institutional racism Archives - Black Lives Matter

Pimlico Academy school “like going to prison”

Some students ikened going to school as “going to prison”.

Sixth form students have been told they have to wear ‘business suits, but many parents are not able to afford to buy them.

Students footwear has been damaged, with labels cut from Kickers shoes, for example, before thinking of at least asking permission from parents first.

Yesterday the school students said enough is enough and with chants of “black lives matter” and “we want change”, organised a protest in the school basketball court after being prevented from congregating on the astro turf sports area.

pimlico academy protest against racism — Pimlico Academy school students protest against racism

The protests involved hundreds and saw students also wearing red arm bands in solidarity with Sarah Everard and against the failure of the school to do anything about sexism at school.

Such was the impact of the protest that it got onto local and national TV news.

The sitdown protest took place the entire morning, forcing the school to eventually close early.

“I’m in Year 11 and it used to be a very positive place,” he said. “Now I feel intimidated in school. It feels authoritarian and restrictive, which makes it harder to learn. The culture is different—it’s very ‘British’ oriented, even with the food,” said one student.

“We all come from very different cultures. That should be respected.”

For more reporting direct from the students, parents and teachers themselves, see this report.

Although not initiated or led by teachers, they supported the protest.

The teachers at the school have called for the head to resign.

Rumours are now circulating that the head is indeed going to resign.

More soon when we get it.

The government’s Commission on Race and Ethnic Disparities, chaired by right winger Tony Sewell, denies that institutional racism exists in the UK.

In a blatant attempt to sweep the issues of racial discrimination under the carpet, the commission wants to eradicate all mention of racial inequality, as seen in one of its centrepiece proposals, which is to end the use of the term ‘BAME’ [black and minority ethnic] in the public sector.

Whatever we might think of the limitations of that acronym, the government is not looking to get rid of BAME to help fight racism, but instead to write people from black and minority backgrounds out of the data sets.

Sewell was put in place by the racist Tory government’s useful idiot Munira Mirza who was once a member of the fake-left Revolutionary Communist Party – an organisation that spent its time undermining left-wing causes in the name of “freedom of speech”.

She is now being paid handsomely for her crimes against multiculturalism.

As for Sewell, he used to head up a project called Generating Genius, which would be more accurately titled ‘generating obedience’.

Malcolm X correctly characterised people like Sewell as ‘House Negroes’, who see their lives as bound up with the well-being of their master, as distinct from the field salves who would take the first opportunity to slay the oppressor.

Malcom X: “I’m a field Negro”. Tony Sewell is a house slave who does his masters’ bidding

The cornerstone of the commission case seems to be that some ethnic minorities do well in the education system, so that must prove that there is no institutional racism, despite all the data that contradicts any such conclusion.

Here’s some institutional racism stats to remind the Tory racists and their little helpers:

• Black people are 9x more likely to be stopped and searched by police

• 60% of NHS staff deaths during the Covid pandemic have been of people from minority ethnic backgrounds.

• Kids from African-Caribbean backgrounds rare 4x more likely to be excluded from school

• Unemployment among people from Black and minority backgrounds is running at 8.5% but among white people it is 4.5%, according to a recent TUC report.

• Black women are 5x more likely to die in child birth.

The Tories are trying to claim that those who are the victims of racism are making it all up, but the reality of institutional cannot be ignored. The fact that this government is seeking to ignore it speaks to their own racism and of course their racist policies that brought us the continuing Windrush Scandal and the barbaric deportation flights and immigration detention centres.

This report, which we are yet to see in all its gory detail, adds fuel to the fire of the burning anger that drove the BLM movement last summer.

We didn’t just march for justice for George Floyd but also for the 1,750 people killed by police in this country since 1990, and all those from Black and minority ethnic backgrounds – and the poor working class people too, who have died disproportionately in this Covid pandemic due to government ‘herd immunity’ policies.

More now than ever we need to be back on the streets. Spread the protests. Fight racism! Kill the bill!