News

An uncomfortable truth can, in time, become a great potential asset. But first we have to be brave enough to acknowledge it, and then bold enough to deal with it.

That’s been the hope throughout, as Operation Black Vote, the Guardian and Green Park recruitment have worked on the groundbreaking research project, The Colour of Power.

OBV, in partnership with The Guardian and Green Park, have launched our 'Colour of Power' study of race and power in Britain.

See our website here: www.thecolourofpower.com

Also, see coverage in The Guardian today: https://www.theguardian.com/inequality/series/the-colour-of-power

The very idea of justice is that it should be balanced and fair. So the report today from David Lammy into racial biases in Britain’s courts and prisons should be a wake-up call to everyone who believes the scales of justice should be balanced equally between all citizens regardless of race, gender, status or any other defining characteristic.

Update Nov 2017: Please note that the scheme is now closed for application.

Operation Black Vote and Croydon Council are inviting applications for the Gee Bernard Civic Leadership Programme.

This is designed to encourage people from black and minority ethnicity communities to get more involved in civic and political leadership. You will have the opportunity to observe areas of public life including:

Last week saw news of cop in Georgia who was caught on camera bragging that police “only kill black people.” The official figures from America certainly show huge disproportionality in shootings by ethnicity.

Black citizens are two and a half times more likely to be fatally shot. If you add in the ‘unknown race’ victims and those marked as ‘other’ non-white you can double that.

Houston and the state of Texas are getting to grips one of the nations most serious floods. So far at least 30 people have died, including a family of six. It is impossible not to be moved by the human stories we hear and the sheer scale of displacement of tens of thousands of people.

Naomi Campbell has been in the modelling business for 35 years, so when she speaks about the racial bias in the fashion industry we should listen.

Her social media post highlighting lack of racial diversity in the magazine Vogue under its previous editor, Alexandra Shulman, serves as a reminder that fashion does not only face a diversity challenge on the catwalk but also behind the scenes. Clearly the two problems are related.

Labour’s women’s and equalities spokesperson Sarah Champion was right to resign after her disgraceful column in The Sun newspaper in which she claimed that “Britain has a problem with British Pakistani men raping and exploiting white girls.”

By linking those in Newcastle convicted with these sex’s with an entire community Champion is guilty of perpetrating ugly stereotypes. There are echoes of the way African-Caribbean men were painted as ‘muggers’ in the 1970s and 80s.

Donald Trump’s disgraceful failure to specifically condemn neo-Nazis, in the immediate wake of the Charlottesville violence, should not have come as a surprise to those who witnessed the US President attract support from the far right underworld on his march to the White House.