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Politics works best when its citizens make democratic demands that force politicians to act.

We must demand that all mainstream political parties and all their elected politicians effectively tackle race inequality. It’s beginning to work, but history has shown us we constantly have to push them.

Briana Bell has just started as an OBV intern. She is a student at Syracuse University, studying sociology, and is here on studying abroad at Faraday House. We wish her here and with her studies
- Simon Woolley.

Six senior students from Desert Vista high school, a predominantly white high school in Phoenix, Arizona U.S, are facing criticism and national outrage after a posting to Snapchat that shows the six girls wearing t-shirts that spell out the N word.

http://www.theguardian.com/uk-news/2016/jan/27/race-hate-crimes-uk-railways-rise-37-per-cent-five-years

As a damning report looks at how Kids Company used its friends in high places and charismatic leader Camila Batmanghelidjh unconventially receive over 100 million pounds, Lee Jasper puts the organisation and the thinking that supported it into a Black context.

In a move few expected the Prime Minister David Cameron has called upon an opposition MP, Labour’s David Lammy, to head an investigation into racism within the Criminal Justice system. Lammy will head a team that will look specifically at why Black people are treated much worse in every aspect once they’ve been arrested.

Cameron did not mince his words about the treatment Black people face within the Criminal Justice system stating:

Cecil Rhodes had money, power and the support of the State, when he entered Africa to plunder its natural resources and cruelly, murder, shackle and suppress African people.

One of the most prominent intellectual, political and philosophical voices on the issue of reparatory justice for Britain’s role in slavery, colonialism and its legacy of structural racism was the guest speaker for a debate about reparations in Parliament.

Sir Hilary Beckles, Vice Chancellor of the University of the West Indies, and Chair of the CARICOM reparations commission, told the audience including, writer and film maker David Olusoga, UCL Professor Nick Draper, David Lammy MP and Baroness Floella Benjamin, that:

Former cricketer and now internationally renowned psychologist Steven Sylvester normally spends his time working with top sportsmen and women and business leaders helping  ensure  they deliver world class performances.  But yesterday  he took time out to join OBV and Lewisham Council for the graduation of 30 BME leaders who took part in an intense four month leadership programme.

They often say that ‘life imitates art’ and ‘art imitates life'. This is particularly so with the recent remarks by the Oscar winning renowned actress, Charlotte Rampling.

In an interview to the French media about Black and white actors questioning that there was no Black actor being nominated for the Oscars, Rampling retorted, ‘That was racist towards white people.’ Explaining her position she went on: