Evidence of Ethnic Inequality An overview of writing on ethnicity and inequality

Facts about ‘race’ 7.1% of the population belongs to an ethnic minority Most of these people live in urban areas The ethnic minority population is growing faster than the whole society because they are generally younger in age. The largest single group of ethnic minority people are Indians, followed by Pakistani and then Black Caribbeans. Most of those who consider themselves to belong to an ethnic minority community are in fact, British because they were born in Britain. They are claimed to have ‘hybrid culture’ which is a mix of their home culture and British culture.

1965 Race Relations Act This banned discrimination on the grounds of race, colour or ethnic or national origin in public places. It made it illegal to incite racial hatred in writing. It set up the Race Relations Board to respond to complaints. These laws were clearly ineffective: –Racism is not illegal in private and racism still occurs. –The onus is on the victim to prove that racism occurred.

The 1968 Race Relations Act This extended the previous Act to include: employment, housing and the provision of services. There was very little discrimination ever proved, few cases were won, and most were related to advertising! The Police were exempt from this Act and investigated themselves in cases of complaints. It was generally seen as an expensive and toothless waste of time.

The 1976 Race Relations Act This introduced the idea of indirect discrimination which mean that employers could not set up ‘blinds’ to cover blatantly racist policies. It set up the Commission for Racial Equality (CRE). See their Website at. There are limited resources and few prosecutions. It is difficult to prove that people are motivated by racism. Race relations legislation is controversial and generally not especially helpful except in changing attitudes.

Immigration control Many writers claim that immigration controls have been used unfairly to discriminate against non-white immigrants whereas those from Australia and European countries have been accepted into the UK without control. In 1993 the Asylum and Immigration Appeals Act was actually designed to limit immigration and reduce the number of asylum seekers. It acted to remove the right of appeal against the decision to deport people. Asylum seekers also lost their right to housing. There were a number of incidents which embarrassed the government over the implementation of the laws.

The Cantle Report Race riots occurred in British cities in The main rioting was in the North and associated with Asian communities in Bradford, Oldham and Burnley. The Cantle Report was produced in December in that year. It claims that there is racial segregation between the communities and increasing distance between the groups. It argues for increased integration between groups. The Home Secretary, David Blunkett suggested: –Immigrants should learn English –They should take a loyalty oath to the UK

Unemployment Official figures for January 2001 show that unemployment rates for ethnic minority men is twice that for white men. The ethnic minority groups which are most likely to be unemployed are Black Caribbeans and Black Africans at nearly four times the average rate. The group least likely to suffer unemployment is Indian men. Possibly because these are likely to be middle class in terms of education. The trends are exaggerated in the case of women. Bangladeshis and Pakistanis are unemployed at a rate of 23.9% which is five times the average for all women.

Crime and Criminality Black males are more likely to go to prison than all males. This does not apply to all ethnic minorities – but it does to African Caribbeans. Only 0.3 judges come from ethnic minority backgrounds and 0.1% of senior barristers are black. The rates of execution in the USA for non-white people are twice what could be expected from their rates of representation in the community.

Black crime and sociology Demography – blacks are younger in age distribution than the general population and rates of crime are also much higher than among young people. Racism – the police are racist. This is supported by the Scarman Report and the McPherson Report into the Stephen Lawrence case. Resistance to imperialism – criminality is a form of resistance and a political stance. This is a Marxist view and the evidence to support it is poor. Marginalisation – Black people are marginal to mainstream society and cannot achieve their aspirations to wealth via the normal channels because of the racism of society. They turn, therefore, to crime.

Michael E Brown There are three types of ethnic conflict: –Systemic conflict occurs when groups live close to one another. Groups may launch attacks to gain advantage. –Domestic conflict relates to groups who feel vulnerable and they attempt to break away from the more powerful people who will submerge their culture. –Perceptual explanations relate to how groups are trained to relate to each other.

John Rex Rex believes racism to be based on belief systems. Rex suggests that people justify their racist beliefs with dubious logic. The hate comes first, then the rationalisation.

David Mason Institutional racism as a term has been used in five different ways: –Conspiracy where people are seen to deliberately set out to discriminate. –Structural Marxist where the racism is a consequence of state policy. –Unintended racism results from badly designed or ethnocentric policies. –Colonial racism where minority groups take on low status work. –Political opportunism where racism policies are seen as popular.

Paul Gilroy Establishing a separate cultural identity is a significant form of resistance to capitalism and to racism in imperial societies. This was once done by African Caribbeans through dance, music, art and sport. However, in post modern society, many people are adapting and adopting black cultural styles as a form of fashion. It offers people a variable identity but disenfranchises black people from ownership of their own culture – hence the drive to keep developing new styles that black people can own as their styles become adopted by the fashionable.

John Beynon 1986 There are eight possible causes of Inner City ethnic rioting: –Unemployment –Deprivation –Racial disadvantage –Racial discrimination –Political exclusion –Powerlessness –Distrust of police –Hostility to police It is these which cause race rioting in cities, though often a single event may trigger the actual riot.

Heidi Safia Mirza Black women experience inequalities of gender and race. Females work hard in school and have values of achievement. This is because families are matriarchal and girls accept that they will be primary carers for their children. Black girls are very high achievers but books on ethnicity do not acknowledge that male and female patterns of achievement are different.