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What’s interesting about the psychology of race, politics and the media is that black concerns about racism are usually ignored until repeated by a white person. It replicats the dynamics of sexism where women, for as long as time can remember, have noted that their opinions are routinely ignored until repeated by a man. Racism has a tendency to render mute the expressed concerns of black people. I call it a “ whiteout” of black opinion.

Just over a week ago Suresh Grover gave a talk to a group of young men and women, all taking part in a leadership programme run by SOAS University and the Borough of Tower Hamlets. It was both inspirational and moving.

I’ve known Suresh for about 15 years. He was one of the founder members of the groundbreaking Southall Monitoring project, which we worked with and supported. But it is his tireless campaigning, fighting against racial injustice, particularly for families that have lost loved ones in racial attacks that he is most well known for.

Yinka Alli Balogan is a woman on a mission. Her vision? To see Africa ‘become a place of great achievement’ and she believes members of the Diaspora like herself have a significant role to play in realising this dream.

The British Nigerian is currently undertaking a graduate Traineeship at Wirral Council, alongside this she has been busy making her vision a reality by organising a new ceremony, ‘The African Achievers Award’ to celebrate the success of those on the continent and around the Diaspora.

Prince Charles opened the doors of Windsor Castle last week to celebrate the successes of the British Asian Trust.

The Prince of Wales, who initiated the British Asian Trust with the help of a group of Asian business leaders, praised the efforts of donors, partners and celebrities for their role in helping the Trust to transform the lives of more than 350,000 poor people across South Asia through education, health and livelihood initiatives.

Rimla Akhtar has been used to breaking stereotypes over the past decade or so. She was part of a team which set up the Muslim Women's Sports Foundation, aiming to raise awareness of the issues Muslim face in sport. But the MWSF also takes a proactive step by directly producing and implementing the solutions. Back in 2009, the organisation was given over £230,000 by the Football Foundation to commence a project called 'Born to Succeed', encouraging women in all areas of sport including playing, coaching, refereeing and volunteering.

The Coexistence Trust will be hosting a discussion panel on the issues of hate crimes and institutional discrimination.

There’s no denying that we are living in real difficult times. The austerity measures imposed by the coalition government and the rising unemployment figures do nothing to ease fears. And now it seems that racist attacks and other hate crimes are on the rise.

A report released by the Crown Prosecution Service (CPS) shows that nearly four fifths of hate crimes dealt with by the courts in 2010/11 were racist attacks.

The Rugby Football League has taken a proactive step to promote equality and diversity in the sport thanks to a new programme.

The Tackle IT initiative aims to increase awareness of issues such as racism, homophobia and other forms of discrimination and prejudice within Rugby League.

The ‘Tackle IT’ campaign features seven promotional posters and a promotional DVD which will be made available to all professional and community clubs in the UK.

The number of people unemployed in the UK has increased again, according to figures released by the Office of National Statistics.

The figure currently stands at 2.67 million, an increase by 48,000 in the three-month period between October and December 2011. The unemployment rate stands at 8.4 per cent. There was also grim reading for the nation's young people, with the figure rising in the same period by 22,000 to 1.04 million.

In other words, 22.2 per cent of 16 to 24-year-olds are out of work.

In 2007, Congolese campaigner Bienvenu Mbutu Mondondo launched legal proceedings to ban the book, ‘Tintin in the Congo ’arguing its portrayal of Africans was racist.

But a court last week in Belgium has rejected the call to ban the book for potentially breaching racist laws. The court conveniently decided that the 1946 edition of ‘Tintin in the Congo’ was not intended to incite racial hatred, arguing that, 'at that time these colonial ideas were prevalent’.