Race is not an issue in the UK anymore

10 October 2009

For the past decade Samir Shah has been chair of the Runnymede Trust, devoted to studying ethnicity. Now, he says, the real problem in Britain isn’t so much racism, but "cultural cloning".

These new realities don’t mean a wholesale dismemberment of the race relations industry (though I can hear the distant sound of hurrahs at the very suggestion). There is still a job to be done. But that job is profoundly different to what it was.

First, we need to take a much more sceptical approach to equal opportunity policies. We’ve all come across the drill: workshops, away days, ‘awareness’ courses, ethnicity monitoring policies and so on. Entire departments have been created within companies to manage schemes and monitor action plans. All this may, I suppose, have helped bring about some of the changes I mentioned earlier. But how much of it would have happened anyway, given Britain’s dramatic demographic transformation?

The truth is that no one dares to question the orthodoxy of equal opportunities — in spite of its obsession with process, and in spite of its clumsy social-engineering ethos. I have witnessed the impact of these policies for longer than most, and I cannot help but conclude that the whole area is long overdue an overhaul. There is a battle to be fought, but it’s not the same battle as that of the 1970s and 1980s.

To tackle a problem, one must first recognise it. We need to look beyond the easy headlines achieved by playing the race card, and find out what’s really causing persistent inequality. That means challenging employers to be open to all types of people — Northern, even right-wing — and not just the ones with whom they are familiar and comfortable. I do believe that cultural cloning — which can’t be described as any kind of -ism — will be the new enemy. It is where we need to focus our thinking over the next decade.

Too much of the race relations industry is scouring the country for a demon that now thrives mostly in isolated pockets of bigotry. Race, as a factor that determines one’s progress in life, should take its place alongside a wide range of other characteristics. Style, background, accent, dress sense and cultural (as opposed to ethnic) background and — most of all — your manner count just as much as your ethnicity in trying to land that job. This, of course, brings a whole set of problems that we need to overcome

In today’s Britain, it’s not so much the colour of your skin that matters — it’s the cut of your jib. And that is progress, of sorts.

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KindnessofWomen

October 8th, 2009 7:00pm Report this comment

When did "anymore" become a single word?

KindnessofWomen

October 8th, 2009 8:28pm Report this comment

Great article, Samir. What you say about the dangers of cultural cloning echoes Trevor Phillips's warning in September 2005, two months after the 7/7 attacks, that Britain is in danger of sleepwalking its way into racial and religious segregation. Here's the quote:

"We are sleepwalking our way to segregation. We are becoming strangers to each other and leaving communities to be marooned outside the mainstream."

Four years on, his words are as pertinent as ever. For me, there exists a very strong case for abolishing faith schools. But show me the politician with sufficient backbone to push that one through.

Peter From Maidstone

October 9th, 2009 1:34pm Report this comment

Abolishing faith schools is just socialism, its just social engineering. It is not conservative or libertarian. It is just more of the same 'we know best, do it our way, government that has failed us so badly'. There are problems, but the state taking over the bringing up of people's children is not the answer - it has already failed. What next? Ban mosques? Ban anyone who disagrees with you?