Anti-racist laws failing to tackle racism

Anti-racist legislation has failed to tackle the roots of racism, a new book has claimed.

‘Tackling the Roots of Racism’, published by the Joseph Rowntree Foundation, warned that laws against racial discrimination and harassment, which had led to many written workplace policies, remained ineffective in improving the quality of life for different ethnic minority groups.

The book said that the legislation failed to address underlying everyday attitudes and behaviours, which, it said, “frequently go unchallenged”.

The book’s authors – Dr Reena Bhavnani, Professor Heidi Mirza and Veena Meetoo from Middlesex University – highlighted two particular areas of racism: ‘Elite racism’, which included stereotyped assumptions and generalisations about different ethnic groups; and ‘Situated racism’, defined as unequal treatment of ethnic minorities.

Reena Bhavnani said: “The complexity of the way that ‘race’ issues interact with inequalities arising from class, gender, age and disability suggests that a more holistic approach to tackling the roots of racism is needed. Patterns of behaviour are ingrained in the British establishment and its structures and in everyday British ‘culture’. Individuals do not necessarily act in racist ways, but attitudes and ideologies based on ideas about the supposed inferiority and subordination of certain groups are still deeply embedded in British society.”

The authors said that changes to recruitment procedures had made a difference to the employment of minorities, but warned that black and minority ethnic staff continued to make slower progress than their white counterparts.

The book warned that failure to acknowledge underlying attitudes and behaviours between people could cause problems. The authors cited ethnic monitoring arrangements in organisations, which, they said, could actually reinforce racism by focusing solely on black and ethnic minority employees.

Heidi Mirza said: “The key reason for the limitation of most current interventions on ‘race’, equality and diversity in organisations is that they do not address the root, underlying causes of racism and the ways in which they are constantly being reproduced.

“Although there are many diversity and racial equality documents and action plans in circulation, very few organisations have real evidence or understanding of interventions that will actually reduce racism.”

However, the book did praise a number of initiatives that it said appeared to be successful in challenging and reducing racism. These included: an anti-racist youth project in London, the PressWise Trust media ethnics charity and the ‘Kick It Out’ initiative against racism in football.

(KMcA/SP)