In a recent article in the Independent, Noah Berlatsky comments on the speech by Donald Trump's defence lawyer Bruce Castor, one that has been universally castigated as bumbling and incompetent. Berlatsky strikingly states that: "the truth is that Castor could have stood up for two hours and made farting noises with his underarm, and his client would still be acquitted." Republican senators have already indicated that they will vote to acquit before hearing the evidence, never mind weighing up, the merits of the case. The GOP is a white identity party, committed to traditional hierarchies of race, gender, sexuality, religion, and wealth. Trump is their perfect president because he shows "that the only qualification for rule is to be white, straight, Christian, male and rich".

Ta-Nehisi Coates 2017 article "The First White President" for the Atlantic argued that Trump is "a white man who would not be president were it not for this fact" – meaning he was the president who had no qualifications, talents, accomplishments, or experience to his name other than his identity as a wealthy white man.

Berlatsky continues: "White supremacy is not actually an ideology of superiority. It’s at base an ideology of entitled inefficacy. The Trump ethos is that the most incompetent, foolish, evil white man in the country is worthy to rule simply because he is a white man." Protecting that privilege seems to matter more to Republican senators than the rights and wrongs of the January 6 Capitol invasion and Trump's role in inciting it, even though theirs were among the lives endangered.

Read the full article here.

Manchester City Council has announced a public consultation on who should be remembered in public spaces as part of a review of statues, monuments and memorials in the city. The council says it is not looking to ‘eradicate’ some of Manchester’s past but to instead understand its ‘history, heritage, and the context around it’. Mancunian's views will be sought on the appropriateness of existing pieces of art. This will also shape policy on artworks that will be commissioned and displayed in the future. 

​A review of every statue in Manchester was announced days after Black Lives Matter protestors marched through cities across the UK last year. Approval has already been given for a statue of Len Johnson, a black boxer from Clayton who was denied championship bouts because of the colour of his skin.

​The consultation is being supported by charity Manchester Histories. Read more here. See the consultation here.

A 157-page audit by Historic England, the public body responsible for preserving buildings and monuments, has identified hundreds of sites around Britain with links to the slave trade, including schools, farms, pubs and gravestones. The list includes halls, churches and entire villages have been linked to the “transatlantic slavery economy”. 

The research “identified the tangible presence of England’s slavery past in buildings, houses, streets, industrial heritage, urban fabrics and rural landscapes”. The report states: "The transatlantic slavery economy was invested in the built environment of the local area in housing, civic society organisations, churches, village halls, farms, shooting lodges, hotels." As an example, Nunnington in North Yorkshire has been included because a slaver built a school and houses there.

Completed last summer, just after the toppling of statue of Edward Colston, the report is more comprehensive than the National Trust review limited to stately homes, but still does not address all "tombs, monuments and memorials of individuals and families made wealthy from associations with the Atlantic slave economy"

Historic England said the audit would “identify significant gaps in knowledge that can be targeted ... to produce a more complete picture of the impact of Atlantic slavery on the built environment in England”

Conservative MP Nigel Mills has accused the report of being a "Waste of time", claiming: “What happened hundreds of years ago was wrong. But we don’t need to constantly berate ourselves for it.”

Read more here and here.  Download the report here.

The Black Lives Matter movement has encouraged many people around the world and in the UK to reflect more deeply on issues of race, colonialism and social justice. As a small contribution to this, the Ascension Trust and Urban Expression are offering this online course.

A high calibre line-up of speakers includes Robert Beckford, Kate Coleman, Les Isaac, Bev Thomas, Stuart Murray-Williams, Ronald Nathan and Ben Lindsay.

Running for 8 weeks in 2 blocks of 4 (April 29, May , 13, 20; June 3. 10. 17. 24), it is hoped that participants will:

• Gain a greater appreciation of the roles played by Black people in the Bible, early church history and church and society today.
• Learn more about the dual legacy of Christendom and colonialism and what needs to change in our thinking, practices and structures.
• Wrestle with challenging issues, including white privilege and white supremacy, institutional racism and mono-ethnic churches.
• Explore possibilities for increasing Black/White partnership in various dimensions of mission and church.
• Share our own experiences in church and society and develop fresh perspectives and strategies.

Cost is £80 (£40 unwaged). Places are limited. For more information and to book visit the course website.

This free webinar, hosted by Churches Together in Britain and Ireland (CTBI), and looking ahead to Racial Justice Sunday on February 14, will take place on Wednesday February 10th, 7:30-8:30pm.

Last year marked the 25th anniversary of RJS, a date which coincided with the killing of George Floyd, the upsurge of the Black Lives Matter movement, and a pandemic which continues to disproportionately impact Black, Asian and Minority Ethnic communities.
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This webinar will include some of the keenest minds in our churches who will explore what racial justice looks like in church and society and discuss what steps need to be put in place to turn all the conversations we heard last year into palpable, significant action toward justice, equity and inclusion.
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Register here.

Faith in Black Lives Matter was a conference run by the Faith Network for Manchester that took place via Zoom in November. Here are links to some of the topics it looked at. Thought-provoking, honest and robust content (let the listener understand), but shared in a context of humility and desire to learn and change.

• Post Traumatic Slave Syndrome with Paul Obinna
• Black Theology with Prof. Anthony G Reddie
• White Supremacy with Sue Cockerill

In an interview, former Home Office immigration minister Caroline Nokes has called the her former department's approach to immigration “inhuman”, “profoundly depressing” and at times “hideously wrong", warning it will only cause further problems that will end up costing the taxpayer more money. Nokes accused ministers of “paying lip service” to Wendy Williams’ Lessons Learned report on the Windrush scandal – which broke while she was in office – and said they were failing to put people at the heart of Home Office policy, as was recommended in the review. Commitments to change the Home Office following the Windrush scandal had been “torn up, disregarded and rendered clearly completely irrelevant” when making decisions about asylum seekers. Read the full interview.

One of the reactions to the mass-break-in to the Capitol Building in Washington last week has been to contrast the police response and numbers arrested or charged with the Black Lives Matter protests last June. The Black Lives Matter Global Network commented: "Make no mistake, if the protesters were Black, we would have been tear gassed, battered, and perhaps shot."

Former First Lady, Michele Obama released a statement pointing out the discrepancy between "these rioters and gang members ... led out of the building not in handcuffs, but free to carry on with their days" and the summer's "overwhelmingly peaceful" Black Lives Matter protest movement which saw "peaceful protesters met with brute force. We saw cracked skulls and mass arrests, law enforcement pepper spraying its way through a peaceful demonstration for a presidential photo op". Read the full statement here.

As well as his own statement describing "a moment of great dishonor and shame for our nation", former president predecessor Barack Obama has also Tweeted links to several articles further analysing the gulf in response between mostly white and mostly black protests. These are:

• FiveThirtyEight.com: "The Police's Tepid Response To The Capitol Breach Wasn't An Aberration"
• New Yorker: "The Capitol Invaders Enjoyed The Privilege Of Not Being Taken Seriously."
• CNN: "Rioters Breached US Capitol security on Wednesday. This was the police response when it was Black protesters on DC streets last year"

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A report today in the Independent states: "Windrush victims are yet to receive compensation despite the Home Office announcing last month that all eligible claimants would be granted a 'fast-tracked' payment." A letter to Home Secretary Priti Patel on 1 January, signed by 31 Windrush victims and claimants to the scheme says: “We are left with the hollow sense that the ‘overhaul’ you announced on 14 December – in the lead-up to Christmas – was no more than a publicity stunt. This is the same dynamic we have faced from the beginning: we are told that changes are coming, and we will hear soon; we wait for open-ended periods, suffering all the while, some among us dying while waiting; and we are ultimately presented with something far deficient to what was promised, and expected to be thankful for it.” So far nine Windrush victims have died while awaiting compensation.
Read the full article,

The Equality and Human Rights Commission (EHRC) equalities watchdog has found in its "Assessment of hostile environment policies" that these policies that caused the Windrush scandal broke the law and are “a shameful stain on British history”. ​The damning report concludes that the Home Office failed in its “legal duties” towards black Britons, and that the harsh effects of the crackdown were “repeatedly ignored, dismissed, or their severity disregarded”. Ministers failed to listen properly to protests from members of the Windrush generation, “even as the severe effects of hostile environment policies began to emerge”. The EHRC said its findings endorsed the conclusion of the Windrush Lessons Learned Review that the experiences of victims of the scandal were “foreseeable and avoidable”. 

The Windrush compensation scheme has paid just £1.6m to 196 people in 18 months when a bill of between £200m and £570m was expected. At least nine people have died before receiving the compensation they applied for. A black official helping to run the scheme resigned last week over “racism” and the government’s failure to help victims.

The EHRC concluded that the Home Office did not comply with the Public Sector Equality Duty (PSED), which requires all public authorities to consider how their decisions affect people protected under the Equality Act. Impact assessments were “often considered too late to form a meaningful part of many decision-making processes”. Exceptions to the PSED for immigration were “in many cases interpreted incorrectly or inconsistently, and there was a general lack of commitment within the Home Office to the importance of equality”.

​Read more here and here. Download the report here.