Munira Mirza introduces a special feature on the failings of multiculturalist policies today
by Munira Mirza / September 22, 2010 / Leave a commentPublished in October 2010 issue of Prospect Magazine
Munira Mirza outside City Hall, where she works as an adviser: “Race is no longer the significant disadvantage it is often portrayed to be”
Other articles in Prospect’s special feature on the failings of multiculturalism today:
Lindsay Johns on dead white men
Tony Sewell on education
Swaran Singh on psychiatry
Sonya Dyer on the arts
Munira Mirza on her hometown of Oldham
Trevor Phillips, the head of the Equality and Human Rights Commission (EHRC), believes the term “institutional racism” is no longer relevant in Britain. In a speech last year, he stated: “Our nation is changing dramatically. We are becoming more diverse… The trend is clear: the younger you are, the less prejudiced you are.”
The reaction was fierce. The Guardian journalist Joseph Harker wrote angrily: “With levels of black disadvantage seemingly more entrenched than ever, poverty levels high, massive numbers of black boys in jail… now is not the time to risk taking our foot off the pedal. Institutional racism has not gone away, and we can’t afford to let people think that it has.” Phillips’s speech also contributed to the resignation of three EHRC board members.
How is it possible that such divergent views of racism co-exist? On the one hand, there is a real sense that things have improved and that belonging to an ethnic minority no longer means you are stuck at the bottom of the ladder. Yet anti-racist activists po…