work and that of their pupils”. Kevin Courtney, NEU Joint General Secretary.

Entries are now open and will close on September 30th. Find our more here.

Figures from the Office of National Statistics show that black people in England and Wales are more than four times more likely to die from Covid-19 than white people, exposing a dramatic divergence in the impact of the pandemic. 

“These results show that the difference between ethnic groups in Covid-19 mortality is partly a result of socio-economic disadvantage and other circumstances, but a remaining part of the difference has not yet been explained.” the ONS said. The Department of Health and Social Care said: “This virus has sadly appeared to have a disproportionate effect on people from BAME backgrounds." The figures, covering deaths from 2 March to 10 April, are the first official snapshot of the way that Covid-19 has affected different ethnic groups in England and Wales.

Describing the findings as “alarming”, Zubaida Haque, deputy director of the Runnymede Trust race equality think tank, said: “We cannot ignore how important racial discrimination and racial inequalities (e.g. in housing) are, even among poorer socio-economic groups,” she said. “These factors are important but are not taken into account in most statistical modelling of Covid-19 risk factors.” Helen Barnard, from the Joseph Rowntree Foundation, said the findings were “a stark reminder that although we are all weathering the same storm, we are not all in the same boat”.

Read more here. Read the ONS report here.

"COVID-19 has exposed a pre-existing underlying health condition in our society."

In a Press Release today Movement for Justice and Reconciliation has made a call for urgent action from the government on the disproportionate number of BAME people dying from COVID-19. Chair Alton Bell says: "Although underlying health conditions may have contributed to the disproportionate number of deaths, too few people have recognised that social inequality and the legacy of enslavement are also major contributory factors." MJR has produced research that shows the links to enslavement in the descendants and in our modern society. Read the full release here.

In this article Afua Hirsch contends that immigration "has always been a byword for the problem of people who are racialised as undesirable, whether they were born here or not".

The Windrush brought less than 500 West Indians in 1948. In that same time period 200,000 eastern Europeans and 100,000 Irish immigrants also came to Britain, yet the former "remains such a symbol of profound soul searching for the national identity" and is regarded as "a turning point in the fabric of the nation’s identity". The latter is barely remembered at all.

Hirsch goes on to reference the area of South West London where she lives. It is known as the 'biltong belt' due to the high numbers of white South African, Australian and New Zealander immigrants. This had the same impact as immigration anywhere, yet "this immigration is never weaponised as a threat to the national heritage, or as a reason for pre-existing communities to flee. This immigration has been largely unproblematic because it is white, English-speaking and less visibly 'other'”.

In 1962 Home Secretary Rab Butler, said the Commonwealth Immigration Act was a law whose “restrictive effect is intended to, and would in fact, operate on coloured people almost exclusively”. Today’s governments are more subtle in their language, yet blatant examples of contemporary racism, such as the Windrush scandal, have "exposed a historical continuity that infects the entire immigration system."

"The sooner we acknowledge that legacy, and dispense with the fantasy that immigration has nothing to do with race, the sooner we will be able to consign this ongoing, abhorrent injustice to the dustbin of history, where it belongs.

Read the full article.

In this article Dr Jenan Younis outlines a number of factors contributing to the disproportionately high number of deaths among NHS doctors and carers from BAME communities. She points to an inequality in workplace culture which results in BAME doctors being expected to do more, and not to complain. "There is evidence from the BMA and GMC that Bame doctors are much less likely to complain about issues regarding safety born from a concern of having to face recriminations or reprisals in comparison to their white counterparts." In the present crisis this results in colleagues being "fearful for their own safety without adequate PPE but equally fearful of the repercussions of speaking out."

This inequality is rooted in discrimination. "The medical profession is certainly no stranger to discrimination, a GMC-commissioned independent report highlighted that Bame medical professionals are likely to be treated differently and undersupported by their peers. It seems this is a discussion we as a profession are afraid to have."

While acknowledging that there is a debate going on about this issue, Dr Younis is not optimistic that it or the promised inquiry will lead to any lasting change. "All that will change is that many individuals such as myself will undergo a stark realisation that the value of being “ethnic” in this society is to serve and be sacrificed"

​Read the full article. Photo: Amged El-Hawrani is just one of the many Bame care workers to have died.

This 'Exclusive' in Nursing Times interviews Carol Cooper, head of equality, diversity and human rights at Birmingham Community Healthcare NHS Trust, who said BME nurses feel that the bias that "existed before" is now influencing their being appointed to Covid-19 wards, and exposed to patients with Covid "over and above their colleagues".

Ms Cooper warned the pandemic is “shining a light on the inequities which are part of the system in which we exist”. 

“Many of us knew that BME people would be overrepresented - given their proportion of the population - in the mortality and morbidity figures because of the comorbidities that exist in our communities, because of the location of our communities in terms of the workforce being on the frontline [and] because of the amount of people that are caught in the poverty trap and live in households that have higher occupancy”.

“There is all sorts of multiple deprivations that people are subject to now and I think Covid is throwing a light on the cracks in society and I think we’re going to have to rethink how we exist as a society, how we care for one another, how we care for the most vulnerable people in our society.”

Read the full article here.

This 'Letter from Britain' by Joan Blaney details the ways in which existing discrimination and inequalities in British society have been exposed by the Covid-19 pandemic. "Social and economic inequalities continue to be burning injustices, with black people experiencing high unemployment rates, less security in work, lower wages, and poorer housing.  Such issues are a major threat to our long-term health and well-being and are readily exposed by the COVID-19 pandemic. While government policies are to be observed by all to help slow the spread of the virus, they nonetheless bring deeper social and economic pain to many black people, particularly those in disadvantaged communities."

One example quotes a report by SHELTER which says Black and Minority Ethnic (BAME) groups are "disproportionately likely to suffer from poor housing and seven times more likely to live in overcrowded conditions than white households. Social isolation therefore is not practicable in these circumstances." Additionally, as the majority of black people are mainly employed in manual and frontline caring jobs, they will find it harder, if not impossible, to work from home.

The article also points to the disproportionately higher non-white deaths from Covid-19 and links to underlying health issues such as malnutrition, type 2 diabetes, hypertension and coronary heart disease, which are more prevalent in the black community. "Attention should be paid to these underlying conditions to minimise such disastrous statics in the future." Read the full article here.

You Clap for Me Now is a coronavirus poem on racism and immigration in Britain. This video featuring UK residents and people of foreign heritage reciting the poem highlights the crucial role immigrant workers are playing in the Covid-19 outbreak. Many of these workers would fail the criteria set out in the recent release by the Government of guidance for its post-Brexit points-based immigration policy.

A lot is being written currently about how the health, social and economic impacts of the Coronavirus pandemic are having a much bigger impact on the poor in both the UK snd USA, a section of the population in with BAME people are already over-represented. As seems to be the case with any crisis, the basic inequalities in Western societies are thrown into sharp relief. The same could be said of course of the impact of the virus on underdeveloped countries of the world. For further reading here are several recent articles and quotes.

Afua Hirsch writing in the Guardian asks: "If coronavirus doesn't discriminate, how come black people are bearing the brunt?" A study of 2000 critical ill patients in the UK shows 35% are BAME: twice the representation in the wider population. Afua cites the #CharitySoWhite urgent call for action over the disproportionate impact of the virus on Britain’s minorities. Read the full article.

A letter in today's Independent from Deryck Browne Chief executive, African Health Policy Network, states: Inequality means some are suffering more than others from this pandemic. This government hypocritically claps the same frontline staff that it decimated with its austerity cuts, wage freezes and fiscal responsibility. The communities that suffered when local authority budgets were cut, Sure Start centres closed and charities’ funds slashed are proving to be the same communities likely most vulnerable to contracting the virus." Read more here.

In the USA Bernie Sanders has said ‘Systemic racism’ is behind higher African American deaths amid growing evidence that people of colour, especially African Americans, make up a disproportionate number of people being infected or killed by the virus. Read the full article.

According to an Associated Press analysis  of the USA's 13,000 deaths thus far about 3.300 or 42% were black, double the proportion of African Americans in the total population in the areas covered by the analysis. Read more here.

BBC News 9/4/20: “It is New York’s poorest districts heavily populated with African-Americans and Hispanics that are being hardest hit by this health and economic crisis”. 
“When you’re in one of the poorest communities in the country, it already was a challenge... What people are watching right now is what happens when you don’t invest in addressing poverty for generations.” Michael Blake, New York State Assemblyman.