Ethnicity

Another of my favorite, which is linked to my education and ethnicity topic discussed above, is the Swann Report titled “Education for all” (March 1985). It is concerned with inequality of educational achievement between different groups and brings in the notion of multicultural society. It was debated in the 1980’s as not everyone supported the Swann Report. Nowadays, I can say that there are many 2nd and 3rd generations who don’t have much knowledge and interest in going back to their roots, mainly because they were born in Britain. This brings us back to question whether the British people have lost the opportunity to integrate in to other cultures? And have those people from different cultures started to lose their own culture and identity by living in Western society?

It can be argued that people from other countries have not lost their culture or identity because if anything is spoken against them then they would stand up for their own minority group. An example can be the Pakistani welfare groups that exist in many localities, each joined to a different local political party – Labour, Liberal

Democrat or Conservative – and often displaying intense rivalries based on ethnic and political divisions in the country of origin.

From I can see, it seems to me that racism seems to be a major problem in Britain which is depriving children of ethnic minorities a decent education and denying ethnic minorities the right to freedom of religion and identity, hence all these legislations that have been created. However, critics of policies have suggested that they need little more than what we call a “coat of paint” solutions (Gilroy 1987) that fall short of addressing the true nature of racism in British society. The inquiry into the racially motivated murder of Stephen Lawrence (Macpherson 1999) and, for example, a report by the Runnymead Trust on the future of multi-ethnic Britain (Parekh 2000), have clearly commanded the attention of both the public and the government, and may just help to change certain “[…] critical dimensions of the relationship between “race” and British public culture […]” (Clarke 2001: 16).

In my opinion, I think policies addressing issues of racial inequality and ethnic disadvantages can only be understood in the context of Britain’s Immigration and Asylum legislation. I think it is about time people take in to consideration the new legislation of the European Union who do not accept the word “race and ethnicity” and just sees everyone as human. I reckon it may just make issues a little less complicated.