This is the question asked in an article in today's Independent by Abbinata Makoni. It begins:
"Almost every elder I know has uttered a version of the sentence: 'Jobs like those are not for people like us,' as if we’d all been conditioned to think we were only meant to go down one rigid path while others excelled and prevailed in all sorts of avenues. It wasn’t until I was 15 that it finally clicked that, unfortunately, we have been taught to think like that, because that’s exactly how racial inequality works in society." One of those avenues is academia, yet as recently as 2011 of over 14,000 university professors in the UK, only 50 were black. Another legacy issue. Read the full article here.

Anthony Brown, a paralegal in Manchester, established the Windrush Crusade last year to provide assistance to Manchester’s Caribbean diaspora caught up in the immigration debacle. The Crusade has now joined forces with UK-wide BME Lawyers 4 Justice in a bid to demand that the government put an immediate halt on deportation flights. They are planning a day of action on June 22. It is hoped that a coordinated plan of action can be devised which will see protests happening in major cities including, Manchester, Leeds, Liverpool and London. Read more here.

Manchester is gearing up for the two-hundredth anniversary of the 'Peterloo Massacre' on August 16. This article by John Harris from the Guardian (itself birthed from the massacre) explains some of the significance, not just at the time, but for today. Like colonial slavery, this event has also been neglected in school history lessons, and also carries forward a massive legacy, both for Manchester and for the working classes in Britain. EP Thompson in his classic The Making of the English Working Class wrote of Peterloo that it, “was without question a formative experience in British political and social history.” Harris comments: "Thompson saw 1819’s carnage originating in 'the panic of class hatred' and an ingrained belief that any working class crowd was always only a breath away from turning into the mob – something that has regularly surfaced long into the democratic age: witness Orgreave or Hillsborough." Read the full article here.

Many events and activities are being organised to celebrate or commemorate (depending on your point of view) Peterloo. These will include a special service at Manchester Cathedral at 2pm on Sunday July 7 (more details to follow soon). This website will be a good starting point to keep track of what will be happening over the summer.

“I think there is an issue that we, there is an elephant in the room. Right. And the elephant in the room, is the transatlantic slave trade and colonialism which no one ever wants to talk about despite the fact that it was one of the most significant and horrifying points in history probably in the entire existence of human beings. Whereby you had like for, for 400 years, people living in indentured slavery. I don’t even know, I can’t even imagine what it is like to be born into slavery and be tortured on a day to day basis.

When those people who were given freedom, or civil rights in the 60’s, between 64 – 68, it is very, very recent history. And unfortunately for some reason none of those people were ever compensated in any way whatsoever. In fact what happened was the governments, even in the United Kingdom actually compensated the slave owners as opposed to the people who were enslaved. And the problem with that was that we didn’t actually deal with any of the psychological trauma, not just to people of colour but also to Caucasian and White people who lived through that, who might have participated in it and who might have not actually believed in it.

None of that is being discussed.  We don’t discuss it in our education system. We have things like Black History month which are like thrown on at the end, which should be part of our curriculum so that all of us understand this is what happened in history; this is why these people are here. And I really feel that that would reduce the amount of xenophobia.

And I just want to say, actually funnily enough, for example, when those payouts were given, one of those gentlemen was actually an MP that I was reading about.  And there’s are a number of different people. You are talking about figures of like 65 million in today’s money; you are talking about figures like 83 million that were paid out to replace say 15,000 slaves.

And what you also have to understand is that capitalism as we know it is built on the back of slavery. Because pre-slavery in the 17th century things like banking really only existed in London.  It didn’t really exist outside of that. It was actually invented for merchants and for traders because they needed to borrow to be able to go and exploit human labour. And many of the banks that we use today, whether it is Barclays, or its Lloyds, or it is Chase - they are still benefitting, many families whether the like it or not are living are living off the proceeds of crime essentially.
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So the reason I mention this is because I don’t believe that human beings in their nature are born to be bad people or are born to be horrible people. I think that a lot of the time the fact that the governments and the people that control us to a certain extent, have chosen to kind of operate this collective amnesia and not educate us properly on what has happened, how it’s happened and how it’s affected people has actually led to this vilification of people of colour which we still live with till this day.”

On BBC's Question Time on February 7, the panel  was asked about the recent debate about actor Liam Neeson's alleged racism. The response given by model and author Eunice Olumide included a brilliant summary of the history and legacies of colonial slavery. Eunice spoke eloquently of "the elephant in the room" – the transatlantic slave-trade and colonialism – "which no-one ever wants to talk about, despite the fact that it is one of the most significant and horrifying points of history, probably in the entire existence of human beings." Find the programme here on iPlayer – Eunice's response starts at around 39 minutes.

Following recent government figures which revealed that white disadvantaged boys are the least likely to access higher education, a new analysis has found that fewer than 3% of students enrolled at Oxford and Cambridge are poor and white. A report from the National Education Opportunities Network (Neon) has shown that more than half of universities in England admit less than 5 per cent of white students from deprived areas. Neon have found that: “Young people in the poorest areas of the country are up to 16 times less likely to go onto higher education than young people in the wealthiest areas.” Read the full article here.

 in this TES article. “With no BME leaders, how do we address the unconscious bias that we are instilling in all our students, of any ethnicity: that leaders are white, and for that matter, most often male and middle-class?” writes Steve Chalke, founder of Oasis, which runs 52 academies in England. “We are in a cycle of low aspirations; a cycle that will never eradicate racism and unconscious bias; a cycle that will never break the ceiling on career opportunities for BME teachers.”

Referring to the Swann Report of 1985, he asks: “Why, when everyone has recognised a critical issue for decades, can we not find a solution?” At a day conference for those involved in education on March 9 Chalke is launching a movement called ‘Break the Cycle’ to urgently address this issue. Read the full TES article here.

At their recent meeting in January the trustees of MJR decided to defer the Zong voyage for 12 months until the summer of 2020.  As part of our larger Zong project, the plan is to sail a C18th square rigger fitted out as a replica slave ship around Britain. Our aim remains to provide the ship as a free resource to support local groups in developing associated activities and long term follow-up projects to build awareness and educate about the legacy of slavery. 

The budget for the voyage is £175k and whilst we have raised nearly half of these funds, unfortunately we have not yet secured the full level of funding needed to allow us to confidently proceed with the project this June and July as originally hoped. We are still waiting on a number of funding options and whilst we remain confident full funding will be secured, we are also very conscious that we cannot commit to expenditure of funds we do not have. Therefore, after much prayerful consideration, the trustees have decided to postpone the voyage for one year until the summer of 2020.

Deferring the project will not only allow time to secure the necessary funding, but will also enable a greater level of planning, and concur with the feedback from some ports who felt that 2019 was ‘too soon’.

Meanwhile, our local networking, publicity and funding efforts continue and we would ask for all who read this update to consider how they could help with one or more of these. And, for those who do, please pray for the Zong project.

'Slavery Routes' is a new 4-part documentary which examines the history of enslavement back to the 7th century. It is described as the 1200 year story of "a world whose territories and own frontiers were built by the slave trade", a trade which saw over 20 million Africans deported, sold and enslaved.

The producer's statement says: "When shootings specifically target the black American community, like in Charleston; when the police shoot down an unarmed black man in Ferguson; when nearly 2/3rd of the poor in Brazil are blacks; when the “statues of shame” still adorn numerous French cities… It is time to question the roots of evil and to understand why racism and anti-black discrimination remain so persistent. In June 2015, Barack Obama stated that “The legacy of slavery […] casts a long shadow, and that’s still part of our DNA that’s passed on. […] It’s not just a matter of overt discrimination. […] societies don’t overnight completely erase everything that happened 200 to 300 years prior.”

Slavery Routes' will be shown in different countries on various TV networks. As we hear of upcoming showings we will advertise them on this website. If you hear of a showing, please let MJR know and we will publicise it.

Find out more and watch the trailer here.

This article on Jerry Seinfeld calling out some fellow comedians on their use of the N-word makes the important point that "it’s important to realise that non-black people like Seinfeld have a much easier experience when it comes to calling out racism." For starters, non-black people "are less exhausted" because it is black people who "currently bear the brunt of the responsibility when it comes to educating people about racial insensitivity." Non-black people don’t have to address these issues daily or need to "worry about being cast as an 'angry black person' (an insidious stereotype designed to silence righteous indignation)." Non-black people confronting racist behaviour amongst their own means "engaging with issues that don’t affect us, and supporting the arguments of people who experience oppression." It should not be the rare praise-worthy exception as here, but "the very least we can do". Read the full article.