King Charles has given his support for research into the monarchy's links with the slave trade for the first time as an American historian unearthed a a ledger which reveals his predecessor King William III was given shares in the Royal African Company - transatlantic slaving firm - by Bristolian slave trader Edward Colston in 1689. Buckingham Palace said “This is an issue that His Majesty takes profoundly seriously. As His Majesty told the Commonwealth heads of government reception in Rwanda last year: ‘I cannot describe the depths of my personal sorrow at the suffering of so many, as I continue to deepen my own understanding of slavery’s enduring impact.’" The document, published by The Guardian was found in a royal archive by Virginia-based historian Dr Brooke Newman. Dr Newman's research is being supported through access to the royal collection and the royal archives

MJR welcomes this bringing of another piece of hidden shameful history into the light and looks forward to the results of the research. Read more in this Guardian article, and in this Daily Mail article (which states King Charles was "forced to support probe into royal family's slavery links".)

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.

"Is Covid Racist?" is the title of a recent documentary on Channel 4. Presented by Dr. Ronx Ikharia it is a full investigation into why the coronavirus has disproportionately affected BAME frontline workers in the UK, and pays tributes to those who have lost their lives. The programme states that: "over 60% of NHS frontline health workers who have died of COVID-19 are also people of colour, despite making up only 20% of the NHS workforce"  and looks into the socioeconomic inequalities that may have caused this to happen.

Experts featured include Dr Chaand Nagpul, chair of the British Medical Association Council and Halima Begum, of race equality think tank, the Runnymede Trust. All reach the same conclusion: black and brown healthcare workers were at far greater risk than their white colleagues. Five themes are investigated: genetics, pre-existing medical conditions, wealth, health, and institutional racism. Though recent government research dismisses structural racism as a contributing factor, Dr. Ronx allows the "hard facts" to speak for themselves. 

Read more here and a review here. Watch the programme here until December 23.

This blog for the William Temple Foundation by Dr Sanjee Perera reflects on her research with the Minority Anglican Project and what the BAME death toll in the current COVID-19 pandemic reveals about how far both church and society still have to go. Dr Perera speaks of the Church of England's "dark legacy of belittlement and disregard for Black lives" and how it had "long been steeped in a racialised agenda. Its theology, and its framing of biblical hermeneutics, have justified slavery and Empire within the folds of its missiology."

Read the full post here. Read more about Dr Perera's research into racialised micro-aggressions and their consequences in the Anglican Church here.

A new study sheds light on the other aspect of legacy MJR is committed to addressing: that of the oppression of the working classes, going back to the Industrial Revolution, and more specifically how "advantages beget advantages."

As reported in the Independent, research published in the Journal of Personality and Social Psychology, has found that "people in higher social classes are 'overconfident' about their abilities which means they come across as more competent – even when they don’t know what they’re talking about. Being able to confidently express what they think means a tendency to perform better during job interviews, opposed to working-class people, who are socialised to embrace humility and authenticity."

The research could help explain why "class-based hierarchies persist generation after generation. Psychologists believe that inequalities will continue to perpetuate if people continue to conflate impressions of confidence with evidence of ability."

​Read the full article here, and a press release here, with a link to the journal article.

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.

Black, Asian and ethnic minority employees are losing out on £3.2bn a year in wages compared to white colleagues doing the same work, according to a study by the Resolution Foundation that adds to pressure on the government to introduce mandatory reporting of race pay gaps. Read more here.

MP David Lammy has commented on a new report into Stop and Search by the Stopwatch Coalition which found that black people in England and Wales are now nearly nine times more likely than white people to be stopped and searched for drugs. He described Stop and search as an “ineffectual” practice and an “integral cog in a racially disproportionate” criminal justice system, citing his own memories of being stopped and searched as a 12 year old. “Many years later, the fear and embarrassment of the first time I was stopped and searched for a crime I did not commit remains with me. We must stop stigmatising black men, and search for more intelligent, long-term solutions to the problems that foster criminal activity in the first place.” Read the full article.

An article by Dr Lawrence Brown claims the origins and spread of HIV can be seen as a legacy of Belgian colonisation in the Congo. "​We now know that HIV-1 emerged from Leopoldville in the 1920s and spread first among African people. The colonization of the Congolese by King Leopold II and the Belgians helps explain how the virus became a global pandemic".

It also comments how the disproportionate effects of HIV on sub-Saharan African people is "... precisely because European colonization exacted tremendous violence, extracted critical resources, disrupted social structures, and weakened the health of indigenous populations. European nations broke their promise to protect and promote the welfare of the indigenous African people. Instead the Belgians dehumanized and debased African societies producing the social determinants of death that gave rise to deadly infectious diseases. HIV-1 was ignited in Leopoldville, but the resulting HIV global pandemic is also the apparition of a grotesque and horrific legacy—the European infection of mass historical trauma and the devastation of Congolese health wrought by King Leopold II, the Force Publique, and Belgian colonisation."

​Read the full article here.

The Government’s Race Disparity Audit, published yesterday along with an Ethnicity Facts and Figures website has revealed significant differences in the life outcomes of British ethnic minority and white people. The report reveals that  Black, Asian and minority ethnic people are twice as likely to be unemployed than white British adults and that white British pupils on free school meals perform worse in school than any other group. The Equality and Human Rights Commission welcomed the report saying that "focused action" was now needed. Others have pointed out that many of these statistics were already common knowledge – see for example MJR's research into educational attainment – and "decades of reports" and talking needed to become action. Kimberley Macintosh of the Runnymede Trust commented: "With the Race Disparity Audit bringing injustice and inequality out of obscurity and into the mainstream – raw and exposed – it’s time to act." The Runnymede Trust have also just published a report showing that austerity is hitting Black and Asian women the hardest.

Read more from the Guardian and Independent. Download the Race Disparity Audit and visit the website.