This article, by Siana Bangura in today's Independent, urges white people to play their part in ending racism.

"Racism is a familiar blade, and for those of us at its sharp end, the killing of George Floyd in Minnesota has not surprised us. However, compounded by the injustice of a Covid-19 landscape in which black people have been, once again, hit the hardest according to data from the Office for National Statistics, this instance of brutality feels like the last straw. Black women in the UK are 4.3 times more likely to die from Covid-19 than white women, while black men were 4.2 times more likely to die. The report went on to say that these alarming disparities seem to be 'partly a result of socio-economic disadvantage and other circumstances, but a remaining part of the difference has not yet been explained'. Spoiler alert: it’s no mystery – structural inequality kills."

Siana notes that once again with the protests in the USA "the onus has been put on black people to dismantle their subjugation themselves and to remain calm while doing so." She then quotes a viral tweet which sums up the dichotomy: 
“My main issue with racism is that it’s a white problem but black people are the experts” and goes on to appeal to white people to get active and get vocal. "Silence is betrayal at best, and at its very worst, it is the foundation of all covert expressions of white supremacy... You may not have directly inflicted physical pain on black people in your lifetime, but figuratively – in many cases, of course, literally – your knees have been pressed on our necks for centuries." To those who say they are afraid of saying or doing the wrong thing she replies: "to create change, you must be humble enough to make mistakes, apologise with your whole heart, and be ready to keep trying. That is truly what is needed now."

Read the full article.

(MJR Trustee Paul Keeble writes)

This opinion piece in the Irish Times gives a perspective on the recent history of Britain (and the USA) is notable because of its viewpoint. Titled "We need to pay very close attention to what is happening in Britain now", writer Una Mulally is writing from an Irish context as a near-neighbour that has enjoyed (or endured?) a long relationship with Britain which gives a unique position from which to observe and comment. It's not a positive picture.

Very critical of the current political regimes in both Britain and the US and the process that has led to the ascent of Boris Johnson and Donald Trump, as both countries "fall apart", a question is asked for others watching on: "we must interrogate how we can prevent falling as far as these two nations. How do we hold on to civility and decency, when it has evaporated elsewhere? What kind of environment gave rise to such toxicity?"

She continues: "The more we know ourselves, the less likely we are to betray ourselves, and each other. A lot of this is about empathy, but it is also about self-knowledge." For both Britain and the US a lack of self-knowledge is a barrier to progress. "If one does not confront the basic truths of one’s national identity, one will not be able to trace a path forward. Everything becomes a fiction, a narrative designed to block any kind of self-examination." For both nations a major basic truth is the "central malady" of racism.

"The toxicity at the heart of America is racism. It’s a country full of white people who have never confronted the fact that their so-called 'freedoms'. and their country’s economic power, were built on slavery. ... Similarly, Britain has never meaningfully confronted its racism, which is colonialism, building an 'empire' on the back of invading and pillaging and inflicting misery on whatever shores its brutal mercenaries... landed on." Including of course, Ireland.

Here I need to declare an interest. I grew up in Protestant Northern Ireland and was taught in school a selective history of the island. It was only in later life that I learned of the centuries of exploitation by the British and found out about Drogheda, The Famine, the Easter Rising and much more, arguably continuing to the present day in the dismissive attitude behind the "Irish Backstop" fiasco. I have lived in England for many years and continue to note the level of ignorance (which to an extent I used to share) about the island to the west... and how often Northern Ireland, a part of the UK, is casually referred to as "Ireland". A small symptom of a bigger problem?

It should give pause for thought that this observation made by a close neighbour is that our main root-problem is self-deception about our racism, an ongoing legacy of a history of colonialism, marked by exploitation and oppression. "The violence of British colonialism is embedded in the fabric of the world, in the horrors of illegal wars, in the consequences of bleeding nations of their resources, in the couldn’t-give-a-toss attitude towards Ireland."

​Read the full article here.

In the light of the recent deportation to Jamaica, this article looks at the provision for legal advice in detention centres. And finds it sorely lacking, speaking of "systemic failures". For example, a survey by charity Bail for Immigration Detainees (BID) found that most detainees waited over a week to see an adviser on the rota in one of 40 half-hour slots per week. This often makes their services useless, as the Home Office offers only a 72-hour notice period before removal – one reason why challenges to deportation so often happen at the last minute.

This makes it all the more remarkable that last-minute legal interventions managed to get so many potential deportees off the flight as "brilliant, committed immigration lawyers worked hard to uphold their client’s rights, no matter how complex their case; fought tirelessly to ensure that everyone had access to justice, no matter who they are".

Read the full article.

Last September BBC Breakfast Presenter Naga Munchetty was making the news instead of reporting it when she was made the subject of BBC inquiry after she spoke out against racist remarks made by US President Donald Trump. The inquiry was set up after one complaint was received. When the BBC confirmed it was partially upholding the complaint, it triggered a huge reaction, including a letter supporting Naga from 61 fellow broadcasters and  journalists. BBC director-general Tony Hall intervened and reversed the ruling, stating: “Racism is racism and the BBC is not impartial on the topic.”  
In this interview with Vogue magazine Naga speaks about the affair and reflects on how she feels about her role in the BBC, and finds herself encouraging her minority co-workers to “hold on”.

"Find me a large organisation, and find me an employee from a minority group who feels they are able to bring their true self to work today. I don’t think you’ll be able to." Read the interview here.

Afua Hirsch has written a powerful opinion piece for the Guardian about the campaign to get a memorial for the victims of the Trans-Atlantic Slave Trade. It is titled: "​Britain was built on the backs of slaves. A memorial is the least they deserve." The group Memorial 2007 have been campaigning for nearly 20 years, the memorial, “Remembering Enslaved Africans and Their Descendants”, has been designed, planning permission to place it in Hyde Park has been obtained, but the government has refused to cover the £4m cost of erecting it. The planning permission expires on November 7.

Hirsch argues that: "the country’s treatment of people descended from this history could not be more shameful. From the institutionalised racism they experienced fighting for Britain in both world wars, to the attempts to deport members of the Windrush generation just last year, they have endured the worst of what Britain has had to offer.

She says that the campaign is not "requesting a favour for a marginal section of society. The history of how we came to be this nation is a history for us all. If we can’t dignify it with a simple memorial, one whose location, design, importance and even planning permission have already been established, then we really have lost the plot."

Read the full article here.

An opinion piece in today's Independent written  after the conclusion of ​the inquest into the death of another of the Windrush scandal migrants yesterday calls the scandal a symptom of our "broken and brutal immigration system". The coroner ruled that the death of Dexter Bristol, a 58-year-old Grenadian man, who came to the UK at eight years old, was due to "natural causes" due to other "stressors" in his life additional to his application to remain in the UK. However, his family said that Bristol died after 18 months of unbearable stress imposed by the Home Office and was so fearful of being targeted by the system that he avoided using NHS services in the two years before his death.

The article states that this is an issue that: "multiple health practitioners have spoken out about, particularly since the roll-out of charges for immigrants. Last year, an Ethiopian asylum seeker was denied chemotherapy when she was found ineligible for free care by the Home Office and NHS. She died at the age of 39 last month." If nothing is done about this 'hostile environment' these tragedies could become more and more common. Read the full article here.

MJR trustee Dr Joe Aldred has written this excellent article (though we do say so ourselves) reflecting on racism in contemporary Britain. Here is part of his introduction:

This presentation is divided into four main, but short, sections. First, I say something about the nature of race and racism; second, I consider the case of Kelso Cochrane as exhibit number one; third, I consider Brexit as exhibit number two; and fourth, I consider the question, ‘is racism over?’  In conclusion, I offer four p’s for coping with racism, psychology, protection, protest, and power.

​Read the full article here.

This editorial in the Independent highlights how the contenders for the role of Conservative Party Leader are, yet again, from Britain's privileged – and mostly white – elite.

"Britain’s most influential people are five times more likely to have studied at a private school than the general population, according to the Social Mobility Commission, an excellent body that is absurdly underpowered to do much about the most class-ridden society in the advanced world. We seem to be drifting towards a second upstairs-downstairs Edwardian era of inequality."

"Just as inequality of outcomes – disparities in wealth and income – are growing more severe, so are inequalities of opportunity. ... It is not good for society, for social cohesion or for the economy to have the best jobs nabbed by the children of the already rich, creating a vicious cycle of advantage and privilege." Read the article here.

This is the question asked by historian and broadcaster David Olusoga in a Guardian comment piece on reaction to Cambridge University's decision to investigate its links with the Trans-Atlantic slave trade.

"Cambridge and its colleges are rich. Staggeringly rich. And – spoiler alert – some of the gifts and bequests buried deep within that mountain of wealth will have come from benefactors who were slave traders and slave owners. This is true of other universities, here and abroad. Yet the same commentators who endlessly accuse students of being closed to new ideas and unwilling to face uncomfortable facts have rushed to condemn the university’s investigation into its own past. Their argument, in essence, is that we’re better off not knowing."

After going through some of the old excuses being wheeled out (such as 'grievance archeology'), Olusoga states: "...if Cambridge, the university from which the abolitionists William Wilberforce and Thomas Clarkson both graduated, had set up a project to explore its role in the ending of slavery, there would have been back-slaps all round. Everyone is happy for the history of slavery to be investigated so long as the investigation examines the parts in which we look good."

The Cambridge announcement is not about "dredging up the past, self-flagellation or any of the other blithe dismissals we’ve heard. It is about breaking the historical silence and uncovering a past that was whitewashed."

Read the full article here. 

This recent article in the Church Times looks at how a diocese in New York is reckoning with the legacy of slavery. Importantly, it goes on to comment on a "reluctance" on the part of the Church if England to talk about this issue here in the UK.

In the USA in 2006 all the Episcopal Church’s dioceses were called on to investigate and report back on the part they had played in slavery and its aftermath of discrimination and segregation. New York diocese created a Reparations Committee to collect and document its findings. These come as a shock for many: “We have a huge bit of our history which has been lost and forgotten — sometimes intentionally. Most people think of slavery as entirely a Southern matter, so they’ve been surprised to find the extent of slavery in New York State”, the Bishop of New York, the Rt Revd Andrew Dietsche. The Reparations Committee went on to propose a three-year programme of lamentation, repentance, and apology, and reparation in the diocese to explore the weight of human suffering caused by slavery and give an opportunity for black and white Christians to grieve together.

In one church’s weekly liturgy, the congregation acknowledges before God “the pervasive presence of racism in our country’s origins, in our institutions and politics, in our diocese and its churches, and in our hearts”, and goes on to repent of “the many ways — social, economic, and political — that white supremacy has accrued benfits to some of us at the expense of others.” Midway through a Year of Repentance and Apology Bishop Dietsche says it is too early to to know what reparations might mean for the New work diocese "but apology without cost to it or action would be empty,"

​In the UK in 2006 the Church of England's General Synod issued an apology for slavery but, unlike the Episcopal Church, little more has been done, symptomatic of “a collective, deliberate amnesia about slavery in Britain” according to Dr Duncan Dormer, General Secretary of USPG (United Society Partners in the Gospel). Several universities have begun to look into their links with slavery and they, with the churches, are "well placed to take the lead in this discussion ... The universities have the advantage of discipline in searching for truth, and churches — in theory — start from the premise of priority of relationship. My concern with reparations more widely is that you can send money as if that is enough, but still continue oppressive patterns of relationship. the primary concern has to be relationship.” Read the full article here. (A recent USPG conference also addressed this issue. Read more here.)

​The question MJR would ask is this. Is the CofE, are any of the churches, ready or willing to take up this challenge?