follow us on Twitter and Facebook
Movement for Justice & Reconciliation
  • Legacy
  • About
  • Stories
  • News
  • Projects
  • Resources
  • Who's Who
  • Contact

Historic England audit of slave trade links

8/2/2021

 
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?

24/11/2020

 
"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.

Pandemic and Pestilence: When we almost notice that black lives matter less

16/5/2020

 
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.

New research could help explain persistence of class-based hierarchies

29/5/2019

 
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.

Oxbridge admit ‘fewer than 3% poor white students’

15/2/2019

 
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.

Study finds £3.2bn UK pay gap for black, Asian and ethnic minority workers

28/12/2018

 
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.

Stop and Search: new report finds 9:1 black/white ratio

18/10/2018

 
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.

HIV Pandemic a legacy of colonisation

23/7/2018

 
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.

Race Disparity Audit

12/10/2017

 
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.

School Exclusions "5 times higher" than official figures

11/10/2017

 
A new study by the Institute for Public Policy Research (IPPR) think tank claims that Government figures for the number of children permanently excluded from school are “the tip of the iceberg”, with five times more children being educated in schools for excluded pupils than official data suggests. The official figure is 6,685 – itself a 40% rise in three years –, but PPR estimate the true hidden figure is closer to 48,000, with boys outnumbering girls by 3 to 1. A report in the Guardian on the study notes that: "Black pupils from Caribbean backgrounds are still significantly overrepresented in pupil referral units, though most pupils (70%) are white British." The correlation to poorer white pupils (as measured by free school meals) is also clear. This research echoes findings shared by MJR at our Proving Legacy event last year. Read the IPPR report here.
<<Previous

    MJR News

    The latest information, views and news from MJR.

    Please read our Third Party Disclaimer.

    Categories

    All
    Anniversary
    Article
    #BlackLivesMatter
    Blog
    Campaigners
    Class
    Comment
    Coronavirus
    Education
    Empire
    Event
    Exhibition
    Film
    History
    Inequality
    Information
    Injustice
    Legacy
    News
    Privilege
    Production
    Publication
    Racism
    Reparation
    Report
    Research
    Resources
    Response
    Review
    Slavery
    Windrush

    Archives

    July 2022
    June 2022
    May 2022
    March 2022
    December 2021
    November 2021
    October 2021
    September 2021
    July 2021
    June 2021
    May 2021
    April 2021
    March 2021
    February 2021
    January 2021
    November 2020
    October 2020
    September 2020
    August 2020
    July 2020
    June 2020
    May 2020
    April 2020
    March 2020
    February 2020
    January 2020
    December 2019
    November 2019
    October 2019
    September 2019
    August 2019
    July 2019
    June 2019
    May 2019
    April 2019
    March 2019
    February 2019
    January 2019
    December 2018
    November 2018
    October 2018
    September 2018
    August 2018
    July 2018
    June 2018
    May 2018
    April 2018
    February 2018
    January 2018
    December 2017
    November 2017
    October 2017
    September 2017
    August 2017
    July 2017
    June 2017
    May 2017
    April 2017
    March 2017
    February 2017
    January 2017
    November 2016
    October 2016
    September 2016
    August 2016
    July 2016
    June 2016
    May 2016
    April 2016
    March 2016
    February 2016
    January 2016
    December 2015
    November 2015
    October 2015
    September 2015
    August 2015
    July 2015
    June 2015
    April 2015
    March 2015
    February 2015
    December 2014

    RSS Feed

| Home | About | Legacy | Stories | Work | Projects |After the Flood | Resources | Exhibition | Who's Who | Contact | News | Donate |
MOVEMENT FOR JUSTICE AND RECONCILIATION. REGISTERED CHARITY NO. 1161441
© COPYRIGHT MJR 2021. ALL RIGHTS RESERVED.