and structural racism underpin UK poor economic, social and health outcomes,
discriminatory employment practices, unequal pay, higher maternal mortality rates and
poor educational outcomes. They argued that institutional and structural racism
operate via decision making by employers, teachers, and police officers etc. through ‘nodes of power’ arising out of the ‘legacy mindsets of racial hierarchy’. 8 Moreover,
the Sewell Report’s suggestion that ‘family structure, rather than institutionalised and
structural discriminatory practices are the central features of the Black experience is a
tone-deaf attempt at rejecting the lived realities of people of African descent and other ethnic minorities in the UK’. 9 Lastly, the report, offensively, attempted to sanitize
experience of the slave trade and ‘the social capital and political influence they gained
from exploiting black bodies’ by saying that ‘there is a new story about the Caribbean
experience which speaks to the slave period not only being about profit and suffering
but how culturally African people transformed themselves into a re-modelled African/Britain.’ 10
The report was met with huge criticism and the government initially defended itself
by ‘condemning all critiques of the report as evidence of ad hominem attacks against black and brown conservatives’ 11 who had supported it. It is said that an ‘illusion of post-racialism’ 12 in recent British politics, is fostered by the government (and shadow
cabinet and parliament) becoming more representative. However, arguably, it suits
those in power to have politicians from ethnic or racial minorities fronting policies or
backing reports which might otherwise be seen as discriminatory or racist, because,
potentially, it is harder to challenge something as racist if it is promoted by someone
who appears to be from a (discriminated against) minority group. For example, recent
8 UN Experts Condemn UK Commission on Race and Ethnic Disparities Report’ p. 4. 9 UN Experts Condemn UK Commission on Race and Ethnic Disparities Report’ p. 4. 10 Langfitt. 11 Kuba Shand-Baptiste, ‘The “Post-Racial” Narrative in Britain and the US Is More Myth than Reality’, British GQ (2021), <https://www.gq-magazine.co.uk/politics/article/post-racial-britain>, p. 5. 12 Shand-Baptiste, p. 3
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