To ask what should the top 3 priorities be in terms of addressing race based inequality in the UK?

[lemonsandlimes123]

I am interested to hear what people would consider to be the top priorities to be tackled in the UK in terms of improving race equality.

I am not sure myself and am aware that many areas intersect and there are many more than 3 things that need to be tackled but this is hopefully a way to start a conversation.

I think that the impact of structural racism in the NHS and particularly in maternity care is a big concern

Representation within the judiciary and legal profession

Social exclusion and over representation of poc in detention.

I think that's where I would start but open to all and any ideas

I think there is a barrier- for starters as a teacher I am always having to tell students how universities want students who do not just get high grades. Top universities want students who have volunteered abroad, completed their DoE, cleaned the beaches, saved some animals and travelled extensively abroad. For the students I teach, it's laughable. They themselves know the odds are stacked against them, even if they are top students. Their lived experiences do not allow this.

All they can do is dig into their books and get top marks. This 'worldly' student trope is not accessible to everyone unless you have resources. The parameters are unrealistic.

You can say the same for recruiters- not everyone can afford to do unpaid work, internships and volunteering and play a tonne of sport on the weekend, nor play instruments.

Unfortunately, in some jobs, there is a default, like in top universities, maybe unconsciously, and top grades or proficiency is not enough. This alienates many BAME candidates.

That's why you need to give some people a conscious extra step up the ladder. The default and the parameters are in of themselves discriminatory.

Like I said, equity before equality.

Some people need one step up the ladder, others may need three, some may have been perfectly fine seeing over fence and may not need a ladder at all. What we want, is for everyone to get the chance to see what's over the fence.

At the risk of sounding like Tony Blair, Education, education, education.

Wizard

This is a must. There's lots going on for GRT education it's June which is our month of education.

www.gypsy-traveller.org/gypsy-roma-traveller-history-month/crystals-vardo-to-be-made-available-online-for-gypsy-roma-and-traveller-history-month/

Black history months have been running at schools for over 10 years.
There was a big project at schools over 10 years ago targeting black boys with extra tuition, extra funding, mentoring. Their attainment improved considerably.
We need more funding in all schools. The group with the worst attainment now is white poor boys.
There are many diversity internships. For example, civil service.
I don't think positive discrimination is fair.

In est on services for children and young people- children’s centres, play facilities, positive parenting courses, maternal literacy and EFL support.
Youth services, restorative justice schemes, improved auditing and investigations into youth arrest figures, improve youth custody centres to focus on education and employment. Most crimes by under 18 year olds removed from records.
Increase support for disadvantaged youngsters, including black youngsters to access and remain in higher education through mentoring, summer programmes, first year support.
Specialist healthcare staff in maternity focussing on providing targeted support to hard to reach groups.
Reduce poverty. Universal free school lunches, transport to selective schools, targeted tutoring in areas with grammars,.
So much could be done to make life chances more equal.

Removing the need for names on CVs at the initial stages of the job application process.

Civil service use blind recruitment, I'm sure other companies could follow suit.

How about removing government ministers who are racist, local councellors too. There should be no place in government.

OP I'm interested that you mention representation in the judiciary. A young, female relative of mine is a barrister and has had to work her arse off to qualify. Pretty much all her peers have been to Oxbridge (she didn't). If going to Oxbridge is a pre-requisite of becoming a barrister and, ultimately, a judge then young people who have that ambition would need to set their sights high at a very early age and would need a lot of support to reach their goals - especially those from disadvantaged backgrounds. Perhaps encouraging BAME professionals to visit schools to inspire young people would help (I'm sure there must be schemes like this already).

My relative is white, middle-class and privately educated and has faced a lot of misogyny trying to establish her career. She's commented on how much more difficult things would be for her if she was BAME or working class.

I think there is a barrier- for starters as a teacher I am always having to tell students how universities want students who do not just get high grades. Top universities want students who have volunteered abroad, completed their DoE, cleaned the beaches, saved some animals and travelled extensively abroad. For the students I teach, it's laughable. They themselves know the odds are stacked against them, even if they are top students. Their lived experiences do not allow this.

I really hope you are not telling your students this as it's a complete load of rubbish! Universities care mostly about academic ability. For vocational courses they will require work experience e.g. in a school or care home. The vast majority of state school students who go to university will not have travelled extensively or volunteered abroad. Universities don't care about that at all. Of course there are lots of advantages that schools can offer to aspiring under graduates such as helping them with their application and doing practice interviews. I do interviews for vet school at a UK university (one of the most competitive courses). We only look at grades and work experience (gained local to the candidate). We don't even know about anything else students have done (hobbies etc). The interviews are objective and scenario based. Yes an articulate, confident candidate may have an advantage. But we let in plenty who aren't as well.

I really hope you aren't really a teacher - goodness knows how many excellent students you may have put off applying for university!

Thank you for those links @Devlesko, I've not looked at TT for a long time, didn't even realise they had the youth bit I've been a bit removed from everything for a while.

That production sounds excellent, I'll certainly be watching it with DD! Thank you once again!

@qweryuiop I didn't mean to not acknowledge you, thank you for not judging and trying your best

So many interesting ideas and nice to see so many practical ideas that don't actually cost huge amounts of capital.

The huge focus on education is an interesting one as I personally think that people overestimate the impact that formal educational structures can have. In my experience what happens outside of school has a far far greater impact than that which happens within its four walls. Of course education in the widest sense of the word can take place anywhere but lots of this seems to fall onto formal education i.e schools.

I definitely agree on improving the maternity services. Outcomes need to be balanced for all mother’s and children.
Education is a big one. Not just for children but adults too. I’m an early years teacher. The little ones I teach and have taught show no bias towards race/disability/sex. In context they will describe what they see matter of factly, for example, “Billy has a wheelchair”, or “Ahmed has black hair and caramel skin” (names changed) but no value is placed on what they are saying/seeing and is on line with their linguistic development. Incidentally I have never heard a young child describe skin tone as black or white. Golden, yellow, peachy, pink, brown, orange are what we normally get are are given no more importance than the colour of hair or eyes. So the black/white labelling comes from society.
Somewhere between this stage and KS2 the innocence to inequality changes. I would be really useful to know how or why it changes in order to tackle any negative impacts. Children and adults need to be educated to make the changes nesesary to give all people equal value, opportunity and place.
Thirdly people in positions of power should not be able to hold their positions if found to harbour prejudice against any group.

Same goes with media

@SnackSizeRaisin I agree, my DS had nothing like that in his personal statement, no DOE, no musical instrument and he'd never even been on a school trip or been a prefect but he got on to a very competitive course at Scotland's top uni. He does have a genuine love of his subject and had read quite a few books (he did have very good exam results mind you ). The Sutton trust does sterling work giving kids at a disadvantage encouragement to try Uni.

I work in such a white field. Nothing will change until people of colour wield real power. The culture of the sector is massively Euro-centric and painfully white. I'd like to see positive action of some kind that organisations have to have representation of people of colour. But tokenism is rife and diversity is wallpapered over the racist, misogynistic cracks. I flat gave a good enough answer to be honest. I try to open eyes where I can with what I do but it's far from enough.

Wbeezer

He sounds amazing, I'd be so proud, what an amazing role model for others.

I think positive action is justified. It is righting a wrong and giving people a leg up to start on a level playing field. It's being more fair not less fair

A sports body in the US (can't recall if it was football or baseball) made a rule to tackle the total absence of black coaches despite loads of black players (which is the same in UK football BTW). Think it's the Rooney rule. It said you have to have one POC interviewed for every post. You don't have to give them the job you just have to give them a chance. And it worked apparently the proportions shot up. They just needed a foot in the door.

That's the kind of rule we need I think

I'd like to go pretty big on this. I'd like to have a vision from government about how we are going to live in a diverse society. About how we must work together yet acknowledge difference. And how actually social status and aspiration plays a big part in all of this.

Education is critical but let's not leave it all to schools. Let's start by joining up the good practice that is going on actually. And maybe the gov could order a public enquiry into the state of race and other social inequality in the UK world be a start in response to recent events?

And thank you @lemonsandlimes123 for this thread, and all of the PPs , it's the most constructive, balanced, helpful thing I've read in days.

I think education and starting it off as early as possible. Teaching them the history, making them understand how and why it happened, understanding the effects and implications of discrimination and possibly workshops to think of ways to move on and not repeat the mistakes

Mentors, big brothers/sisters, positive role models to show that everyone has the potential to completely shine. Finding out what interests children - what makes them tick - letting their voices be heard. Engaging them in the positive things in life as best we can. Letting them know that they are important and that they absolutely matter.
I wish that had happened to me - it was all get your o levels - it’ll be ok. No mentoring to find out what we were good at, what our interests were, what we could be helped with to achieve our goals.

Zero tolerance of any form of racism - not to exclude someone but educate them instead.

Further education should be attainable for everyone who would like to go. If someone wanted a trade, placements should be found and employers strongly encouraged to take on apprentices.

Of course I know all of this costs money and sadly we are about to venture into hard times I think but in an ideal world...

Of course this would be no use if you can’t get interviews! If you did then great but the interview stage opened eyes. Some wider than others when your eager little face showed up.

I would love to have had a number only (No name) interview by email. (Although years ago that didn’t exist!) I don’t know if that could be a system that would or could ever be adopted but it would be fair.

I’m a great believer in the best person for the job regardless of race and one would hope that the best people would organically comprise of a fair representation of all in the community.

I’ve been fortunate I think. I enlisted. I was a number. And it was a hugely positive experience.

Like all major organisations there are some bad apples but as others have said training is key. Zero tolerance of anything untoward.

I’ve known ‘the banter’. It has got better latterly. More and more companies are positively terrified of any complaints. But they shouldn’t go overboard either. I do think that overcompensating and chipping that we need to be ‘inclusive’ can make things worse.
I’m not a fan of accentuating differences all the time. We know we are all different. Just let us get on, do our jobs and let our abilities do the talking. I don’t want a day to celebrate x y or z just so a company can tick a box and congratulate themselves of hitting the brief.

Sorry for waffling on. I know most of this has been suggested already and explained better.

In my defence I’ve been up since 4, I’ve only just sat down properly (apart from the commute) and I’m not terribly coherent.

I’ll have a sleep and try to focus better tomorrow.
Sorry.

@Devlesko he is lovely lad and had a hard time at high school due to High functioning autism and missing a lot of of school due to needing several ops on his arm after an accident but he is white and we are graduates (just not well off ones) so not too much of a stretch really, just wanted to reiterate that lots of extra curriculars really aren't t necessary.

@LilMissRe

I agree with @SnackSizeRaisin. Having been involved with admissions at one of the countries top universities I don’t recognise the factors you mention as being at all relevant. We cared about academic potential, interest in the subject and a strong desire to learn. Top grades were usual (for my subject area the usual standard admission minimum is AAA at A-level), but not always essential. Specifically, special consideration was given to those from any disadvantaged background including BAME etc. In my experience the biggest hindrance is in persuading these students to apply.

lemonsandlimes Rest assured that my ‘Rounding up’ comment was not made in the same spirit as my later suggestions

However, my exasperation with the ongoing lack of awareness (and other qualities) displayed by many MNers is behind looking for a different solution to what we currently have. And reminds us that white-rooted institutions and white people are the issue.

So many ‘initiatives’ start with trying to ‘correct’ the engagement of Black people.

Look at Oxbridge admissions. It starts with the bleat ‘but they don’t apply’, and then they devise strategies that THEY think might work...ask high achieving young BAME people who go to the orn days and the outreach projects why they don’t apply and then listen. If people identify what makes it look elitist then listen and bloody well change it. Etc.

But these institutions need to be ready to have a real constructive dialogue. The current system of Equalities legislation enables us to police superficial behaviour but it doesn’t create real change.

I bet half those making appalling comments on the statue thread (for example) comply with ‘diversity’ policies in the workplace and are now rolling their eyes and saying ‘I’ve put my childhood golly in the loft, what more do they want?’ .