News

In what is likely to be one of the largest Mayoral Hustings during this often acrimonious contest a coalition of Black leaders including church and business leaders, activists, faith group's others will be hosting a rally/hustings to help decide who will be next Mayor for London. Given that BME communities across the capital make up a third of all Londoners if our collective vote could be a deciding factor.

It is important that the Black community register to vote and participates in the May 3rd elections. In many parts of the country, how Black people vote will make a real difference to people’s lives.

In the London Mayoral elections, the Black vote could be decisive –around one third of Londoners are Black. That is literally millions of votes. With the Mayoral elections being closely fought, our vote would decide who runs London.

Racism in the western world is on the rise. Yes there are tracts of academia I could quote you to follow the tiresome conventions justifying and giving credence to such comments, but I’m going to resist that temptation.

It reads like something out of Montgomery Alabama in the 1960s, not here in London in 2011. But what occurred to an innocent Black man picked up by the police raises some deeply worrying questions.

Manchester Central MP, Tony Lloyd’s decision to stand down as the Labour Candidate for the upcoming Police and Crime Commissioner Post will trigger a by-election which is expected to take place later this year.

Following the announcement made last week, the Labour party have been going through the selection process and announced the shortlist. Of particular interest to OBV is Patrick Vernon, who we’ve worked with over the years.

There will be a lot of questions asked about the ‘stunning’ victory of Respect leader George Galloway. Some will focus on whether or not he ran a sectarian campaign. Others will point to the main-stream political parties being out of touch with working class communities, Black or white. In all likelihood none of the debates will effectively unpick why a Muslim Labour candidate from the local area lost so spectacularly to a white Scottish candidate from a fringe party.

The report into the causes of the August 2011 disturbances by the Riots Communities and Victims Panel has been published. The report like most of its kind tells us what some of us already knew about the reality of life in some inner-city areas. Racism and the deadening effects of economic exclusion have degraded the quality of life in these areas. The consequences are that whole communities have been left to rot in festering islands of inequality characterized by crime and acute social strains.

The Guardian's Joseph Harker caused a bit of stir in his newspaper yesterday by writing an article about Liam Stacey, who was jailed for 56 days for his racist Tweets towards Bolton Wanderers footballer Fabrice Muamba, who at the time was fighting for his life.

Harker’s central argument was that whilst some might congratulate themselves that this was a victory in the fight against racism by stamping down on the idiot racist trolls, it barely makes a dent in the real fight against institutional racism.

The May 2012 elections are just over a month away, but will you be able to have your say? It’s simple: if you’re not on the electoral register you won’t be able to vote. So why not take three minutes now to print off a registration form at www.aboutmyvote.co.uk Our research shows that just 77% of people from BME communities are registered to vote compared to 86% of white people.

Thousands of items, including handwritten documents, photos and videos chronicling the life of South Africa's first Black president is now available online.

The Nelson Mandela Centre collaborated with internet giant Google to digitise and place in an online archive of the former president.

The archive includes everything from his Methodist Church membership cards as well as hand-written letters and diaries during his 27-year incarceration in prison and the earliest-known photograph of Mandela, taken in 1938.