Dealing with Race: One step forward two back

A case in point was highlighted the other weekend. The writer Yasmin Alibhai Brown was responding to a question about the blaze at Yarl's Wood Asylum detention centre on David Dimbleby's radio 4 programme 'Any questions'.

Ali Bha Brown responded: 'I feel passionate about this issue, I left the Labour party because I felt the party's rhetoric and behaviour towards Asylum seekers has been appalling. Quite frankly if you treat people like beasts they sadly will behave like beasts'. We need a policy that affords people a little humanity'.

Well, that lit up the phone lines of middle England with such verocity anyone would have thought she was calling for Zimbabwe's Robert Mugabe to be the next King of England.

'How, how, how, dare she, 'choked one angry caller', 'state that Asylum seekers are treated like beasts. They get treated far too well if you ask me. And look how they pay us back'. Mr Angry was not alone. Caller after caller ignored the other issues debated on the programme to vent their spleen against Ms Brown and her call for decency.

It was only when a fifteen year white boy called in that a hint of humanity was brought to the phone in. 'Sadly there is a lot of racism in my school', he argued, 'Asylum seekers often get abused. I think the media must take some of blame for the way it negatively portrays them'.

What worried me most about this debate was not just the anger but also from whom it came. In other circumstances they appear to be decent respectable people, yet get them on talking about race and particularly Immigration and Asylum these people become monsters.

And here we are on the third anniversary of the Stephen Lawrence Inquiry, and white middle Englanders are still baying for blood from people who at best come from wretched conditions and at worst war torn areas.

Where have we gone so wrong since that momentous occasion three years ago, when society began to acknowledge that our institutions are fundamentally racist and they must radically change?

The short answer of course is middle England's white backlash to positive change. They have continued to argue that, 'it's political correctness gone mad'. Furthermore, they have managed to poison the usage of 'PC' that its now ridiculed as 'liberal behaviour that tries not to offend anyone'. The discussion about social justice, social decency or equality of opportunity for Black people and other sectors of society has completely been lost.

What saddens me most, whether it's listening to the bigotry on the radio or to the Home Secretary's ill conceived, ill timed comments on race (loyalty tests, arranged marriages, etc) is that we continue to miss great opportunities to transform society to one that is multi-cultural, inclusive and dynamic.

The Stephen Lawrence inquiry's third anniversary is a timely reminder to us all that those steps we took to challenge injustice were not just for Black people they were for all of us Black and white.