I cannot remember when I first came across what we today call “casual racism”. Having grown up in 1950s Brighton, I do not recall seeing faces other than White ones and casual racism was reserved for the Irish who were deemed to be lazy, drank too much and were only good for manual work. The others who shared this distinction were gypsies who would appear all over the town from time to time selling little posies of flowers which were supposed to bring good luck. I showed some interest once for my mother to drag me away with comments that made me realise that we did not mix with people like that. Mutterings about undesirable and criminality were heard.
Strangely my parents were also keen on fairness and justice; values they planted in me. The obvious contradiction with their views on gypsies and the Irish did not dawn on me for decades to come. I doubt it ever dawned on them but would have been commonplace, I guess, in the 1950s.
I first saw Black faces when my Father started taking my brother and I on day trips to London. They ran the trams and buses and staffed the railway stations and Underground. I thought it was a London thing
In the late 1960s I joined the NHS as a very junior manager. It was what today would be called a melting pot. Hospitals were staffed by every colour of skin and every accent from around the world. It was the way it was, and nobody cared that much – or so I thought. The Irish were now psychiatric nurses. For the next 40 plus years I met people from all over the world doing every conceivable job the NHS could offer. A physiotherapist from Japan, learning disability nurses from Mauritius, doctors from India, an oncologist from Greece spring readily to mind.
Whilst I would not wish to paint the NHS as some virtuous state free from racism and sexism, it came as a mighty surprise when I eventually retired and found myself no longer in a wider group of friends and acquaintances who stressed little about the accents and skin colours of those around them.
My first encounter came when I sat on a park bench in London to drink a coffee and, without invitation, the middle aged man at the other end treated me to his (unrepeatable views) of the people he called “immigrants” who lived in his neighbourhood. Naively I tried to argue, to put up a defence; “you don’t have to live with ‘em!”. I moved seats.
In my new out-and-about retired world I came across other examples of “casual racism”. It was not right for Black nurses to look after White patients, Asians are stealing all the council houses and school places, all immigrants are thieves, there are too many people on the streets and we need to deport the immigrants etc, etc, etc.
The example that made my skin creep the most came in Switzerland when the local tour guide, who had taken us to a mountain retreat to scoff Black Forest Gateaux, treated the coach full of mainly elderly white Brits from a river cruise to her theory on how the rate of breeding of Muslims would take over the white world. Nobody said a thing.
I remember the US race riots of 1968 and those ever since; the deaths in custody; Stephen Lawrence; the reports finding systemic racism in high profile organisations; monkey chants at football games. In many ways, matters have improved, but not enough.
Large corporations no longer sit on their hands but are willing to speak up through social media, White men no longer dominate the news channels, people of colour now appear on cinema and TV adverts when only a few years ago that would have been a big no-no and Netflix’s Sex Education has a scene of a Black and White man kissing. We now have race and equality and human rights legislation.
If the last few days has proved nothing else, it is that none of this is enough and is barely a beginning. The victories have been hard fought and, despite the demonstrations, face a new challenge from populism and the zero-sum game approach to politics which simply goes “if others are to gain rights it can only be at your expense”. A push back with “White lives matter” posters and a hostile environment for immigrants are never more than a lurid newspaper headline or Twitter storm away. Nurturing a feeling of resentment in the White working-class community against the BAME community – now who would think of doing such a thing?
I have always believed that if some of us are suffering, we are all suffering. All those indicators of a failing society impact on us all – poverty, inequality, low pay, drug abuse, high prison populations, teenage pregnancies, low educational attainment level, systemic racism and sexism. If we are not direct victims, then we pay a price in other ways.
So, as I emerge from my sheltered NHS world, my call is for political courage. Politicians who will call out the nonsense of the zero-sum game for what it is, who will stand against inequality and racism. Who unequivocally state we are better together irrespective of the colour of our skin, our accent and the God we worship, than we are circling around finding reasons to attack. We need to come together to build on all our skills and value everybody for part they play.
If the Coronavirus epidemic has taught us nothing else, it is that as individuals we feel better when we come together in a collective endeavour. Suddenly the skin colour of the delivery driver no longer mattered. We recognised the garbage collectors from that unpronounceable third world country as a valid member of the community. What really is in the way of us picking up those feelings and channelling them into a better shared future?
Ironically, Brexit gives an opportunity to recalibrate the nation, although a destructive and divisive Referendum was not needed to achieve it. Where will the courage to do that come from? To move beyond waffle about world trade and attacking the EU as some kind of enemy, to stop posturing about some faded past glories (assuming they ever existed), abandon empty rhetoric about being ‘world leading’.
So, who is the politician who can stand up to paint a long-term vision of the nation every single one of us can sign up to? A future rooted in the right values and principles. Sadly, nobody springs to mind from those currently in charge from a Government driven by the next day’s newspaper headlines and the latest catchy, but ultimately empty, three-word slogan. Where’s the ‘oven-ready’ deal when you really need one?
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