UK is not racist according to Boris Johnson | …

A report by the British government has caused amazement in the United Kingdom: the administration of Boris Johnson has affirmed that at the institutional level, the country is not racist. He goes further and considers that the United Kingdom should be taken as a model among other countries with a white majority.

It is a 264-page report by the Independent Commission on Racial and Ethnic Disparities, created by Prime Minister Johnson following the Black Lives Matters protests in 2020, and made up of representatives from different ethnic groups.

While the study acknowledges that Britain is not yet a “post-racial country”, its success in eliminating racial disparities in education “should be seen as a model for other countries to. predominantly white population ”.

The same report also made recommendations, including the gradual implementation of extended school days, starting in disadvantaged areas, to help students catch up on learning lost during the pandemic.

Among the suggestions made today is the removal of the acronym BAME, which is used to refer to people of African descent, Asians and ethnic minorities. It is argued that it should no longer be used because the differences between the groups are just as important as what they have in common.

According to Commission President Tony Sewell, there is no evidence of “institutional racism” in the UK, although he has argued that there is “overt” prejudice. Speaking to the BBC’s Today Radio 4, Sewell said that while there was circumstantial evidence of racism, he denied it was structural.

British history itself contradicts the report’s good wishes. English colonialism in Africa, for example, led to supremacist states, like South Africa and Rhodesia, now Zimbabwe. And people born in these countries colonized by the English, were considered second class citizens, as in India and Pakistan.

“No one is denying or saying that racism does not exist. We have found circumstantial evidence of it. But … evidence of genuine institutional racism? No, we did not find that,” Sewell said. .

In his opinion, the term “institutional racism” was used “sometimes wrongly” as “a kind of wild card for micro-attacks or acts of racial violence”.

However, activists from various organizations have been disappointed and deeply concerned by the denial of institutional racism in the UK.

Halima Begum, who heads the Runnymede Trust, an independent racial equality think tank, was “deeply disappointed”. “Tell that to the young black mother who is four times more likely to die in childbirth than her young white neighbor, tell that to the 60 percent of NHS doctors and nurses who have died from the coronavirus and they were black and they were from ethnic minorities. You can’t tell them that because they are dead, “he told Sky News television.

According to him, the UK is still institutionally racist and also considers it “deeply worrying” that a government-set up commission denies racism.

On a related note, Labor MP David Lammy spoke, calling the government report an “insult” and accusing Johnson of ignoring the wishes of the British who “are dying to turn the page on the racism”.

“Boris Johnson has just slammed the door in their face, telling them that they are idealists, that they are wasting their time. He disappointed a whole generation of young black and white Britons, ”added the lawmaker.