In my blog of 6th March 2014, I forecast that the Immigration Act would make private landlords into unpaid and untrained Immigration Officers. The Immigration Act would become “in effect, a charter for racial and other forms of harassment and abuse where people encounter rogue decision-makers (e.g. rogue landlords)”. We have just been proved right…
The Conservative plan to replace the European Human Rights Act with a British Bill of Rights could be disastrous for BME communities who enjoy the protection granted by European authorities against unjust deportation, discrimination and the inequalities of the British system. The Equality and Human Rights Commission warns: “The mechanisms for enforcement of any alternative…
In his controversial and misguided programme “Things We Won't Say About Race That Are True“ Trevor Phillips argues that white people are so afraid of being called out as racists if they criticise black people or minority ethnic communities that they would prefer to stay silent even when serious abuses are taking place. He argues…
Many white people feel intensely uncomfortable talking about race. They say that they are constantly in fear of saying the wrong thing, of “putting their foot in it” or “treading on eggshells”. Recently a white US rap musician Macklemore put it like this: "White, liberal people want to be nice. We don’t want to be…
I cringe when I remember an uncomfortable conversation with a female cousin in the 1990s. She ticked me off for what she saw as my arrogant assertion that life in the UK was superior to what she had in India. In my mind – and clearly spewing out of my mouth – was the sentiment…
For many years, black and some other minority ethnic groups have been badly served by our mental health services. Some of the problems can be attributed to the fact that services have not adapted adequately to the fact that the understanding of what is ‘mental health’ and ‘mental illness’ is culturally determined and ‘one size…
Vidushi interviewed participants of ROTA’S Healthy, Mobilised and BAME Project. Community Treatment Orders (CTOs) were introduced in England and Wales in 2008, following the Mental Health Act of 2007. They are a mechanism of offering people supervised treatment following their discharge from hospital. The rationale behind CTOs is to keep “revolving door patients” out of…
In the United States over the last 30years a useful concept has been developed which we could do with discussing much more on this side of the Atlantic. This is the concept of ”white privilege”. As a white person I can take a whole range of advantages and privileges for granted as I go about…
ROTA recently commissioned Rob Berkeley to write a position paper on the state of racial justice and equality in the UK. Rob has had a long track record in the race equality sector and until recently was the Chief Executive of the Runnymede Trust. Rob feels that any such paper should be accessible and informal…
It has become a commonplace idea that the more ethnic diversity there is in a society the more conflict there is. Difference and diversity are seen as negative and dangerous rather than as positive and engaging. Actually this assumption is highly questionable, but of course the Sun, the Daily Mail and the Daily Express do…