Anti-Racist training isn't working in its current form.
The legacies of British slavery and colonialism have resulted in the UK having a long history steeped in racism. The values inherited from the British Empire has resulted in white supremacist values continuing to permeate the UK’s institutions, systems, and influencing the everyday beliefs and behavior’s of British people.
Even today, communities racialised as ‘Black’ and ‘Brown’ are persistently treated as second-class citizens, a reality distinct from class-based inequalities. This treatment is a manifestation of racial capitalism and structural violence, which continue to marginalise and oppress these communities.
Being aware of these problematic issues does not solve deeply entrenched socio-cultural issues and attitudes. However, unchecked racism results in harmful outcomes to the most vulnerable in society.
So, when the British government announced that the UK was free from systemic racism in its March 2021 report of the Commission on Race and Ethnic Disparities, there was a public outcry. It was a great aspiration, but the truth lay elsewhere. In January 2023, a United Nations investigation by human rights experts challenged this assessment and declared that “Racism in the United Kingdom is “structural, institutional and systemic”.
Why is this important?
Since the increase in awareness around BLM and racialised injustice in 2020, various institutions across the UK, from various Police forces to the Royal Academy of Dramatic Art, have declared themselves or been identified as institutionally racist with policies that discriminate against and marginalise people from minority ethnic communities, as well as making them psychologically and physically unsafe.
In August 2024, we saw this extend onto the streets of the UK as Racist Riots waged across the UK fueled by Islamophobia, Afriphobia, and white supremacist political ideology. Neil Basu, former head of UK counter-terrorism, said:
“The Worst far-right violence should be treated as terrorism”
During September 2024, we witnessed the increase of racism in British schools culminating in the murder of a pensioner by a group of school children.
#Enabled Antiracism works differently
We believe that addressing racism in society should be treated as a state of emergency, others define racism as a public health crisis. Irrespective of the perspective adopted, the #Enabled Antiracism programme utilises a different approach to contemporary methods addressing xenophobia while drawing upon the principles from the UN Durban Conference against Racism declaration. Its methods are uncomfortable but sensitive, activist but pragmatic, but most important of all, sustainable and effective.
Enabled Activism insists upon: