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'Race inequality still exists'

Commenting on remarks made by John Denham, Secretary of State for Communities and Local Government, that disadvantage is now more linked to poverty, class, and identity, Joy Warmington, CEO of brap, said:

"We understand why this statement is coming out at this time. It’s important to counter views put forward by far right groups that racism is only about helping minority ethnic people and that class also plays an important role in affecting people’s life chances. Yes, we’d agree with that. People working in the education system for example have known this for decades. Poorer children are often at much higher risk of losing out in terms of grades at GCSE for example. And when these patterns are analysed with a focus on race too, certain ethnic groups (including poor white British pupils) are even more likely to lose out.

“But the solution doesn’t lie in focusing on class instead of race now. Racism and race inequality has not gone away. In Birmingham, for example, children under the age of one are twice as likely to die than in the country as a whole. The figures say that this particularly affects certain minority ethnic groups more than others.

“The solution to addressing this instead lies with developing a much broader view of what equality means. In the past race equality work has divided people up into ‘them’ and ‘us’. ‘White British’ has often not been viewed as an ethnic group alongside others. In our view this is extremely short sighted. Race equality should help us tackle inequality faced by all ethnic groups.

“What we need is a more joined up approach to equality that protects and promotes the rights we all share as human beings. The discrimination and disadvantage faced by people is often due to more than one aspect of their identity. It’s not just class, but also age, gender, and sexual orientation that can compound the effect of racism.

"By looking at race in relation to class as well, it may help us to take what has been quite a one-dimensional debate on race equality forward. John Denham is to be commended for doing this on the part of Government.

"However there are some real challenges to addressing class discrimination in the UK. The first obvious one is that discrimination against individuals based on class isn’t illegal in this country, it wasn’t included in the new equality bill as a protected aspect of identity (like race, sexual orientation, religion or belief) and in an economic system like ours, it’d be hard to see how it could be. Another challenge is that class isn’t just about socio-economic position, it’s about our access to social networks and our mobility in society. These are much harder to identify than the standard indicators for class that tend to focus on income like ‘free school meals’ in the education system for example.

"John Denham’s speech indicates a willingness of government to move further towards a joined up approach to equality, but we still have a long way to go in convincing other Government departments and those working on the ground that this is the direction we should be heading in. “

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