Bruce and Anton: Strictly Don’t Use the ‘P Word’

(Please note, this article contains words and phrases that some might find offensive)

The BBC website is reporting that Bruce Forsyth has said that people should have a “sense of humour” about the Strictly Come Dancing race row involving professional dancer Anton Du Beke who admitted calling his show partner, actress Laila Rouass, a “Paki”. Forsyth says that in the past the “slip up” would have been treated in a more light-hearted way. Talking to TalkSport he said:

“You go back 25, 30, 40 years and there has always been a bit of humour about the whole thing. Americans used to call us ‘limeys’ which doesn’t sound very nice, but we used to laugh about it. Everybody has a nickname.”

Is he right…???

“We don’t do God” but then maybe we do: Speak Out magazine

(The following short post is an introductory piece that will be included in the next edition of Speak Out magazine due for publication in early June. It will introduce a collection of short pieces about minority religions in Birmingham and a more detailed piece of the British Humanist Association’s recent report into the ‘religion or belief’ equalities strand – click here to read)

The former Labour spin-doctor Alistair Campbell was once famously quoted as saying, “We don’t do God”. In many ways, Campbell may have been speaking on behalf of the British per se: or at least how things might have been because there are signs that some things might be changing.

Immigration for a Nation of Immigrants: Speak Out magazine

(The following short post is an introductory piece that was included in the third edition of Speak Out magazine. I include it to ensure that as much of my published work is available to read from this website as possible)

With 2,000 years of immigration under its belt – albeit sometimes in the form of invasion and conquest – it is somewhat surprising that immigration remains a contentious issue for the British.

In Search of the Great British Dream

This month’s chunk of Birmingham Post-lite (published 13th November 2008).

I celebrated the end of the Dubya era by watching a special screening of Oliver Stone’s, “W”. Stone could have easily pilloried George W., yet he prefers to present an image of the 43rd US President that is both amusing and frightening: someone whose qualities, character and life you’d dismiss were it not something that we had all lived through. Angry, aggressive and overly envious – as equally uncultured, boorish and coarse, natch – “W” presents a driven and extremely patriotic man who not only wanted to exorcise his own demons but those of his father also.

With Dubya’s demise, came the euphoria of Barack Obama’s overwhelming victory. Feeling much the same as I did in 1997 when Labour came to victory with an equally impressive victory, I hoped that the same sense of disappointment I feel now about Labour does not mirror how I’ll feel a decade on. Mr O, please take note.

Some of those feeling the greatest hope at Obama’s win have been African-Americans. Their expectation was most eloquently voiced by the rapper Jay-Z: ‘Rosa Parks sat so Martin Luther King could walk. Martin

“The colour of disadvantage isn’t black or brown: it is white…”

Trevor Phillips, the Chair of the Equalities and Human Rights Commission, has warned that it is time to recognise that whilst disadvantage in the UK has historically meant that black and ethnic minority (BME) groups and women have been the worst hit, in some parts of the country it is now the white working classes that are facing the greatest disadvantage. As Phillips put it:

…the colour of disadvantage isn’t black or brown. It is white

Speaking at the Confederation of British Industry (CBI) summit on immigration, he said it was time for British society and its leaders to get a clearer understanding of whom might be disadvantaged and what groups and communities may need support.

To illustrate his point, Phillips highlighted the educational achievement gap between some BME groups and their white counterparts. While two thirds of children of Chinese heritage routinely get five good GCSE’s as do three out of five Indian heritage youngsters, 85% of poorer white boys did not. Similarly, while those Bangladeshi girls who made it to university did well, there was an underclass of teenage white girls who would not make it into higher education at all due to having already given birth to their first child.

He added that now was the time for positive action to support and assist the white working classes:

We may need to do so with the sort of special measures we’ve previously targeted at ethnic minorities. But the name of the game today is to tackle inequality, not racial special pleading. We will fail to do so at our peril

Phillips argued that if the disadvantage currently being faced by those white communities was not addressed and that their grievances were not heard, there was a very real danger that the resentment felt towards immigrants and other BME groups could result in an anti-immigrant backlash. More worryingly, he added that this could mean a stark rise in populist ring-wing extremism.

[If an out of work white mother] sees a clever, young, Latvian with three degrees doing the job she would like to do…It doesn’t take a rocket scientist to work out how she’s likely to feel.

And add to that the picture of her child’s nursery class, with, as she will see it, an overworked teacher confronted with a class of 30 that speaks 15 languages at home. Who will she resent for not having the life she thinks she deserves?

It is good to see the leader of the UK’s equalities and human rights watchdog raising these controversial issues. Long has it been that ‘equalities’ has been perceived to be about giving – even giving away – something that is ‘ours’ to ‘others’. In many ways, reinforcing the ‘them’ and ‘us’ scenario that too many far-right and indeed various mainstream politicians are increasingly prone to voice and buy in to.

Equalities of course is about making society fairer for all. Let’s hope that others will now follow Phillips’ lead and begin to really challenge those who deliberately equate ‘equalities and human rights’ with ‘political correctness gone mad’ for political or other gain. If we do, then it will be a massive step in the right direction: a massive step towards society being fairer for all.

Everything on this site by Chris Allen is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution-Noncommercial 2.0 UK: England & Wales License. www.chris-allen.co.uk.