The Extent of Racism and Racial Discrimination in Britain - Case Study Example

Topic: Describe and discuss the extent of racism and racial discrimination in Britain. Currently, the ethnic composition of Britain’s population is very diverse, a factor that Wilbanks (1987) attributes to the large-scale immigration of people from former British colonies in Africa, Caribbean, and South Asia after the First and Second World Wars (Wilbanks, 1987: 32-33). The immigrants from these regions joined people who had immigrated earlier from continental Europe and Ireland resulting to multiracial, populations with distinct cultures. According to Ahmad and Sheldon (2001) United Kingdom has a population of over 60 million and ethnic minority group account to approximately 5 million. The minorities include 2.4 million Asians, 1.1 million blacks from the Caribbean and Africa in addition to over 700,000 people of mixed races. Because of the wide diversity, racism and racial discrimination is real in United Kingdom. The vice is prevalent in employment, health, education, criminal justice system and other social sectors. (Ahmad and Sheldon, 200: 44-47). This essay discusses the extent of racism and racial discrimination in Britain According to Brown, racial groups represent the minority in the society due to their small numbers in relation to the majority groups, they have very little power in the society and this has regrettably resulted to discrimination and prejudice against them (Brown, 1984: 56-57). Consequently, they encounter many institutional and social discrimination that place them at a disadvantageous position in accessing relevant services such as housing, education, employment, justice among others. Andreopoulos and Claude, (1997) defined racism, as ‘the belief in superiority of one race over the others’ remains one of the greatest challenges in multiracial economies including Britain. Arrijn, et al, (1998) defines racial discrimination as persistent denial of rights, power, privilege and prestige to members of a minority group based on their racial orientation (Arrijn, et al 1998: 53). In United Kingdom, racial discrimination is illegal but many people in the country exhibit racist ideals, thoughts and practices against minority groups. The Race Relations Act 1976 provides protection against discrimination based on race, color, religious beliefs, nationality or ethnicity in the United Kingdom. The Act and its subsequent amendments offer protection regardless of whether an individual propagates racism deliberately or not in the society (Tonry, 1998: 49). However, racial discrimination persists in British society a situation that has resulted to serious social crisis in the country. Access to medical services is one sector where racism and racial discrimination is prevalent in Britain. Findings from research study conducted by Smedley (2001) established that people from minority groups in United Kingdom experience worse health than those from the majority group. (Smedley, 2001: 25). Though there are various opinions regarding these findings, noted that the minority groups experienced many socioeconomic challenges that undermined their access to medical care. In health sector, Smedley, (2001) argues that perceptions attributed to the biological and cultural differences of the minority groups undermine their accessibility to health in Britain (Smedley, 2001: 37). These perceptions are usually used to justify unfair medical attention in health care institutions across the country. The study established that these negative perceptions prevented minority groups from interacting with medical staff in the country. The minorities face other additional social-economic challenges such as poor economic status and when these unjustified perceptions are included, access to good medical care becomes a difficult challenge. According to Benzeval et al (1992), racial discrimination in the United Kingdom affects health of the minorities in various ways. They include poor sanitation and living conditions, which arises from inequitable distribution of resources, poor treatment due to lack of resources and prevalence of mental disorders that arise from psychological and physical deprivations (Benzeval, et al 1992: 24). A study conducted by Smedley (2001) In England identified racial harassment as one of the major factors that contribute to health and psychological problems such as premature death, anxiety, high blood pressure, low self-esteem, anger, psychosis, depression among other effects such as low birth weight of infants born to mothers from minority groups. (Smedley, et al, 2001: 25). In addition, Morris (2002) attributes high incidents of drug abuse among the minority groups in the United Kingdom as an effect of racial discrimination (Morris, 2002: 30). Minority people are also isolated from health institutions established to cater for their medical needs in the United Kingdom. According to Brown (1984), lack of cultural sensitivity to the minority groups inhabits active engagement between the patients and medical staff (Brown, 1984: 9). A study conducted by Kerry (2001) established that the minority groups have lower rate of using medical services than the majority ethnic group in the United Kingdom, In addition, Kerry (2001) established that ethnic minorities groups prefer home care and informal medical providers because they encounter racial discrimination, and lack of services in local medical institutions to meet their special needs (Kerry, et al., 2001: 17-38). These finding are in agreement with a study undertaken by Commission for Health Improvement that investigated ethnic disparities between the minorities and majority concerning accessibility to medical services, environment under which the services are provided, involvement in making healthcare decisions, treatment with dignity and consideration of their emotional and physical needs. The minorities affirmed lack of specialised and culturally competent medical care in medical institutions to meet their needs (Smedley, et al., 2001: 88). Health care system in the United Kingdom lacks important aspects, which perpetuates racial discrimination in the sector. These include lack of representative medical staff from the minority groups, insufficient policies and regulations to address patients from minority groups, in addition to very few users from the minority ethnic groups. Other aspects in the health sector include lack of medical staff qualified to work in ethnically diverse environment and poor relationship with non-governmental organisations that provides care to the minorities (Wrench and Modood, 2002: 29). Another major area of racial discrimination in Britain is the criminal justice system. In United States, African Americans a minority race continue to suffer from high levels of criminal injustice especially in capital offenses and imprisonments (Tonry, 1998: 38). Compared with United States, Britain is not much different in treatment of the minority blacks from Africa and the Caribbean. According to Carter, (2000) refusal to bail a suspect after police have presented a charge against the suspect is a key factor that determines the results of the sentence (Carter, 2000: 22). In United States and Britain, O’Donnell, and Sharpe, (2000) noted that suspects from ethnic minority groups were more likely to be remanded before being tried in court of law (O’Donnell, and Sharpe, 2000: 13). A study conducted by Ahmad and Sheldon (2001) in Britain established that 66% of the suspects in remand were from minority Afro Caribbean ethnic group, while the rest comprised of whites and Asian suspects (Ahmad and Sheldon, 2001: 28). In addition, the proportion of whites who had their bail applications rejected was only 25% compared to 35% Afro Caribbean and 34% of Asians. Regarding the racial disparities in sentencing the suspects, Ahmad and Sheldon (2001) established that Afro Caribbean suspects are 17% more likely to be sentenced than whites for similar offences committed. Though the black community constitute to just 2 per cent of the entire population in England and Wales, the number of black prisoners in the country in 2001 accounted to 14.8 percent of the entire prisoners population in the country. Moreover, there has been significant increase in the number of black prisoners since then, a situation that attributed to increasing population of the black minority group (Carter, 2000:71). Regarding the gender composition of prisoners in Britain by the end of 2001, Ahmad and Sheldon (2001: 47) noted that male black prisoners accounted to 16% of all male prisoners’ population while 25 per cent of female prisoners were black (Ahmad and Sheldon, 2001: 49). According to Arrijn, et al (1998), immigrants in different parts of the world are targets of lethal violence, verbal abuse, threats and publicly declared disgust. In addition, immigrants have had their properties and businesses destroyed in various parts of the world and the European Union are not an exception (Arrijn, et al, 1998:39). Immigrants are categorized in different categories, including legal and illegal and they face diverse forms of discrimination Britain. Illegal immigrants are subjected to law discrimination on the virtue of being non-citizens (Castles and Kosack, 1973:52). A research conducted by Arrijn, et al (1998) in European Union sought to find the extent of law discrimination in six different member states. The parameters applied to determine the extent of legal discrimination were immigrant factors such as family reunion, residence, employment, social rights, and naturalization (Arrijn, et al 1998:96). From the study, Arrijn, et al, (1998) established that Austria had the most discriminative immigrant laws, followed by Switzerland and England was third Netherlands had the lowest level of legal inhibitions to the immigrants ( Arrijn, et al 1998: 104). In another study to establish the extent of racism in European Union, Wrench and Modood (2002) administered a survey to establish the rate of self-professed racism where they surveyed 1000 respondents in each member country. In the study, respondents were required to rate themselves on a scale of one to ten, with one indicating those who were not racists at all while ten the most racists. In Britain, the study established that 8% and 24% of respondents admitted to be ‘very racist’ and racist respectively (Wrench and Modood, 2002: 115-119). Though the rate of self-confessed racist in Britain is lower compared with countries such as Belgium and France, it is apparent that racism is major problem in the country. Access to employment opportunities in Britain is increasingly biased in favor of the majority ethnic group. According to Ahmad and Sheldon (2001), the chance of black and Asian persons in Britain to be unemployed is twice to that of white people. The rate of unemployed black and Asian communities in Britain accounted to 12 percent with regions such as West Midlands and Yorkshire recording up to 16 percent while that of the whites was just 6 percent (Ahmad and Sheldon, 2001: 83). The situation for the employed minorities is not any better after securing jobs. O’Donnell and Sharpe (2000) noted that the minorities experienced many obstacles to get promotion in the work place, a situation supported by the fact that there are few managers from those minority groups. This trend puts into question the effectiveness of the Race Relations Act 1976 to protect the welfare of the minority groups in workplaces (O’Donnell and Sharpe, 2000: 94). Education is another important segment in society and Andreopoulos and Claude (1997) argued that it could be a means of eliminating or propagating racial inequality. In this regards, governments should put in place well thought strategic measures to eliminate existing inequalities in the education system (Andreopoulos and Claude,1997:20).Carter (2000) noted that without well -structured education system, such inequalities result to institutional discrimination that undermines attainment of education in all segments in the society (Carter, 2000: 86). Though the ban of discrimination has been achieved in most parts of the world, the obligations to abolish it have not been met especially in education. In Britain, the higher education sector needs to be streamlined to ensure that all students regardless of their diversity enjoy equal rights in accessing and achieving their aspirations. Recently, universities in Britain increased fees for undergraduate students to maximum of £9000 per academic year (Vasagar, 2011). The increment is discriminatory to economically deprived and marginalised minority groups in the country and it amounts to social exclusion. Though the increase has raised uproar even among the privileged majority group, it presents a very serious challenge to the government’s efforts of ensuring that higher education is accessible to the minority groups. Though the British government has made commendable efforts in ensuring that racial discrimination is eliminated, incidents of racial discrimination persists in the society and in institutions. This trend points to the widely construed notion that regards particular social group of people to certain characteristics. Regrettably, the ascribed notions have been used to draw and direct inhuman treatment to that particular group. In this regard, it is important for all British citizens to realize that respect for human dignity especially to the minority groups is the ideal measure of the country’s social economic development. This can be attained by ensuring equal access to justice, health, employment, education and in the political structure of the country. Reference Ahmad, W., and Sheldon, T. ( 2001) Race and Statistics: Radical Statistics Newsletter 48: pp 39-47. Andreopoulos, J. and Claude, P. (1997) Human Rights Education for the 21st Century. Penn Philadelphia: Sage Publications. Arrijn, P. et al. (1998) Discrimination in access to employment on grounds of foreign origin : the Case of EU. International Migration Papers, ILO, Geneva. Benzeval, M, et al. (1992) The health status of Londoners: A comparative analysis. London: King's Fund. Brown, C. (1984) Black and white Britain: the Third Policy Studies Institute Survey. London: Heinemann. Carter, B. (2000) Realism and racism: concepts of race in sociological research. New York: Routledge. Castles, S. and Kosack, G. (1973) Immigrant workers and class structure in Western Europe. London: Oxford University Press. Kerry, A. et al. (2001) ‘The use of primary care services by Chinese population living in England: examining inequalities. Ethnicity and Health’, 6(4) 190-218. Morris, L. (2002) Managing migration: civil stratification and migrant workers. London: Routledge. O’Donnell, M. and Sharpe, S. (2000) Uncertain masculinities: Youth, ethnicity and class in contemporary Britain. London: Routledge. Smedley, B.D. et al. (2001) Unequal treatment. Institute of Medicine, Washington DC: National Academy Press. Tonry, M. (1998) Racial politics, racial disparities, and the war on crime. Belmont, CA: West/Wadsworth. Vasagar, J. (2011) ‘£ 9000 fee could be the norm, students warned. Leeds Vice Chancellor backs maximum charge’, The Guardian, Feb 11. Wilbanks, W. (1987) The myth of a racist criminal justice system. Monterey, CA: Brooks/Cole. Wrench, J. and Modood, T., (2002) The effectiveness of employment equality policies in relation to immigrants and ethnic minorities in the UK. 38 International Migration Papers, ILO, Geneva. Read More