News

I've lost count the amount of times I’ve been called aggressive during a discussion or a debate. But it’s a lot, an awful lot.

The Oxford dictionary meaning of 'aggressive' is, ‘ready to attack or confront’. It denotes that those subject to it might fear for their physical safety. Furthermore, it unequivocally implies that you are utterly unreasonable. As a result, not only can your arguments be thoroughly dismissed, but your character badly stained.

Operation Black Vote in a unique collaboration with Channel S and the support of the London Empowerment Partnership brings you the first and only televised hustings: Who Runs Tower Hamlets? You Decide!

This evening some of the mayoral candidates  -  the most powerful elected executive in Tower Hamlets  including John Griffiths,Lib Dems; Neil King,Conservative; Helal Abbas, Labour and Luftar Rahman, Independent will put their pitch over the airwaves to Tower Hamlet residents.  

The NHS BME Network which launched in June this year attracted significant attention at the recent annual conference - State of Black Britain Symposium.

The Equality and Diversity Council (EDC), a sub-committee of the NHS Management Board, has developed an Equality Delivery System (EDS) to drive up equality performance and embed equality into the mainstream of NHS business.  

Just when it seemed the tide to thwart  anti-racism was unstoppable - Prospect’s rethinking race, Katharine Birbalsingh’s  much applauded Tory party conference speech, and Government plans to allow police to racially profile – civil rights icon Jesse Jackson makes an appearance on Newsnight that even the great political integrator Jeremy Paxman couldn’t argue with.

MPs have called for an inquiry into the death of an Angolan deportee who died while being restrained by security guards on an outbound flight from Heathrow.

Last week, an eyewitness told the Guardian newspaper that Jimmy Mubenga called out to fellow passengers for help before he died. 

Mr Mubenga was being escorted out of Britain on a commercial British Airways flight to Angola by guards working for G4S – a private security firm, currently contracted by the Home Office to handle deportees.

I spent some of my Saturday afternoon at the House of Commons delivering a training workshop of public speaking to members of the National Youth Parliament UK.

About 16 individuals from around the UK were preparing for their big day on the 29th October when they will be given the prestigious House of Commons debating chamber to discuss issues such as war, poverty, transport and the environment.

In an article for OBV News magazine prominent party members and commentators explore the role of BME MPs and their accountability to minority groups.

Should they unite to fight on race issues, and should they form a British equivalent of the US Congressional Black Caucus?

In response to OBV News Sadiq Khan MP says our twenty seven minority ethic MPs should take a frontbench approach to race equality.

Sadiq Khan MP, said: 

OBV friend Rev Jesse Jackson in an article in yesterday’s Guardian Comment is Free, spoke of the continued abuse of stop and search powers by Police, still overwhelmingly plaguing Black individuals and communities.

Jackson also said that Britain’s moral authority risked being damaged as a result.

As the dust settles Lord Dholakia asses the impact and legacy of the Delhi Commonwealth Games.

The Indian table tennis player, Kamal Achanta, has said that the 2010 Commonwealth Games will leave a huge sporting legacy for all of India’s inhabitants.  He is absolutely right.  But it is not just a sporting legacy; there will be a social and cultural legacy as well.

After what Black Britain saw as the unlawful death of Jamaican woman, Joy Gardner, in 1993, at the hands of immigration officers who bound and gagged her in their bid to deport her, we thought we would never be here again.

And yet the as news leaks out from eye witness reports, we are again horrified to learn of the circumstances leading up to the death of Angolan asylum seeker Jimmy Mubenga, who died on a plane after being restrained by three private immigration officers.