Racism in the UK is not a secret
Racism in the UK is not a secret, unintentional, covert or prehistoric. It’s verbally abusing young black footballers after the loss of a game. It’s the deportation of Caribbean British people of the Windrush generation. It’s a long history of unethical care and structural racial discrimination within the welfare state, funneling into distrust in black communities against covid vaccines. Racially motivated acts against black people in the UK are so apparent; and it’s these repeated conversations about racism in 2021 that have beyond exasperated me.
With a rise of nationalist ideologies and right-wing populism in ‘Brexit’ Britain, it comes as no surprise that mass racial abuse on social media followed the Euro 2021 finals. Targeted at black penalty takers Bukayo Saka, Marcus Rashford and Jacob Sancho, 11 arrests for abuse and hate crime were made - according to the investigations by the BBC. And yet people still question the existence of institutional racism. But when black people go about pointing out ignorance or blatant discrimination, we are accused of playing the ‘race card’. This deflection of accountability, from multiple angles of society, no longer warrants in me the need to discuss our experiences further.
Between Britain’s overt history of colonialism and slave trades, and voting in prime ministers with a record of bigoted comments such as Boris Johnson, this country’s attachment to passivity when being held accountable is particular. There is a certain awareness to acknowledging the views of marginalised people, and then downplaying it. To deny black people in the UK of our reality, as the 2021 Sewell race report has done, is to perpetuate the very discrimination we point out. Insinuating that ‘institutional racism does not exist’ is essentially denying the validity of all economic, social, educational factors that white supremacy has orchestrated to suppress black people. And where is Tony Sewell now, when the UK plans to deport Jamaican and Zimbabwean nationals who came here as children? The #Jamaica50 deportation flight saw no government officials or race disparity consultants utilise their power and privilege to put it to an end.
Social media - riddled with respectability politics and victim blaming - echoes the delusion that black people have something to prove for our voices to be deemed as ‘worthy’ enough. To achieve the likes of a ‘model minority’, we are encouraged to partake in culture blindness. There are so many hurdles black people in the UK are expected to jump, actualities of our pain we are expected to rehash over and over again, just to gain empathy. Meanwhile our trauma is broadcasted everywhere, bare for the world to see as a discourse, a debate.
Black people should not have to constantly struggle to get our point across, just to be overshadowed in the debate questioning the realities of our livelihood. We shouldn’t be gaslit into downplaying our circumstances from a racist society, to be recognised and facilitated in these conversations. Especially when the topic of the conversation is us.
We are talking about things we already know, so we have to stop exerting this energy, as it is a lot, and pour it into reaffirming our internal communities. Being a part of this new generation, we need to put an end to this relaying discussion, and centre on protecting our peace and livelihood. Hundreds of years of systemic oppression are from systems originating in this country. We have seen decades in waves of resistances and riots and legal battles - yet we’re expected to carry the load of tolerating unaccountability in racist British society.
My new strategy is to no longer amuse these conversations. My suggestion is for you to understand black people do not owe it to society to prove that racism against us is prevalent. We have long exhausted that mindset.
Liz Muntunkaye is a visual artist, writer and student studying International Relations and Development at the University of Sussex. She loves to write and consume literature, whether it’s poetry or academic texts, and enjoys incorporating her knowledge from mediums of art and education into her work.
