Why Rev Jackson is still the good Shepherd

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.

He told Paxman: ‘When Black people are stopped 27-1 in comparison to white people, that is not intelligence led, that is racial profiling, or a racial dragnet approach’. He said that you catch no terrorist and few criminals. ‘The police do lose, however, the moral authority’, added the ex-Presidential candidate.

When quizzed about institutional racism, former deputy police commissioner Brian Paddock, admitted that some officers believe that many Black men might be criminals, as they believe many Asians might be terrorists’. But again, Jackson was able to stamp is own mark by suggestion we needed to look wider than our police. ‘Take a look at the media and how they view Black people, or the banks, who gets the loans? Take a look at the Oxbridge universities and see the racial profile there, he pointed out.

http://www.bbc.co.uk/programmes/b006mk25

(Jackson’s interview starts after 24 minutes into the programme).

I urge you to take ten minutes to and watch the interview. You will find answers that support the argument against the persistent denials of the inequalities that very often criminalise our youths.

Simon Woolley