Britain is a society where Racism, Hate, Discrimination are rightly abhorred, unfortunately not by everyone. The early days of the National Front and the BNP, saw marches that turned towns into battle grounds. The long journey saw equality legislation introduced to enforce our core values of equality and justice, e.g. Equalities Act, Human Rights Act. The price paid by many was high, some paid with the ultimate price. Racist murders such as Stephen Lawrence, Drummer Lee Rigby and Mohammed Saleem were all inspired by race filled hate.
Sadly when we look at reality, all the effort and sacrifice have failed to deliver the vision of equality. Legislation alone will not solve the problem, words that have been have heard many times before on other matters.
Britain has made great strides in comparison to other countries but we are a long way from done on this matter. There is extensive evidence in not just these areas but a whole string of others where equality is sadly lacking. I am just using the below as some evidence based analysis,
CRIMINAL JUSTICE
Report in 2013 about the disparity on how BME communities are treated, it showed areas of real concern about discrimination. Home Office Stop and search figures in 2013 once again show disproportionality in how BME and Muslim communities are dealt with.
BBC report by Alan Urry June 2012
The BBC has also seen an internal draft report which shows police disciplinary procedures being used disproportionately against black and Asian officers in some forces. The report was compiled by academic researchers on behalf of Greater Manchester Police and includes data from the West Midlands Police and the British Transport Police. It acknowledges concerns from minority officers about unfair treatment and confirms that in the West Midlands, black and minority ethnic (BME) officers are almost twice as likely to be the subject of an investigation as white officers.
STOP SEARCH
Stop Watch report in September 2013, Conducted an analysis of all forty-two policing plans to see how PCCs are addressing stop and search. Thirty-six PCCs do not mention stop search in their policing plans. This includes twenty-five PCCs in policing areas with stop and search disproportionality rates ranging between 1.5 and 5 for various BME groups.
Guardian report 2011 Vikram Dodd, highlighted that BME are 42 more likely to be stopped and searched under these powers. Moving this on another Guardian Reporter Alan Travis in December 2013, highlighted that Asians are 11 times more likely to subject to such searches and detention. What was further clear indication of profiling and also of disproportionality, Pakistani people were 52 times more likely to be stopped than white people, 135 times more likely to be questioned and examined for more than an hour, and 154 times more likely to be detained.
IRR report January 2014 in relation deficiencies in the Criminal Justice System to racist murders showed alarming concern, research looking at some 93 murders since the Stephen Lawrence enquiry.
These ninety-three deaths are the most brutal indicator of the continued reality of violent racism in the UK', said the report's co-author Jon Burnett. 'But this investigation shows how those in the criminal justice system are defining racism out of a case, or simply failing to acknowledge racial violence in the first place
EDUCATION
Two reports in 2009 and 2013 show racism and hate towards Muslims on the rise, in the case of 2013 report up almost 70%.Report also showed racism directed towards BME teachers.
EMPLOYMENT
A BBC report in 2013 showed Discrimination in employment towards Muslims.
NHS report in November 2013 by Roger Kline on Equality in the NHS showed discrimination against BME staff. Just two powerful extracts, 'Not only are all types of regulators overwhelmingly white at senior levels but their work does not tackle racism'.
Research has repeatedly confirmed that when former Central Manchester Foundation Trust manager Elliot Browne was awarded £1m compensation for sustained career-ending race discrimination, the trust continued to deny discrimination even though their own data suggested they had a problem. When Professor Aneez Esmail recently concluded he couldn't rule out race discrimination in a royal medical college exam, there were apparently efforts to censor publication of his results.
PARLIAMENTARY REPRESENTATION
The following is an extract from an E petition from Disability Politics in 2012.The House of Commons is not representative of the electorate. The House of Commons has 650 MPs. Of these 650, there are 504 male MPs, so women are seriously under represented. There are 27 MPs of black and minority ethnic (BME) origin, but there would need to be 55-60 BME MPs to be representative of the BME population.
A look at the present government and cabinet shows a distinct lack of gender representation that is equally shocking.
Recently the Shadow Home Secretary wrote to Home Secretary Rt Hon T May about the need to review Stop search disproportionality, great start. How many times have we heard this before? Now who is going to deal with the other areas that have been left unsolved in our drive to make us all equal? The losers have not just been the individuals who have been treated as second class citizens, but the institutions, Government and Britain who have lost out on the full use of the potential of these individuals.
This may not be a popular theme with the upcoming election or with some of our far right politicians who seem to pay lip service to how politically correct we have become when in reality it's how politically incorrect we really are.