David Lammy MP is to conduct an independent review into the British justice system to examine suggestions of systematic racial bias. Black people in the UK are nearly four times more likely than white to be behind bars. According to recent analysis, offenders from minority backgrounds are 39% more likely to face prison sentences than white offenders for the same offences. One area to be looked at will be emerging work around “implicit bias”, where evidence shows how we can all exhibit biases in our behaviour without even being aware of them (from an MJR viewpoint, is this a legacy issue?).  Read more​ here.

If you are in or near the Manchester area you are warmly invited to the next MJR Manchester meeting on Tuesday May 3rd, 11-1pm at the Nazarene Theological College, Dene Road, Didsbury M20 2GU. Lunch will be provided. This will be a chance to catch up on what MJR has been doing nationally and locally, one year on from the founding of our Study Centre at the College. and also to find out more about two events being planned for Manchester later this year.

• On Friday evening daytime Saturday June 24-25 we will be running a ‘Legacy of Slavery’ course. This will be based on the 5-part evening course run as part of Manchester Bible School last autumn, but based at a local church in Moss Side, Manchester​
• The ‘Legacy Day’ conference on Saturday October 29, during Black History Month, we hope will be a significant event in increasing recognition of the legacy of colonial slavery still affecting today’s society. Speakers will be Robert Beckford and James Walvin, and there will be a Q&A session with a panel, chaired by Mike Shaft. Venue to be finalised, but for now please note the date.

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For further information and to book lunch on May 3rd, please email Paul Keeble.

'Equitable', is a phone app developed in the US that will allow diners to split the bill taking into account the gender pay gap and the legacy of slavery. Originally suggested by comedian Luna Malbroux as a humorous way to address the age-old debate about how to settle the bill – who had dessert, who had which main course – the app has been developed in earnest using a complex algorithm that takes history into account,

For example: A white man dining in a group that included a black woman and a Hispanic woman would be allotted the largest share of the bill, because for every dollar earned by a white man, a white woman is said to earn 78 cents, a black woman 64 cents and a Latina 56 cents, according to the US Bureau of Labor Statistics. A group of white men dining together could also use the app as it would apply a surcharge: “reparations, one meal at a time”. Read more here.

This article on the Harvard Law Today website reports on a recent talk by Sir Hilary Beckles on 'Reparatory Justice for Black Global Enslavement' at Harvard Law School. The call for reparations is directly related to the Black Lives Matter movement. During 17th and 18th centuries, slaves had monetary value to their owners. “Nothing mattered more than black lives because their economies were built upon black lives”. But with emancipation their usefulness in creating wealth suddenly evaporated and black lives were no longer important. The article includes a link to a video of Sir Hilary's talk and the Q&A.