(Eighteen-minute read) 

After more than three centuries of deliberate, systematic race-based exclusion, the political system that had intentionally disenfranchised black people continues to do so, yet in less overt ways. Simply by allowing political systems to work as they are designed – to grant advantages to white people and to put people of color at various disadvantages is no longer acceptable. 

However, Racism never goes away, it just adapts. This is why reverse racism is an erroneous concept.

There is no such thing as a race-neutral policy, every policy is producing or sustaining either racial inequity or equity between racial groups.

Race intertwines with sex and class in a sticky web of exploitation and oppression but nobody is born racist.

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The problem with this question is that immigration cannot be discussed properly because anyone who wants to raise the subject is labeled bigoted or racist — even if they’re talking about white Poles/ Romains, Irish, or second-generation English. 

When seeking to get a picture of the inequality and social injustice’s it is starkly evident that major ethnic and racial inequalities are still the problem in many countries. 

To have any meaningful discussion about racism, discrimination, or prejudice one must first understand the difference between them even though they are all intertwined.   

Prejudice refers to irrational or unjustifiable negative emotions or evaluations toward persons from other social groups. Prejudice comes from the words ‘to judge before.  It is forming an unfavorable opinion or feeling about a person or a group of people, without a full examination of the situation. In theory, it is possible for somebody to be prejudiced without anybody else knowing about it. You can’t help but be prejudiced. 

Discrimination refers to inappropriate treatment of people because of their actual or perceived group membership and may include both overt and covert behaviors, including microaggressions, or indirect or subtle behaviors (e.g., comments) that reflect negative attitudes or beliefs about a non-majority group. Discrimination is racism made real. It should never be tolerated.

Racism refers to prejudice or discrimination against individuals or groups based on beliefs about one’s own racial superiority or the belief that race reflects inherent differences in attributes and capabilities.

Racism is the basis for social stratification and differential treatment that advantage the dominant group. It can take many forms, including explicit racial prejudice and discrimination by individuals and institutions as well as structural or environmental racism in policies or practices that foster discrimination and mutually reinforcing social inequalities (e.g., attendance policies that favor a majority group).

Racism can also take the form of unconscious beliefs, stereotypes, and attitudes toward racial groups in the form of implicit bias. 

Other forms of racism are modern symbolic racism in which individuals deny the continued existence of racial inequality while contributing to discrimination and aversive racism through ingroup favoritism for the dominant racial group.

Prejudice and discrimination harm all people but racism is more than just personal biases it is systemic and white people can’t experience racism because they aren’t systemically oppressed.

When it comes to the idea of reverse racism, people are talking about prejudice, not racism.

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Britain, perhaps ironically through her Empire, has become a multi-ethnic state but unfortunately, like most countries that were founded on the sweat of immigrants, its INSTITUTIONS ARE STILL FULL OF RACISM / DISCRIMINATION. ( True of many countries) 

Racism is now such a charged subject in Britain that even outside observers feel they have a right to offer hyperbolic comments about the state of the nation.  

The danger with crying racism at every turn is that it conceals real problems. 

A belief that innate differences make some groups inherently superior to others is generally taken to be the core idea of racism. Britain to this very day personifies this belief with a class system everyone in the UK fits into whether one likes it or not.

The class system’s residue is here to stay. 

The long-term unemployed, homeless, etc. Low-level unskilled or semi-skilled workers, “Chav,”  “Champagne socialists” Middle-class white-collar workers, Toffs  “old money” which means they have been rich for a long time, Aristocrats “Blue-blooded,” the royal family and those with titles, such as lords or barons, fall into this group. 

Explaining the British class system is a hard thing to do even for a Brit. One reason for this is that moving from one class to another is increasingly possible, but the complication is that there are some unwritten rules that mean you can be considered upper class by some people and not by others!

So the class system is alive and kicking in the UK but in today’s society, it doesn’t have the same status as it once did but a substantial minority of the British public subscribe to some form of racist belief an entire kaleidoscope of words exists to refer to foreigners.

If you are a foreigner (black or not) arriving into the country with a label of Refugee, Asylum seeker, Immigrant. Alien, Undocumented, Outsider, it envokes to me, anti-immigrant rhetoric, setting up us and them sort of divide immediately on arrival.

Social class is clearly no longer neatly defined by occupation. So while Britain is looking out for the old bigotry, new ones creep in. ‘Culturalism ’ What the current class system changes into next very much depends on what we do, or don’t do.

The problems, now, in short, are not about race: they are fundamentally social and economic, better seen in terms of social class and economic inequality than in racial terms. 

Perhaps if the overall wealth of the nation was used to introduce a basic income rather than a living wage or leveling up the divides between us and them could narrow and we might in the future be valued more by what we contribute to society, not by how much we take out.

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So where are we?

Of course, the battle for survival will take the presidency.  

Nations across the world face a vast array of issues and problems, from defense to societal issues and climate change. All of which could be argued to be just as pressing of an issue as the others, so with so much to juggle, what should their focus be?

We are facing the real possibility that the climate crisis could steal the chance at a better tomorrow from people all over the world. 

Immigration has already become a pressing issue across Europe in recent years, as people flee from conflict and unrest in other parts of the globe, add climate change and war in Ukraine and it won’t be who or what color is coming but how many.   

Band-aid solutions must be replaced with a focus on tackling the root causes of systemic racism along with the structural causes of racial inequality within education, employment, and self-responsibility. 

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In England’s case, the departure from the EU was fuelled by posters like the above that resulted in the middle class fearing losing their privilege voting to leave. We can only institute change when people understand the conversation around racism and prejudice. When white people realize their prejudice holds power that keeps minorities oppressed, they can then work to change the system we live in.

It is now raising its ugly head in Sport, in Policing, in Politics, in every fabric of its economy – Leveling up.

This can be intentional, or not. 

Of course, atrocities were committed by whites in the name of the British Empire, but is that all its white forbears contributed? Did they bequeath no benefits to the world, including to black people?

There is no simple answer to either of these questions. 

Even the charge of colonial guilt is hopelessly one-sided.

The British spread their might but did not share their knowledge.

In England’s case, the abiding poison of white privilege is the rectitude of racism that still remains in its class structure that is the problem. Of course, there are systemic and institutional factors in play here and they must always be kept in sight.

Britain remains a racist country and there is only one remedy for racism that some claim to be an even more lethal virus than Covid: whites must admit guilt, offer an apology, and make amends. But there are other things that affect blacks and whites alike: things such as luck or an individual’s own behavior and sense of responsibility and so on.

 Are we at risk of getting things dangerously out of proportion?

‘Pound Shop Enoch Powell’ is an unsettling reality. 

Legislation has long been on the statute book outlawing racial discrimination for which blacks themselves have no responsibility. Racism is terrible, but I would like racists to feel comfortable expressing their prejudice so we can identify them and be forewarned. 

Unfortunately, Britain has much to show for 150 years of global dominance-  Gibraltar, the Falkland Islands, Bermuda. The Empire has gone back to being a small island nation taking the knee in more ways than one. The reality of Britain’s post-Brexit standing, alone in Europe is beginning to become clear.

They talk tough but look pathetic.

All human comments are appreciated. All like clicks and abuse chucked in the bin.