THE recent race riots that further rent the social landscape of England showed that ours is an ethnically disunited kingdom (News, 9 August). But the riots also revealed that alternative realities exist: a perilous one for those who, because of ethnicity, feared for life and limb — such as my son’s Asian Welsh friend, who was racially assaulted in London — and a largely unperturbed one for the beneficiaries of white privilege, who continued life largely as normal, some even able to joke about the rioting.
A disturbing aspect of the race riots was the counter-narrative that suggested that this was somehow a white working-class struggle. It is true that many of those who were charged came from deprived neighbourhoods, with severe social, health, and educational needs that caused them to feel left behind and to lose faith in the system. The fact that the targets of their rage were migrants, refugees, and members of minority communities, however, laid bare the underlying xenophobia, Islamophobia, and racism that motivated the rioters.
This racism is stirred not only by far-Right politicians and extremist social-media influencers, but also by the dominant zero-sum paradigm that perpetrates the myth that the progress of one group comes at the expense of the other. Notwithstanding the net financial benefits of migration, Black and brown people, refugees, and asylum-seekers are often portrayed as “takers”, while white “hard-working taxpayers” are considered the “makers”.
THE Home Office paper The Historical Roots of the Windrush Scandal, released, reluctantly, last week, unveiled how “the British Empire depended on racist ideology in order to function.” For centuries, England has lied to her white offspring, satiating them with tales of Empire and colonial benevolence, instead of liberating them with the incontrovertible truths about exploitation, oppression, marginalisation, and genocide.
Today’s white working-class young men who embrace racist violence are part of a long, sad history of white masculinity that has often been defined and reinforced through the subjugation of racialised and gendered others.
I was reassured by the thousands of anti-racism protesters of different backgrounds, religions, and ethnicities who took to the streets across England during the race riots. We need to redefine who we are as a society: no longer “multicultural” — comprising several cultural or ethnic groups — but rather “intercultural”, with deep understanding, respect, and engagement with one another.
There is a need to restore social- and community-cohesion programmes in schools; introduce restorative racial-justice programmes; and encourage football leagues and other sporting clubs to increase and strengthen community-integration programmes. The Church of England’s schools’ programme, which explores Christianity as a global faith, is a crucial step to promote diversity, equity, inclusion, and belonging, in religious education.
A REPORT published last month by the Alliance for Racial Justice, A Better Way to Tackle Institutional Racism, argues that, while the Equality Act 2010 was “a landmark piece of legislation at its time”, it is no longer “fit for purpose”.
Since racism is a sin, strategies to eradicate racism — be they policy, political action, legislation, marches and protests, anti-racism training, or awareness-raising measures — can, at best, provide only limited solutions. A world that is enslaved to sin cannot, by its own resources, overcome it.
In one of his most famous sermons, “Loving Your Enemies”, Dr Martin Luther King, Jr, said: “Darkness cannot drive out darkness; only light can do that. Hate cannot drive out hate; only love can do that.” The teachings of Christianity, Judaism, and Islam share a consistent message of love of neighbour.
The only way truly to end racism is through faith, specifically through the countercultural revolution of love. “Love covers over a multitude of sins” (1 Peter 4.8); there is no prejudice in real love.
If, as members of the body of Christ, our dignity is intertwined with others’, how are we not humiliated before the Cross, knowing that we have failed adequately to protect the dignity of all of our sisters and brothers? As members of the body of Christ, our task, enabled by the Spirit of the living God, is to humbly but fearlessly engage in the work of racial justice.
As Desmond Tutu pointed out, because each of us is a “God-carrier”, the neglect and ill-treatment of others “is not just wrong, is not just evil; it’s actually blasphemous — like spitting in the face of God”.
Imagine if the body of Christ, made up of those of every nation, tribe, people, and language, took the lead in showing a hurting, divided world what real love looks like. If we can imagine it, Christ can do it.
Ending racism, ethnicism, and all forms of discrimination liberates us all, victim and perpetrator alike. In this struggle for unity, we keep faith, knowing that what God requires of us is to “do justice, to love mercy, and to walk humbly” with him (Micah 6.8).
The Revd Guy Hewitt, a former High Commissioner for Barbados to the UK, is the Church of England’s Director for Racial Justice.
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