News

With the rise of anti-immigrant parties across Europe, the importance of BME political representation is more needed than ever. Initiatives like Operation Centurion, in which illegal immigrants were allegedly targeted using ethnic stereotypes for removal, highlight a distinct change in the political landscape.

The effects of such policies to community relations can be devastating with raids taking place predominantly in BME communities, leading to disruption in many businesses and leaving these communities feeling under attack.

The “unknown hero” of the civil rights movement

Bayard Rustin, was a brilliant organiser of the US civil rights movement, an adviser to Dr. Martin Luther King Jr and was one of the key organisers of the 1963 March on Washington, yet his name is relatively unknown.

He brought Gandhi’s protest techniques to the American civil rights movement, and worked with Dr King to promote the idea of nonviolence and peaceful demonstrations.

You know the business marketing and advertising world is shockingly unrepresentative when business executives representing one of the biggest superstores in the country, indeed the world, approve a product which is identical to the dreaded and feared Klu Klux Klan outfits.

For products to be approved they have to pass a myriad of people and levels. What is extraordinary is that no-one said, ‘Hmmmm you are kidding about this product. Do we really want England fans willingly or unwittingly being dressed up as the KKK?

Imagine changing the world and yet, no one knows your name. In fact,  no one knows if you are alive or dead.

25 years ago today, the 'Tank Man’ of Tiananmen Square, whilst innocently out shopping became a symbol of resistance when he interrupted  a column of tanks single-handedly. That we ever witnessed this most single act of defiance is in itself a miracle. The Chinese authorities had already begun their brutal crackdown on students who were protesting for a more open, fairer society.

Anna Lo, the UK's only Chinese-born parliamentarian is leaving Northern Ireland politics because of continued racial abuse by loyalists.

She has reluctantly decided not to run again for the centrist Alliance Party in the next round of Stormont assembly elections in 2016 because of continued racial abuse both personally, and what she sees as a deteriorating racial climate in Northern Ireland.

The former Prime Minister Gordon Brown used the 20th anniversary of football’s anti-racism campaign ‘Kick it out’ to highlight one of England’s greatest heros: Walter Tull.

He told the packed audience including the eldest son of Dr Martin Luther King jr, Martin Luther King 3rd:

YouGov poll reveals 46% of people think they are racist

In recent British history there was, in a manner of speaking, all of about five minutes when the global banking industry was duly held responsible for the near collapse of many western economies including the largest collective economy in the world, the 28-member states that make up the European Union.

The issue of drugs in some communities is seen as a taboo and this is definitely so of the Asian community. Whilst statistics reveal a sharp increase of drug usage within the Asian community, Sundeep Dhadley is one man who is proud to help vulnerable recovering drug addicts, to ensure they get a second chance.

Dhadley is a participant on OBV’s West Midland Civic Leadership Programme and is emerging as an inspiring future leader. He works with recovering addicts for SUIT a charity based organisation helping individuals with drug misuse.

There isn’t a politician in the country that could have achieved what Tower Hamlets’ Mayor Lutfur Rahman achieved in his latest Mayoral victory. Driven out by the Labour Party he had always supported, Rahman was forced to stand as an independent in 2010. He beat Labour’s Bangladeshi candidate during the 2010 Mayoral elections convincingly.

Not since the years leading up to the 2nd World War during the 1930’s have we witnessed such an unprecedented anti –migrant sentiment across Europe. In two of the three major European countries –France and the United Kingdom,- anti-immigration, anti-Europe, Far Right political parties won the popular vote in the EU elections. In other smaller countries such as Denmark and Hungary Far Right parties also won a significant proportion of the popular vote.