Secondly I would like to touch upon the views of racial discrimination within the political system; as many believe that within the labour party there is racial discrimination even though it is seen to be supported greatly by ethnic minorities as well as the fact that many of its members are of ethnic minorities. However, some would argue it is not in any way racist, as if the labour party was racist they would have not had any ethnic minority MPs. Trevor Phillips does not see it from that perspective however, he argues that even within the labour party there is racism but not in the same way many would recognise it. Phillips suggests that even though many members of the labour party are of ethnic background none of the many will be able to break the glass ceiling and move up to the level of being a prime minister or chancellor, and this is not a problem laid by the voters but rather by the political system itself. Phillips brings in an example of a “British Obama” suggesting that even with the intelligence, skills and qualities of Obama the British Obama will struggle to break that glass ceiling and will possibly not be able to break it. There is also the assumption that within parliament there are current discussions on having a black prime minister, and many members would support the idea, however when it comes to reality and actions the supporters would no longer support the idea and wouldn’t accept it or put it into action.
The final sector I will be looking at is education which is seen to be an open field of racism as there are many ways of looking at racial discrimination within education. Firstly there is the in class discrimination, which is that the teacher discriminates the students by either avoiding them in class or underestimating their performance due to their skin colour which has a great impact on their under achievement according to Sewell (1996).
Sewell argues that many teachers are fearful of black boys due to the stereotypical assumptions; this suggests that there is a labelling going on which then results the pupil feeling for the self-fulfilling prophecy that is that the assumptions that have been made about him are to be proven by him causing him to rebel. Furthermore, Wright (1992) found considerable discrimination in class in a sense that teachers paid less attention to Asian pupils especially girls by involving them less in discussion and using simplistic language assuming their English is poor. This suggests racial discrimination as the teachers tends to assume that the Asian girl is not educated well enough and doesn’t really care in the matter of improving her.
The second aspect I could bring forward is the view of racial discrimination within the education system arguing that the British curriculum is ethnocentric. This is that pupils would learn and focus on British and European cultural and historical aspects more than other cultural and historical aspects such as black history, Diwali, the gulf war, Eid etc. This suggests that pupils of other ethnic backgrounds feel that they must work harder in order to understand the curriculum and cannot link it much to their background as it is not related to them, also according to Ball (1995) the curriculum is seen to be ‘Little Englandism’ that is that it only focuses on western or British culture. On the other hand there is the view that this is no longer the case in Britain, as currently within the education system there has been an introduction of black history within some subjects as well as in religious education there are many different religions introduced to make pupils more aware of other religions and cultures as they are currently in a multicultural society and must be aware of the different cultures around. On the other hand there is an economic (class) perspective which is stated by the Dfes (2002) research statistics; it shows that middleclass black pupils achieve lower (by 10%) GCSE A-C grades in comparison to working class Indians, however they achieve higher than working class whites at a 4% rate. From this point one may argue that it is rather not due to racism but rather to the ethnic group’s view of education and how willing the pupil is to attain well. This suggests that the underachievement is not due to class differences or racial discrimination of ethnic minorities as a whole but rather what the specific group sees in education as for example black pupils are seen to be more interested in the pop macho culture than education, therefore suggesting it is not their ‘style’.
A recent argument that I would like to touch upon is Mohammad Almajed’s case. He is a foreign student who had come to Sussex to improve his English but was murdered due to his colour. It could be argued that Mohammad is not in any way an immigrant as he had come to Britain for a short period. Due to the so called “unwitting racism”, - which in sociological terms is known as colour-blind racism - that has been around for a while after the 7/7 bombings. One may suggest that this murder is unjust as Mohammad is not in Britain for the benefits or employment to assume that he is here to fill in the places of the majority (‘whites’) or increase the number of ethnic minorities. This case is relevant to the level of racism in Britain as it suggests that some members of society perform colour blind racism clearly as they perceive all coloured people, whether their black or brown are a risk to Britain. Another aspect I would like to touch upon in this matter is that the restaurant owner –where Mohammad had gone to diner at- had warned the police about the gang being suspicious but the police did not attempt to do anything and simply just moved on rather than stick around for a little longer to keep an eye out for the gang. One may argue that the police did not pay much attention to the matter due to the idea that they saw Mohammad coloured and didn’t care much. However there is also the view that it is not the policies of the police that are racist but rather the officers themselves for personal reasons or beliefs as one does not want to perform unwitting racism assuming all the police forces are racist. There are also other examples of the murdering of innocent people due to their colour such as Stephan Lawrence and Jean Charles De Menezes who were also ether murdered by the police in the assumption that they are terrorists or by civilians due to hatred for the minorities.
In conclusion one may argue that politically Britain is seen to be more racist than the United States in a sense that in Britain it is more than difficult for ethnic minorities to take part in major political roles unlike in the United States and a good example of this would be Obama as president which in a sense has shocked many people in Britain. There is also the difference in pay levels between workers ethnic minorities and whites, showing that it is likely for a white individual to get a better pay then a black or Asian even with the same qualifications as well as the assumption that white female workers are likely to get a better pay than black/Asian male workers of a higher qualification. As well as whites are more likely to occupy managerial posts especially in large organisations while there is a clear deficiency of ethnic minorities from senior management positions in large firms. This suggests that Britain is institutionally racist as they are pushing members of ethnic minorities to aside and rather placing people of their own colour in better positions within employment. On the other hand some would argue that Britain is not in any way institutionally racist as African-Asian, Indian and Chinese male employees have similar or better job levels than whites, in addition to the fact that there are many Asians in high positions such as Tarique Ghaffur and Shabir Hussein who I had mentioned earlier. In terms of gender differences however, studies show that African Caribbean and South Asian women even after the effect of qualifications taken into account still occupy lower job levels than whites. However an argument against this point is that women of ethnic minorities tend to stick to low paid part time jobs or become housewives, as they tend to carry out the traditional role of being a mother and give up work. Furthermore, there is also the educational perspective that one may argue is racist in terms of the labelling of the teachers as well as the ethnocentric syllabus that looks at ‘little Englandism’ on the other hand there is the argument that no Britain is not racist as the syllabus has introduced a more multicultural curriculum looking at different culture as well as they begun to touch upon black history, war and peace in the middle east, as well as different religions meaning the pupils more aware of the different cultures around. And finally they few murder cases that have happened in the last couple of years is rather not due to the fact that Britain is racist but rather due to the British National Party using current issues to gain support of the minority as well as taking advantage of the current issues that have had a great effect and distortion of the minorities image and viewing them to the public in the worst possible terms in order to be supported more. This suggest that it is rather the doing of the people that brings forward the view that Britain is racist, it is however not the policies or institutions but rather the wrong image the majorities have of the minorities and an example that I have mentioned earlier of Mohammed Al Majed case would support this view as he was murder not for any other reason then the fact that he is brown.
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Bibliography
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