Joseph Harker
Monday 5 October 2009 14.30 BST
The ordinary brilliance of black youths.
When it comes to imagery surrounding black youngsters, I'm used to the relentlessly negative – knife crime, underachievement, family breakdown, we've all seen it.
I've just had an evening, though, which was the exact opposite – unremittingly positive. The occasion was the London Schools and the Black Child awards ceremony, organised by the MP Diane Abbott and held at the House of Commons.
It highlighted the academic achievements of black youngsters at GCSE, A-Level and degree level. This wasn't an evening celebrating mediocrity – the plague of the burgeoning awards industry – but a roll call of excellence and dedication. And it wasn't about just one or two exceptional cases (more often than not being subliminally interpreted as "the exception which proves the rule" by those who continue to see black people in entirely negative terms).
The power of the occasion was that we heard one story after another of young people defying the stereotypes, overcoming the odds – and, in many cases, giving back to their community too. Altogether, 24 tales of great achievement. And, even more significant, there were just as many boys represented as girls.
Youngsters such as Keli Dusu, who gained 5 As at A-level but has still found time to work as a volunteer for the Salvation Army Youth Club, and also to coach a group of autistic children. Or Rochelle Balach, who, without parental support, had to work to fund herself through sixth-form college, yet still emerged with three A-grades. Or Hannah Kendall, who has just qualified with a first-class degree from the Royal College of Music, had her compositions performed by the Philharmonia Orchestra at the Royal Festival Hall, and who volunteers at schools in Lambeth. And the story of Lawrence Price, diagnosed with learning difficulties and ADHD as a child, who rejected the extra help he was offered, and who has just graduated with a first in history from Oxford.
We also heard a touching and personal talk from Hollywood actor Naomie Harris about her own mother's drive to get a degree and eventually become a successful TV scriptwriter despite having Naomie when still a teenager.
The significance of all these stories was that, by hearing so many, it made the exceptional appear ordinary, and achievable. As I looked out over the Thames, though, I thought: how do we get these uplifting messages out there, beyond this House of Commons room – where they can challenge the relentless gangsta-rap videos, or negative news coverage? Where teenagers are given the message that blackness is about violence and aggression, and that to show any sign of academic interest is to be some kind of race sellout.
"You're in the media: will you be writing about this?" asked one person of me after the ceremony. And I thought: if a fight had broken out, or if one person had drawn a knife, the event would be front-page news. Such are the news values of my honourable profession.
Ultimately, this is a battle: between the multibillion music and media industries, and people like Abbott, who get on with schemes like this because it's the right thing to do. Waiting for these industries to change will take a very long time. In the meantime, though, it should surely be possible, for example, to circulate a DVD of this event in urban classrooms around the country, where it could have an immediate and positive impact. Can a sponsor can be found to fund such a thing?
For the record: I was outraged when Abbott sent her child to private school; but I have to say
that organising an event like this far outweighs her ideologically off-message moment. One day, I hope, Abbott's message will get through; but in the meantime as least she has the pleasure of working with some bright, keen and enthusiastic young hopefuls and giving them huge inspiration.
Number Two ...
Eric Allison
Monday 25 August 2008
The silenced majority.
Since January, the term knife crime has been used more than 1,500 times by the national press - and it is a fair bet that most media images associated with these figures will be of young black men. Unsurprisingly, this is leading to a growing sense of frustration among black community leaders, academics and, not least, black youngsters themselves, over what they see as blatant misrepresentation.
Black youths who fit this media stereotype represent a tiny fraction of the young black population as a whole, they argue, and while negative stories about black teenagers are almost guaranteed headlines, the positive achievements of black youth go largely ignored.
This trend has consequences beyond creating an unbalanced picture.
Numerous studies have shown a clear link between media furore and draconian policy-making, says Kjartan Sveinsson, the author of a Runnymede Trust report on the ways in which popular understandings of race and crime influence media reporting, and vice versa. "The tragedy is this can increase racial tension on the street and do little to stem the violence," he says.
Which in turn, of course, leads to further reports of violence, and the circle continues. In April 2007, for instance, after a number of high-profile shootings in south London, Tony Blair made a speech to the Cardiff Chamber of Commerce. Was he perhaps responding to media pressure when he asked: "When are we going to start saying this [gang crime] is a problem amongst a section of the black community and not, for reasons of political correctness, pretend it has nothing to do with it?"
There was no ambiguity when David Cameron spoke after the death of 11-year-old Rhys Jones in Liverpool, singling out the media by saying: "Deaths by fists, knives and guns are becoming a regular feature of British news ... these murders must draw a line in the sand."
In Manchester, one group of black teenagers, who believe they should have made headlines for the right reasons, are angry at their treatment by the media. So much so they have published an open letter on the subject (see below
The Reclaim project began as a pilot in the autumn of 2007 at Urbis, an exhibition centre in Manchester, to work with 12-14-year-old boys from Moss Side and other perceived trouble spots in the city. The idea was spawned as a reaction to rising youth violence and the negative portrayal of young people, especially from the African-Caribbean community.
The project involves six months of intensive mentoring and events, including working with local statutory bodies and creative and sports providers. Self-development, discipline and anger-management courses form part of the syllabus, along with teamwork and respect for legitimate authority. Children on the project have drawn up an advisory document on combating gun and knife crime and presented it to Gordon Brown.
The scheme has been a remarkable success - and Reclaim has become synonymous with a powerful youth voice. Its story should be positive, but some of the young people involved feel they have been either ignored or that when journalists have turned up, most have only wanted to question them on guns and gangs.
In particular, some of the boys were unhappy about their treatment at the hands of a production company filming a documentary. They say they had understood it would be about their involvement with Reclaim, but the interviewer constantly brought up the subject of guns and gangs.
Fair representation?
On one occasion, the boys had been to a formal meeting and were wearing suits. According to 14-year-old Akeim, he and other boys were asked to go home and change into tracksuits and hooded tops and were then interviewed in the park where a 15-year-old boy, Jessie James, was murdered. Another boy, Amari, says the programme, shown on Channel 4 in July, failed to include a single mention of the Reclaim project and "was all about Jessie James". The interviewer asked whether he, or any of the other boys, had ever shot anybody, or been shot at, Amari says.
C4 says the producers "strongly feel" the young men were accurately and fairly represented in the short film, which was shown as part of a season of programmes about gun and knife crime. The boys were filmed where they said they regularly spend their time and were happy to be interviewed in those locations. They were not asked to dress in a way they wouldn't normally, and there was no intention or attempt to portray the young people as stereotypical or negative characters, the broadcaster says.
Professor Gus John, a fellow of the Institute of Education at the University of London, works closely with families affected by violence in Manchester. "When black youths read about themselves," he says, "it goes something like this: you are a persistently under-performing group; you are six times more likely to be excluded from school and be a young offender; you may already be in a gang, or likely to join one. The likely causes of your condition are: absentee fathers; absence of positive role models; and being surrounded by women who cannot control or motivate you. You aim too low and do not believe people like you can succeed."
Yet the reality, John says, is that there are a large number of young black males with high aspirations, who have a focus on learning and who succeed. "Often, these young men come from the same background as those who are underachieving at school, or involved with the criminal justice system. It is a sad fact that we seldom hear about these young people."
Reclaim's open letter
"We are a group of 14-year-old boys from the Reclaim project; since the project started, we have been approached by so many different newspapers, magazines and TV companies, most of who want to talk to us about guns and knives and gangs. We keep trying to explain that we are not involved in gangs and crime; we're black boys doing positive things in this area - and then journalists go away, as they tell us that's not the story people are interested in ...
The project has changed our lives in so many ways. We now consider ourselves reliable, respectable, articulate and creative young black men. We have been set difficult challenges and worked hard to achieve them. We have written a manifesto for our area and given up our weekends to distribute it, display it and explain it to the adult members of our community. We have put on parties for vulnerable members of our community, lobbied the leader of our council and spoken in front of hundreds of people ...
Negative stories of young black boys as criminals, or victims of crime, reinforces the idea that this is the reality for black people. Some young black boys will try and live up to the images they see in the media. Adults constantly criticise teenagers for being irresponsible, but the way the media tries to represent our area as if everyone was a drugs runner or gangster is totally irresponsible and morally wrong."
Number Three..
Thursday 30 April 2009 12.42 BST
Black and Asian people targeted in stop and search surge.
Black and Asian people were disproportionately targeted by police in a surge in the use of stop and search under counterterrorism laws in the wake of the failed 2007 London bomb attack, according to official figures published today.
The Justice Ministry statistics showed that the number of black people being stopped and searched under counterterrorism laws rose by 322%, compared with 277% for Asian people and 185% for white people.
Corinna Ferguson, a barrister at human rights charity Liberty, said: "A threefold increase in anti-terror stop and search is the clearest signal that these powers are being misused. Only six in 10,000 people stopped were arrested for terrorism, let alone charged or convicted.
"And the disproportionate impact on ethic minorities is even greater than in previous years. This is why Liberty has been challenging these powers since 2003, and is taking the fight on to the court of human rights."
The Metropolitan police were responsible for most of the increase in the use of counterterrorism stop and search powers, which nationally rose from 37,197 in 2006/2007 to 117, 278 in 2007/08.
The Justice Ministry said the large rise in street searches under the terrorism laws was directly attributable to "the robust response by the Metropolitan police to the threat of terror-related networks in London since the Haymarket bomb in 2007".
The figures also disclosed a 19% increase in the use of what is called "section 60 powers", which give the police the right to stop and search anybody for 24 hours in a designated area where serious violence may take place. The power allows police to carry out the searches without having to have grounds to suspect that the person is carrying a knife or a weapon. The figures showed that there were 53,000 section 60 searches in 2007/08 with most of them in London, Birmingham and Liverpool.
There was a 64% increase in the number of black people searched under this section 60 power compared with a 41% increase for white people. In London over half of those stopped were black.
The rise in the use of counterterror powers fuelled an 8% increase in the general use of stop and search by the police in England and Wales with a total of 1,035,438 incidents recorded in 2007/08 – the highest level for 9 years. The main reason for conducting most stop and searches was for drugs.
The figures published today showed that 10 years after the official Macpherson inquiry report into the murder of black teenager Stephen Lawrence black people are still eight times more likely to be stopped and searched than white people. This is actually an increase over the previous year – 2006/07 – when black people were seven times more likely to be stopped.
The number of racially motivated incidents has risen, according to the British Crime Survey, from 184,000 in 2006/07 to 207,000 in 2007/08, but the number recorded by the police fell by 7% over the same period.
The Justice Ministry figures on the representation of black and ethnic minority people in the criminal justice system showed that little progress had been made in the past year in reducing the ethnic bias in outcomes within the police, courts and prison and probation services.
Black people are still four times more likely to be arrested and less likely to get a caution than a white person. They are more likely to be imprisoned on conviction, and black and minority ethnic groups now account for 27% of the 83,000 prison population in England and Wales.
The Justice Ministry said that, however, the police and prison services had increased the proportion of minority ethnic staff they employed, with 7% of all police officers from a minority ethnic group.
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