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.

Two major British firms have pledged to make payments to representatives of black people, as well as those of other minority ethnic backgrounds, as they seek to address their founders’ roles in the trans-Atlantic slave trade.The pub chain and brewer Greene King and the insurance market Lloyd’s of London both revealed on Wednesday evening that they would be making the reparations.

Greene King CEO Nick Mackenzie said: “It is inexcusable that one of our founders profited from slavery and argued against its abolition in the 1800s.” He added that the firm will “make a substantial investment to benefit the BAME community and support our race diversity in the business”.

Lloyd’s of London said it would “invest in positive programmes to attract, retain and develop black and minority ethnic talent”, as well as providing “financial support to charities and organisations promoting opportunity and inclusion for black and minority ethnic groups”.

Records of British slave ownership archived by researchers at University College London (UCL) show that founder members of both Greenes and Lloyds owned slaves and were compensated as part of the Government bail-out of slave owners in 1833. The slaves received nothing.

​Read more here.

Twelve years after publicly endorsing a campaign to build a major memorial commemorating the victims of the transatlantic slave trade when Mayor of London, now Prime Minister Boris Johnson has been urged to provide funding to build the statue. In 2008 Johnson said it was “important that this history is never forgotten”, adding: “Hyde Park is a fitting site for a permanent memorial to the millions who lost their lives and the courageous people who fought to end the brutal transatlantic slave trade.” But no funding was forthcoming then, and the government declined to fund the Hyde Park memorial in December 2019.

Patrons of the campaign include Baroness Doreen Lawrence, Sir Keir Starmer’s race relations adviser. The campaign organisers said: “Right now, there is no major memorial in England to commemorate the victims of the transatlantic slave trade. There are millions of people who were brought over from Africa in ships and kept as slaves. Many of them built Britain, but were subjected to cruelty and forced into inhumane conditions.”

To find out more, read this article. Visit the campaign website. A new £4m fundraising campaign can be found here.

“The presence of that statue to a slave trader in the middle of the city was a personal affront to me and people like me.” – Marvin Rees, elected Mayor of Bristol, interviewed on Sky News on the removal of the statue of Edward Colston.

In this interview with Christianity magazine Rees also comments on what the Bible says: "We need to look at our political and economic system and learn the lessons from the Bible, because racism includes economic inequality. Social reconciliation depends on economic and political redistribution of power. The story of Zacchaeus is about reconciliation, but it's dependent on him giving back the money he stole. Too often people see forgiveness and grace as cheap. It's free but it's not cheap." Read the full interview here.

Bishop Dr Joe Aldred of Churches Together in England, and a trustee of MJR, in an interview on Premier Christian Radio has criticised the US Government for its response to protests that have swept the country following the death of an unarmed black man, George Floyd.  Bishop Aldred argues that the protests are a natural response to injustice. Floyd's death was not an isolated incident and people are crying out for change.

"What we've seen is that the black life in the eyes of a racist, white system has been devalued - it tells a tale of a story that has been running for centuries. It is truly sad. There is no peace, without justice. And so, one needs to look not just at the tragic killing, yet another killing, of George Floyd. One has to look at the system, the unjust system within which that operates".

Read 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.

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.

On Thursday April 9 the government published guidance for its UK points-based immigration system. Not surprisingly, given the current Coronavirus crisis, this has gone largely unnoticed. Was that the idea?

Under the new regime prospective migrants to the UK are required to obtain “points” to qualify for a visa, many of which depend on the applicant being offered a salary of more than £25,600. This means workers classed as low skilled will be largely excluded from entry – which means many of those in retail or social care who are now classified as "key workers" in the response to Coronavirus. People such as delivery drivers, farm and supermarket workers, home-care assistants, hospital porters and cleaners.

Sophia Wolpers, immigration policy manager at London First, said: “The current crisis has shown just how vitally important workers previously deemed lower skilled are to the UK economy as a whole. The government should revisit its proposals in the days and weeks ahead.” Read more here and here.

In response to the Windrush Review, published yesterday, Home Secretary Priti Patel announced three new initiatives as she gave an apology in Parliament.

1. A new £500,000 community fund for local groups to raise awareness of the Windrush Schemes and support those wishing to claim compensation;
2. an advertising campaign to promote the Schemes; and
3. an expanded cross-Government Windrush action to develop programmes to improve the lives of those affected.

 
MJR's initial response to the report and what action should now be taken is to:

• Accept the report and promise to implement its recommendations in full.
• Ensure the immediate needs of those affected is attended to so that further hardship is avoided.
• Distinguish between undocumented (a small minority) and documented (a significant majority) Windrush Generation to avoid infantilising the whole group; and give credit for community agency, without which the numbers of victims would be much higher.
• Repeal legislations that compound compliant/hostile environment.
• Extend the window to apply to the compensation scheme.
• Ask if offering more money as the Home Secretary did today without making tangible steps to repair, may be seen as further sop and obfuscation.

MJR will be following closely the way in which the government responds to this important report.