Trigger warning: this article mentions racism.

A few weeks ago, I wrote an article for Pynx that tried to expose institutional racism in contemporary western countries. I talked about white privilege and white fragility, explaining how white people could do better than simply “not being racists” and move towards being “anti-racists”, or “allies”. To do this, I argued, white people need to recognise and accept their white privilege and overcome the damaging effects that white fragility has on discussions about racism.

I shared my piece on social media. It did not take long for people to express their points of view, some of which were, to put it simply, utterly wrong. Some were outraged at the fact that I did not admire and respect “our forefathers’ legacy”. Others argued that there is no such thing as institutional racism. So, dear white people who feel that “it’s talking about racism that creates the problem”, or that “really, reverse racism is the plague of the twenty-first century”, let’s have another chat.

First, we should be clear about what institutional racism means. Here are two definitions:

1. Institutional racism is “The collective failure of an organisation to provide an appropriate and professional service to people because of their colour, culture, or ethnic origin. It can be seen or detected in processes, attitudes and behaviour which amount to discrimination through unwitting prejudice, ignorance, thoughtlessness and racist stereotyping which disadvantage minority ethnic people.” — The Macpherson Report — Ten Years On — Home Affairs Committee
2. Or more to the point, it is “racial discrimination that has become established as normal behaviour within a society or organization.” — Oxford Dictionaries

Institutional racism is the normalisation of racial discrimination at all levels of society. From primary schools to universities, from a private company’s offices to the House of Commons, from health to housing and from hate crimes to the criminal justice system, institutional racism percolates through it all. More importantly, white people tend to not see it because behaviours that reproduce institutional racism seem normal, not racist.

The question now is this: can we demonstrate that the United Kingdom has institutionalised racism? The answer, sadly and unsurprisingly, is yes. What follows is a short, non-exhaustive list of hard facts that prove just that. Dear white people, brace yourselves.

Education

How likely is it for a British child to witness a racist incident at school? According to the BBC, schools in England and Wales report on average 22,000 racist incidents per year. That is 30 incidents per hour. Each school hour, every school day, for the entire school year. This data was compiled after the racist murder of teenager Stephen Lawrence and covers the years 2007 to 2011. From that point on, the Cameron coalition government put an end to the data collection.

Hate crimes

Racism is often violent. In 2017, hate crimes motivated by racism increased by 27% compared to 2016. These spiked significantly following the Brexit campaigns that divided the country and terrorist attacks that hit Western cities. Racism hate crimes often intersect with religious crimes, resulting in horrific terrorist attacks such as the Finsbury Park mosque attack in June 2017. But people of colour are not only victims of racial hatred. They are also victims of racial discrimination by police .

Arbitrary arrests

People of colour or ethnic minorities are disproportionately stopped-and-searched by police forces, to the extent that in Gillan and Quinton v. the UK the European Court of Human Rights ruled that the government had violated their right to respect for a private and family life under Article 8 of the European Convention on Human Rights. The Guardian reported on a study by the Equality and Human Rights Commission that found that of all the stop-and-searches carried out with the power of the so-called “section 60 stops” in 2008, 51% of those stopped were ethnic minorities. By 2011, that figure rose to 64%. Consequences of institution racism in the United Kingdom’s police force can be deadly. Following the 2005 London bombings, the police intercepted a suspect, Jean Charles De Menezes, and shot him several times in the head. The victim was not related to the bombing in any way.

Judicial system

Institutional racism is further reinforced by the fact that people of colour are under-represented in the justice and police systems. In 2014, they made up only 6% of the senior judges, despite representing over 12% of the British population. Similarly, only 5% of senior police officers in England and Wales were people of colour. This has dramatic consequences if prison-time hangs in the balance, especially when people of colour are judged by white people in a society that has institutionalised racism.

Prisons

Not unsurprisingly, people of colour are more likely to be indicted and end up in prison than white people. According to the Institute of Race Relations, “black offenders were 44 per cent more likely than white offenders to be given a prison sentence for driving offences, 38 per cent more likely for public order offences or possession of a weapon and 27 per cent more likely for possession of drugs. Asian people were 19 per cent more likely than white people to be given a prison sentence for shoplifting and 41 per cent more likely for drugs offences”.

Poverty

These areas of discrimination all intersect with each other, and they are all compounded by the people of colour’s disproportionately low levels of wealth. This also intersects with all the other issues exposed here. One measurement of poverty looks at whether a pupil is eligible for free meals at school or not. A House of Commons report found that in 2012/2013, just under 15% of all pupils were eligible for free meals. For white British children, that figure was 12.5%. Of those of other white backgrounds, 14.3% benefited from free meals. For all other ethnic groups except the Chinese (7.4%) and Indians (9.7%), the figures were above the national average. Over one third of black African children were eligible for free meals, along with almost a half of all Gypsy and Roma .

Income

This is reflected in the household median incomes and the difference in salaries controlled for work occupation. A white British household’s median wealth is almost ten percent superior to that of an Indian household. It is over twice that of a Pakistani household. It is over ten times that of a black African household and close to fifteen times that of a Bangladeshi household. Even when controlled for work occupation, white British earn more than any other groups for equivalent jobs, bar those of Indian or British-Indian ethnic groups, who earn more than their white British counterparts in intermediate (+5%) and routine jobs (+68%). Black and black Caribbean workers earn consistently less than any other ethnics groups for equivalent jobs.

It is worth repeating this one last time: people of colour and people of ethnic minorities endure widespread injustices right here in the UK because they are not white British. These injustices are compounded if one’s gender, wealth, education, age, disability, sexuality is discriminated by society. But again, even if a person of colour “ticks” all the other privilege boxes, that person will still be a victim of institutional racism in the UK.

This is what institutional racism looks like in the United Kingdom. The pattern repeats itself in an overwhelming majority of white Western countries. It affects the lives of millions of human beings and harbours deep and violent social tensions at home and abroad. Ignoring it or worst, denying it will not end the suffering and injustice. This, dear white people, is the legacy of our “mighty forefathers” as one online commentator put it.

I refuse to be proud of this legacy and I refuse to pass that down to the next generations. I will not stand idly by and listen while ill-informed people speak of reverse-racism as if white people in the UK were the victims of some kind of societal injustice due to their skin colour. They are not. People of colour are. That is a fact.

Edited by Maryam Elahi