Describe and discuss the extent of racism and racial discrimination in Britain.

In the past two decades the politics of race and immigration in Britain has witnessed rapid change, one may view it to the good while others to the worse.  I am asked to describe the extent of racism in Britain as well as the racial discrimination within different sectors in Britain. There are many sectors one may look upon, such as the media, education, employment, housing, crime, policing, political levels and on.  However I have chosen to focus on three main aspects in my essay; the first being racial discrimination within the employment sector.  Then moving on to the political aspects that are seen racist and lastly looking at racial discrimination within education which could be in a way linked to a murder case that I shall be touching upon as it is a great example of racism seen from different perspectives in contemporary Britain.  

         

Racism to some sociologists could be viewed as a system of group privilege.  This is the case in the employment sector as one may argue that in contemporary Britain ethnic minorities face a dilemma that is seen in sociological terms as the “glass ceiling”.  That is that one may be able to rise up in his job sector to a certain level where it is not possible to move up higher the same way white colleges or the majority are able to do so. A recent example of this would be Shabir Hussein’s case were one may argue that he had gone through a glass ceiling situation that is that he feels that his boss is preventing him from the top post. This is due to his skin colour as his face did not fit, and “it did not fit because it was not white”.  Shabir Hussein is not the only case of a racial discrimination within the metropolitan police, rather there is also Tarique Ghaffur who is assistant commissioner of police and is seen to have suffered racial discrimination here again for his skin colour and was deferred four times form the top post due to the fact that his is brown.  Another example of racial discrimination within the employment sector is the pay levels which figures may support as they show that during the pay rise of teachers it was clearly stated that depending on their skin colour they get a pay rise. In other words Figures had shown that 95.8% of British white teachers were given the maximum pay rise in comparison to 87.79% and 80.2% Bangladeshi and African black of the same qualifications.  This clearly states racial discrimination in employment as ethnic minorities are most likely to be paid less and seem to be inferior to whites of the same qualifications, skills and qualities.

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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 ...

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