Let's not talk about race!

According to the New York Times, the USA economic crisis is also a 'racial crisis'. We could go one step further and equally say this global economic crisis is becoming a chronic racial crisis too.

Why? Because the same dynamics that are occurring in the USA: African Americans and Latinos being hit disproportionately hardy than white Americans, is very much the same here in the UK, and one suspects across wider Europe too. The data is compelling: in the USA unemployment rates in July were 8.2 %for whites, 16.8 % and 11.3 % for Latinos.

The NY Times article goes on to say that 'all of America is suffering but African Americans and Hispanics started far behind and continue to fall behind'.

Just the other week, OBV ran a story that showed the shocking disparity between Black 16-24 year old unemployment which is running at nearly 50% compared to 20% of White unemployment of the same age bracket.

This crisis is further exasperated by the fact that both nations refuse to acknowledge the 'race penalty' in regards to the economic downturn and their austerity measures, much less offer policy solutions that might mitigate the disproportionality.

Here the approach by the Coalition Government is to ignore race and focus on tackling poverty, hoping that all those trapped in poverty will be raised higher. And now it looks as though even with an African American President, the 'one size fits all' is being adopted.

The article in the NY Times states,

President Obama, for example, does not renounce affirmative action, but he pragmatically stresses universal social programmes like health care. He manages to avoid appearing concerned about African -Americans.

This colourblind approach ignores two fundamentals: Middle class African Americans and Black Briton's still acutely feel the effects of institutional racism, most importantly in jobs and education. Worse still, the policies that are being put forward to un-anchor all those at the bottom-socially- will fantastically fail if the dynamics of racial prejudice are not acutely understood.

I am amazed at times that our modern sophisticated societies readily except the ingrained structures that continue to hold girls and women back from high levels of equality, and yet the very same institutions and culture which operate, at times in a more pernicious way, towards Black people is now being shockingly denied. 'Haven't we done race', I often hear cried.

The fact is that we cannot undo more than 500 years of gross race inequality in less than fifty years. This global downturn as exposed the myth that we can. Worse still unless we act accordingly and quickly the race inequality gap will widen, and with it, sadly the distrust of the different races.

Simon Woolley

Picture: David Cameron and Barack Obama at a Downing Street barbecue for Afghan veterans in May 2011