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UK NEWS
EDUCATION
University racism: Black students report racial profiling, N-word slurs and white students touching their hair, inews, 3 February 2021
“More than half of black students say they have experienced racism in their university accommodation, a survey by the Higher Education Policy Institute finds.” Read the report here.
Leena Farhat: No black headteachers in Wales is a disgrace, The National Wales, 1st February 2022
“When the statue of Betty Campbell was unveiled, Wales was proud, rightly so. Now, however, there is not one single black headteacher in Wales…11 per cent of primary school learners and 12 per cent of secondary school learners are from Black, Asian and Minority Ethnic (BAME) backgrounds.”
CULTURE, MEDIA & ENTERTAINMENT
Oti Mabuse reveals racist ‘backlash’ performing on Strictly Come Dancing, The Irish News, 1st February 2022
“The TV star also hosts a Radio 4 podcast about her dancing inspirations, speaking to some of the most renowned names in the field alongside some of her personal heroes… Oti Mabuse’s Dancing Legends is on Wednesday on Radio 4 and the whole series is on the BBC. Listen here.”
Riz Ahmed brings personal fears to screen in ‘The Long Goodbye’, Reuters, 31 January 2022
“British actor and rapper Riz Ahmed and director Aneil Karia take viewers on a disturbing dystopian journey in their short film “The Long Goodbye”, inspired by personal fears about rising intolerance and discrimination in the world. Watch the film here.”
Brit awards 2022: Inflo is first non-white winner of producer of the year, The Guardian, 28 January 2022
“Sault co-founder, who has worked with Adele and Little Simz, thanks ‘all the Black producers before me – I am you’”
EMPLOYMENT & WORK
Mayor’s Academies Programme, London.gov.uk, February 2022
“The Mayor’s Academies Programme (MAP) aims to support Londoners hardest hit by the pandemic into good work in sectors key to London’s recovery and long-term economic growth, as part of the London Recovery Programme. The total investment of the programme is £44m and it is funded by the Mayor of London (£23m), the London Economic Action Partnership (LEAP, £20.6m), the NHS (0.25M), and the Health Education England (£0.25m). LEAP brings together entrepreneurs, businesses, London Councils and the Mayor to support economic growth and job creation in the capital.”
WIN Inclusive Employers Toolkit, London.gov.uk, February 2022
“The inclusive employers toolkit aims to help companies increase recruitment, retention and progression of young Black men within their workforces. The toolkit is for use by senior leaders and recruitment staff within companies in the construction and digital technology industries, and their suppliers. It will equip employers with practical tools and examples of good practice from within these sectors.”
HEALTH & WELL-BEING
NHS ‘riddled with racism’ against ethnic minority doctors, BBC News, 2 January 2022
Racism in the NHS
“More than 2,000 people took part in the online survey, which was open to all UK doctors in medical workplaces. Around 40% of the NHS’s 123,000 doctors are from minority backgrounds, compared to about 13.8% of the general population. 76.5% of surveyed doctors experienced racism at work at least once in the last two years. 17.4% experience racism on a regular basis. 20% experienced racism from patients 71% of those don’t report it, either out of fear or lack of faith that it will be properly investigated. 19.4% have considered leaving or have left their job in the last two years because of racism. Nearly 60%say racism at work has impacted their mental health and wellbeing.”
Nurses celebrate recognition of Filipino as standalone ethnic group, Nursing Times, 31 January 2022
“Filipino nurses in the UK have welcomed the fact they can now have their ethnicity properly recorded and recognised on NHS and Nursing and Midwifery Council (NMC) databases…As of March 2021, nationality data from the House of Commons showed that people from the Philippines made up the third largest group of NHS staff in the UK, behind only Indian and British, with 25,423 Filipino staff recorded.”
ENVIRONMENT
Lambeth Council launches new website to focus on air quality, LoveLambeth, 2 February 2022
“The new Clean Air Lambeth page will allow people who live and work in Lambeth share their views on how Lambeth can tackle air pollution across the borough.”
GOVERNMENT, MIGRATION & COMMUNITIES
Levelling Up: A missed opportunity to reform capitalism, say UK social enterprise leaders, Pioneers Post, 3 February 2022
“Many welcomed the transfer of power towards the regions, but were concerned that the paper focussed only on public sector reform and did not give enough attention to the role played by the private sector in causing place-based inequality – and the need to embrace new ways of doing business to level-up the country…Proposals relevant to social enterprise include a new law on social procurement that would make it easier for “small businesses and social enterprises across the country to bid for and win public contracts”.”
Family members of EU Citizens stranded abroad despite having settled status in the UK, The 3 Million, 6 January 2022
“Family members of EU citizens in the UK who have settled status but are non-EU citizens are required to have Biometric Residence Cards (BRC) in order to travel. The lack of clear communication from the Home Office is leading to people being denied boarding and having dreadful experiences, leading to costly and lengthy stays away from their homes.”
FAITH & RELIGION
Hindu community ‘deeply upset’ by sixth break-in at Swindon temple, ITV, 29 January 2021
“Members of the Hindu community in Swindon and Wiltshire say they have been left depressed and demoralised after a sixth break-in at their temple, which police are treating as a hate crime.
Worshippers are looking for a new venue but say alternative temple sites offered by Swindon Borough Council are not suitable.”
Islamophobia: The Dinner Table Prejudice, University of Birmingham, 27 January 2022
“The increased prejudice middle class people have toward Islam appears to be mostly down to the fact that they are more confident in their judgements, while working class people are happy to acknowledge their ignorance. Middle class people are more educated, which means that – in the case of Islam – they are more miseducated too. This briefing is based on a new report, ‘The Dinner Table Prejudice: Islamophobia in Contemporary Britain’, by Stephen H. Jones and Amy Unsworth.”
JUSTICE SYSTEM & POLICING
Big law firms lag behind on partner diversity, SRA reports, Legal Cheek, 3 February 2022
“The SRA’s latest diversity survey shows that 8% of partners at the largest firms in England and Wales are Black, Asian or from another ethnic minority, compared to 23% at small firms and 35% of single-partner outfits.”
Police apologise for wrongful arrest of Rastafarian woman left naked in cell, The Guardian, 3 February 2022
“Hertfordshire police pay £45,000 damages to Yvonne Farrell, who said officers should have respected her religion.”
A culture of misogyny and racism has existed in the Met police for too long – Cressida Dick must go, Politics Home, 2 February 2022
“Police bigotry is not confined to Charing Cross police station. In my own constituency of Hackney, the Metropolitan Police recently had to apologise and pay compensation to a completely innocent woman Dr Konstancja Duff who they arrested and strip searched. All she was doing was trying to help a 15-year-old child with a “know your rights” card.”
Met officers joked about raping women, police watchdog reveals, The Guardian, 1st February 2021
“Damning report reveals offensive culture of racist and homophobic messages sent as ‘banter’…The officers were based mainly at the Charing Cross police station in central London, with the offending behaviour taking place between 2016 and 2018. The messages also included a reference to the Holocaust, deaths of black babies and violence against the public, with the conduct amounting to bullying and harassment, the Independent Office for Police Conduct (IOPC) watchdog found.” Find out more here.”
Calls to end disproportionate sentencing of BAME women facing ‘double disadvantage’ of gender inequality and racism, The Justice Gap, 1st February 2022
“Calls will be made today to end disproportionate custodial sentencing of marginalised BAME women from a coalition of experts to tackle ‘persistent racism and gender inequality’ in the criminal justice system. Five years on from David Lammy’s review into race and the criminal justice system, campaigning groups comprising Agenda, Women in Prison, Hibiscus, Muslim Women in Prison, Zahid Mubarek Trust, Criminal Justice Alliance and Women in Prison will launch a 10-point action plan calling for reforms to ‘stamp out systemic biases’ and publish data on racial disparities in women’s contact with the criminal justice system.”
Pupillage numbers bounce back following Covid dip, Legal Cheek, 31 January 2022
“Ethnicity at the Bar: 78.3 % White… When excluding those that have not provided information, there is a slightly greater proportion of Asian/Asian British practitioners at the Bar compared to the proportion of Asian/Asian British individuals in the UK working age population (7.8% vs 6.4%), and the same can be said for those from Mixed/Multiple ethnic backgrounds (3.6% vs 1.7%). By contrast, there is a slightly smaller proportion of those from Black/Black British backgrounds (3.3% vs 3.6%), and a greater relative underrepresentation for those from other ethnic groups (1.2% vs 3.2%). The figures come from the BSB’s annual report on Diversity at the Bar.”
The unfair ‘double whammy’ of minority ethnic children in care, Lancaster University, 28 January 2021
“Formally launched today in the Prison Service Journal, the article ‘Out of Place’: The Criminalisation of Black and Minority Ethnic Looked After Children in England and Wales, highlights a disproportionate representation of Black and minority ethnic children who have been through the care system.”
TECH
Koo: India’s Twitter alternative with global ambitions, BBC News, 4 February 2022
“…Koo expects to surpass Twitter’s 25 million-strong user base in India this year. It had touched 20 million downloads in India by the end of 2021. “We are now available in 10 languages, including English. This year we’d like to cover all of India’s 22 official languages…”.”
SPORT
Winter Olympics: All you need to know about Beijing 2022, BBC News, 4 February 2022
“Almost 3,000 athletes from 91 nations will compete to get their hands on one of 109 gold medals on offer across seven sports…Covid isn’t the only shadow looming over these Games. The International Olympic Committee (IOC) has been heavily criticised for awarding the Olympics to China because of the country’s alleged human rights abuses. Human rights groups say the Chinese government has gradually stripped away the religious and other freedoms of Uighur Muslims – a minority group which lives mostly in the Xinjiang province in north-west China – culminating in an oppressive system of mass surveillance, detention, indoctrination, and even forced sterilisation.”
WIDER EUROPE NEWS
EU states agree to ‘mandatory solidarity’ on migration, Euractiv, 4 February 2022
“France has set itself the goal of creating regulations to make solidarity more binding when it comes to distributing refugees across bloc states. Their stance is that it should be up to member states to decide whether to accept more refugees or to financially support the states willing to let them in…How this work in practice will be negotiated in detail at the Council meeting of interior ministers on 3 March, though all member states supposedly back the approach “in principle”.”
Erasmus, a European hit affected by inequality, VoxEurop, 1st February 2022
“The Erasmus programme was created 35 years ago to give European students the opportunity to study and live abroad, enjoying the privilege of living in a borderless continent. But it had a fundamental flaw: only those who can rely on economic help have been able to access the scheme, despite the grants, data shows.”
Covid vaccine access for the undocumented: a missed opportunity for European public health, VoxEurop, 26 January 2022
“A year after the beginning of vaccination campaigns in Europe, a survey coordinated by Lighthouse Reports and Picum reveals that when it comes to vaccinating undocumented residents, governments have often not done enough, and sometimes nothing at all, putting the health of the general population at risk.”
FRANCE
How France’s Intellectuals Became Reactionaries, Jacobin, 2 February 2022
“France has always had right-wing thinkers — but they are more prominent now than any time since World War II. A decades-long counterrevolution against the Left has led to reactionary provocateurs reshaping French intellectual life.”
France votes to ban Muslim women from playing sports with headscarves, TRT World, 20 January 2021
“According to right-wing politicians who voted for the decision, the move targeting the country’s Muslim women was taken in the interest of so-called religious neutrality.”
IRELAND
Gardaí investigating after Lion King performers and crew racially abused in Dublin, The Irish News, 2 February 2022
“GARDAÍ are investigating after several performers and crew of the Lion King were racially abused in Dublin. The Bord Gáis Energy Theatre said the abuse happened as members of the production were making their way home after a performance.”
ITALY
Black Italian actress describes racist messages on live TV, AP, 3 February 2022
“A Black Italian actress said she received online harassment for the color of her skin after it was announced she would appear as a guest at Italy’s annual Sanremo music festival… Incidents of racism in Italy have drawn more attention in recent years. Both public and private Italian TV have come under fire for the persistent use of racist language and imagery, and the failure to generally represent second-generation Italians of African or Asian descent as integral to society.”
An African immigrant’s pizza wins global raves — and overcomes Italian prejudices, WSKG, 30 January 2022
“Despite that inauspicious start, Songne went on to take out a loan to open a pizza joint — and in late 2021 the 30-year-old’s pizzeria was named one of the top 50 in the world. 50TopPizza.it calls Ibrahim’s dough “perfectly leavened” and the recipes “imaginative.” Ibrahim christened his restaurant, IBRIS— an all-caps hybrid of his first and last name. Before he opened the small shop in downtown Trento 3 years ago, he says that locals warned him, “A Black man behind the counter will drive every customer away.””
PORTUGAL
Portugal, a vaccination success story – including for the undocumented, VoxEurop, 3 February 2022
“Lighthouse Reports has conducted an extensive study on the vaccination of irregular immigrants in 18 European countries. Portugal stands out on the positive side. But on the ground, associations and migrants complain about the lack of communication.”
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