National Press Highlights - Autumn 2020
We regularly find articles in local and national press that will be of interest to you see links below, we will regularly update here any new articles that are of importance, so keep an eye out.
NATIONAL NEWS
UK’s ‘Only Black Farmer’ Calls For Food Industry To Take Black Lives Matter Seriously
One of the UK’s only Black farmers is calling for the agricultural industry to do more to support the Black Lives Matter movement beyond ‘internal HR fluff’. Wilfred Emmanuel-Jones, who is 63, was awarded an MBE for services to farming in the Queen’s Honor’s List this year. He was a child of the Windrush generation arriving in Britain from Jamaica at the age of four and has dedicated his working life to the UK agricultural industry, founding The Black Farmer brand. For more information please click here: https://tinyurl.com/y33gff5f
Investigation Launched After Black Barrister Mistaken For Defendant Three Times In A Day
The head of the courts service in England and Wales has apologised to a black barrister after she was stopped and mistaken for a defendant three times in one day at court. Kevin Sadler, the acting chief executive of HM Courts and Tribunals Service, has condemned the “totally unacceptable behaviour” and promised to investigate the complaint made by Alexandra Wilson, who specialises in criminal and family cases. For more information please click here: https://tinyurl.com/y4sbledd
How Black Working-Class Youth Are Criminalised And Excluded In The English School System
The Institute of Race Relations (IRR) has released a paper called How Black Working-Class Youth are Criminalised and Excluded in the English School System: A London Case Study. This paper reveals that over the past forty years, exclusion from mainstream school has coincided with systematic ‘educational enclosure’. This report aims to support important on-going campaigns for education justice, by excavating the specific political conditions that have ushered in regressive reforms. For more information, and to read the report in full please click here: https://tinyurl.com/y3rnkvwx
We Must Rebuild The Sport And Physical Activity Sector Better Than Before
Dr. Marilyn Comrie, director of The Blair Project has written a blog post on why things must be different in the sport and physical activity sector following the coronavirus crisis and the Black Lives Matter movement. She uses this post to highlight some of the ways practical changes could make a big difference for the better to the sport and physical activity sector. We at TREC definitely feel its worth a read so for more information please click here: https://tinyurl.com/y5qsyjts
Legal & General Warns FTSE 100 Firms Over Lack Of Ethnic Diversity
The UK’s biggest fund manager has warned FTSE 100 companies with all-white boards that it will vote against those that fail to diversify their leadership teams by 2022. Legal & General Investment Management (LGIM), which has £1.2tn in assets, has also written to the bosses of S&P 500 companies in the US, saying it expects their boardrooms to include at least one black, Asian or other minority ethnic (BAME) member by January 2022 as well. For more information please click here: https://tinyurl.com/y6bsfwcx
Two Thirds Of Minority Ethnic People In Britain Believe Police Are Biased Against Them, Poll Shows
Two thirds of black and minority ethnic people in Britain believe the police are biased against them, a new survey by the charity Hope Not Hate has found. The poll has revealed that four out of five black respondents think the police are biased against people of their ethnicity, as do the same number of respondents from Bangladeshi backgrounds. In total, 65 per cent of those who took part in the survey, all of which are from ethnic minority backgrounds, agreed the police were biased against people from their ethnic group. For more information please click here: https://tinyurl.com/y2ybpvax
Tightening Oldham Lockdown Would Fuel Racism And 'Cripple' Economy, Says Council
Forcing Oldham into a tighter lockdown would not only “cripple” the local economy but fuel racial tensions, the council’s deputy leader has warned the government. Officials from the Cabinet Office toured Oldham on Wednesday, led by local politicians and health experts desperate to avoid a “Leicester-style” lockdown. Arooj Shah, Oldham’s deputy leader, told the Guardian that racism was on the increase in the district after it was singled out as an infection hotspot three weeks ago, with the Pakistani community particularly badly hit. For more information please click here: https://tinyurl.com/y6d2fxmm
Met Police: 'Knee-On-Neck' PC Subject Of Assault Investigation
A police officer has been told he is the subject of a criminal investigation over an arrest in which a black man appeared to have his neck knelt on. The Independent Office for Police Conduct (IOPC) is investigating the actions of two Met Police officers who detained Marcus Coutain on 16th July. It is looking at whether the use of force in the arrest was "appropriate". Mr Coutain was filmed telling officers to "get off my neck" as he was arrested in Finsbury Park, north London. For more information please click here: https://tinyurl.com/yxgkmamm
The Racism Faced By Teenagers In The UK: New Research
The popular narrative is that that racism is not as big an issue in Britain as it is in the US. New research by Sarah Page, Senior Lecturer in Sociology and Criminology at Staffordshire University disputes this idea. With a team of research assistants, she investigated teenagers’ personal experiences of victimisation and the effects this had on their health and wellbeing. The young people they worked with, who were all from the Midlands region of England, encountered racism and discrimination at school, on social media, and in their wider community. Their research findings show that racism sadly remains an issue for young people in British society. For more information please click here: https://tinyurl.com/y52eo9m4
The Hidden Epidemic Of Racism In UK Schools
Intisar Chowdhury, a teenager whose father sadly died from Covid-19 earlier in the pandemic has worked to produce a dossier detailing the stories of BAME teenagers and the racism they face at school. This dossier presents a horrific indicator of the abuse and even assaults dished out to black and Asian children by their peers and sometimes teachers in English schools. This collection gives a record by BAME students who usually don’t have a voice on the public stage of their daily humiliations, the sort of thing that teens don’t tell their parents, out of guilt or a sense of isolation. For more information please click here: https://tinyurl.com/y4gyflda
Young, British, And Black
The death of George Floyd in the US sparked the UK’s biggest anti-racism protests in centuries, and young people have been some of the loudest voices behind the UK’s recent anti-racism protests. The Guardian has run a special feature where they have spoken to 50 young Black Britons at the heart of these rallies. This collection of some of their thoughts and stories is well worth a read giving a snapshot of some of their experiences living in this country and, acting as a reminder of what the protests have been and continue to be about. For more information please click here: https://tinyurl.com/y2uzm4u6
The Black Curriculum
The Black Curriculum is a social enterprise founded in 2019 by young people to address the lack of Black British history in the UK Curriculum. They believe that by delivering arts focused Black history programmes, providing teacher training and campaigning through mobilising young people, they can facilitate social change. Their programmes are for all young people aged 8-16 and aims to equip young people with a sense of identity, and the tools for a diverse landscape. They are working towards changing the national curriculum and building a sense of identity in every young person in the UK. For more information on this group, and on their campaign please click here: https://tinyurl.com/ycp7jxq7