Editorial: Challenging the structures of racism

We are living through a moment of multiple disruptions - and race is central to these. It is working like an electric current that galvanises both left and right, and many people are experiencing these unsettling times through its prism. What is different from earlier crises in which race has played a central part, however, is that the upsurge in anti-racism we are witnessing is posing a strong challenge to the divisive politics that have been mobilised by Donald Trump and supporters of Brexit over the last few years. The racialised dispossessed and their allies are destabilising the forces of white nationalism that have been in the ascendant in recent years.

Black Lives Matter

It is notable that this emerging counter-narrative has been driven by civil society and movements from below. Before the recent mobilisations, there had already been a number of challenges to the mainstream consensus in the UK on the meanings and exclusions of Britishness, in particular as expressed in public outrage about the Grenfell and Windrush scandals, and the widely supported campaigns in response to these terrible injustices. Despite very little government action or acknowledgement of the failings that led to these scandals, these events have acted to destabilise the consensus. The Windrush scandal revealed to the wider public what racialised communities have known for a long time: that, for some, citizenship will always be contingent and they will always be treated as foreigners and outsiders. The deaths in the fire at Grenfell Tower became a symbol of the disregard of successive ruling elites for the safety and well-being of working-class and BME families.

During the Covid-19 pandemic, the higher rates of infection and deaths amongst BME communities have further revealed the disturbing effects of structural racism in the workplace as well as in housing and health (particularly given the visibility of BME workers in the NHS and in other key roles). These are issues which would not otherwise have got an airing in the mainstream media. What’s more, the crisis has also exposed some of the contradictions inherent in mainstream policies on migration: its highlighting of the UK’s reliance on migrant workers in essential services may have given pause for thought to those who believed in keeping them out. (It also provoked a government announcement of a U-turn on the immigration health surcharge - although this has yet to be implemented.) But there is still much work to be done to further expose and unsettle the little Englandism of the government and its supporters: for instance to connect the questions which have been raised around racism to other aspects of the hostile environment, including the No Recourse to Public Funds rule, which has left many people destitute.

The links between Covid-19 infection and death rates and racism in the workplace were evident in the British Medical Association’s recognition that BME health professionals are more likely to be bullied and less likely to have concerns about health and safety taken seriously. But perhaps the most tragic illustration of these links was the case of Belly Mujinga. Mujinga, a railway worker, suffered from a respiratory condition that made her more vulnerable to Covid-19 infection, and she begged her employer to keep her away from the station concourse but was refused. Whether or not her death was caused by the man claiming to be infected with Covid-19 who spat on her, Mujinga was almost certainly infected because she was told to work on the concourse because of a lack of respect for her well-being at her workplace.

The mobilisations in the UK in response to the murder of George Floyd were closely linked to anger about the impact of Covid-19 on BME communities. In many of the protests people carried placards supporting Black nurses and calling for justice for Mujinga. Floyd’s death and the protest movement it ignited also opened up wider questions about British racism and colonial history, lending greater visibility to campaigns - many of them longstanding - to remove statues of slave traders and other figures whose...