RACISM |
Key words and phrases: WHY IS THERE RACISM?? LACK OF EDUCATION - NATIONALISM - UNFOUNDED RACE HATRED MAN DISLIKES THE UNKNOWN - CANNOT CONTROL WHAT IS UNKNOWN TO HIM IN HIS ENVIRONMENT MAN USUALLY LOVES TRADITION - RELIGIOUS/CUSTOMS/HABITS/FAMILY – FEELS THAT IMMIGRANTS ARE INVADING HIS COUNTRY MAN DOES NOT SEE EQUALITY IN RACES – BELIEVES HE IS SUPERIOR UNEMPLOYMENT/ECONOMIC CRISIS IS SOMETIMES BLAMED ON IMMIGRANTS LABOUR IS CHEAPER AT THE HANDS OF IMMIGRANTS - CONSEQUENCES XENOPHOBIA - FEAR OF WHAT? EXTREMES OF RACISM – GROUPS – VIOLENCE - SKIN HEADS KKK KU KLUX KLAN NATIONAL FRONT NAZIS Comment: Modern Nazis have targeted ‘immigrants’ and refugees as the source of all problems in society--black and Asian people in Britain, Turkish people in Germany, and Arabs and black people in France for example. This is despite the fact that many of these people were born in these countries, or were invited there for economic reasons. This is the same way Hitler identified Jews as the cause of Germany’s problems in the 1930s. However, because the terrible history of the Holocaust is a block on their growth, parties like the Front National in France or the British National Party in Britain often deny that they are Nazis and claim they are nationalists or ordinary right wing parties. The Anti Nazi League believes it is important to identify these parties as Nazi parties. ANOTHER ANGLE: IS RACISM/XENOPHOBIA PROMOTED BY THE FILM INDUSTRY?
CASES IN ENGLAND: BLACK teenager Stephen Lawrence was viciously stabbed in a brutal racist murder in South East London on 22 April 1993. In spite of the public outcry at this murder in an area where there had already been three racist murders the police failed to convict his murderers. Stephen’s parents, Neville and Doreen, launched a courageous campaign to bring the killers to justice which also exposed the racism, incompetence and corruption of the Metropolitan Police. All across Britain people have been inspired by their fight and refusal to back down. In 1998 the family appealed to Jack Straw, Home Secretary, who ordered a public inquiry into the murder and its policing. British police had not faced such criticism since the Scarman report into the 1981 Brixton riots. The inquiry revealed a shocking level of institutionalised racism in the British police. |
Since Stephen’s murder two more deaths of young black men have shown that police racism continues, those of Ricky Reel and Michael Menson. In both cases the police have again failed to make arrests or secure convictions and deny that the murders were racist. Michael Menson told eight witnesses he had been attacked by four white youths, yet the police did not take a statement from him before he died and then claimed he had set fire to his own back. There have been eight racist murders in Britain in the last two years and racist incidents were up by 6 percent in 1998. Yet murderers of black people are less likely to be caught. This is because the police are more likely to assume that black people are criminals rather than the victims of crime. The independent watchdog Statewatch showed that black people are up to eight times more likely to be stopped and searched than white people. The Home Office report published on 8 December 1998 showed that black people were less likely to be cautioned and more likely to be jailed, thus 12 percent of the prison population is black, but only 2 percent of the overall population. Metropolitan Police Commissioner Paul Condon clamed he wanted to build an anti-racist police force. But Condon launched Operation Eagle Eye in 1996 to target black youth and made the totally unfounded claim that ‘it is a fact that very many of the perpetrators of mugging are young black men’. On average one person a week dies in police custody and again black people are over-represented
ORGANISE EVENTS LIKE : ROCK Against Racism was launched in September 1976, after rock star Eric Clapton suggested at a Birmingham concert that Enoch Powell was right, and Britain was ‘overcrowded’. RAR’s founders wrote to the New Musical Express announcing the launch of the organisation. Rock Against Racism aimed at promoting racial harmony through music, and was one of the first organisations to mix black and white bands at gigs. It worked closely with the ANL and organised concerts and festivals all over Britain, attracting thousands of people to the biggest anti-racist events since the 1930s. The Anti Nazi League’s activities and the propaganda it produced with Rock Against Racism were important in building support for anti-racism in schools, workplaces and the community, as well as in exposing the Nazis in the National Front. Of course this didn’t mean that institutionalised racism, for example discrimination in jobs, housing and education, was beaten, or that racial harassment stopped. It did, however, mean that organised fascism and the hatred and violence that went with it had been destroyed at this time, and this helped in creating a far more positive racial atmosphere in Britain in the 1980s. Other ideas: |