Let’s start with some definitions:
Racism is the marriage of racist policies and racist ideas that produces and normalises racial inequities.
Racial Inequalities is when two or more racial groups are not standing on an approximately equal footing.
Racist Policy is any measure that produces or sustains racial inequality between racial groups.
Ibram X Kendi
Below are some evidence of the systemic racism that people of Black, Asian, and other ethnic backgrounds are faced with and how they are inherently discriminated against.
(Statistics and evidence: 2018 Race Report Statistics)
Policing:
- According to the Race Report Statistics, the rates of prosecution and sentencing for Black people were 3 times higher than for White people.
- In May 2019, the Guardian newspaper reported that Black men in England and Wales are 40 times much more likely than White men to be stopped and searched by the police.
- In 2018, the number of race hate crimes on Britain’s railway networks rose by 37%.
Healthcare:
- 2018 statistics show the Black women had a mortality rate 4 times higher than White women in the United Kingdom.
- Black women were 7 times more likely to be detained under mental health legislation in hospitals than White British women.
- The Office for National Statistics, the Institute for Fiscal Studies think-tank and Public Health England all conclude that people from ethnic minorities are being disproportionately impacted by the coronavirus. According to the BBC, “… some of the highest death and hospitalisation rates during the coronavirus outbreak have been in London, where 40% of the population are from ethnic minority backgrounds (according to the 2011 census)”. These are pieces of conspicuous evidence which has led WIRED to stress that “a combination of racism, deprivation and social inequality has made people from Black and Asian ethnic groups twice as likely to die of COVID-19 in the UK. Fixing this will mean correcting inequality in all its forms”.
Education:
- In 2018, it was reported that just 6% of Black school leavers attended a Russell Group university compared with 12% of mixed and Asian school leavers and 11% of White school leavers.
- Black Caribbean and Mixed White/Black Caribbean children have rates of permanent exclusion about 3 times that of the pupil population as a whole.
- In higher education, Black, Asian and other ethnic minority people have difficulty in accessing many universities, and when they get to university, they are disadvantaged in terms of progression, attainment and appropriate employment after leaving university.
Employment:
- Black workers with degrees earn 23.1% less on average than White workers.
- In Britain, only 5.7% of Black people worked as managers, directors and senior officials, compared with 10.7% of White people.
- Black people who leave school with A-levels typically get paid 14.3% less than their White peers.
Basic Living Standards:
- In 2018, 35.7% of ethnic minorities were more likely to live in poverty compared with 17.2% of White people.
- 30.9% of Pakistani or Bangladeshi people live in overcrowded accommodation, while for Black people the figure is 26.8% and for White people it is 8.3% (see below diagram).
- 2018 evidence shows that Pakistani or Bangladeshi and Black adults are more likely to live in substandard accommodation than White people.
