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‘Why must black people be the ones to integrate?’

Ex-race group boss clashes with successor over ‘one-way process’


Lord Ouseley (left) with Lionel Morrison at Monday’s lecture


Trevor Phillips

THE warning by Commission for Racial Equality chief Trevor Phillips that Britain is spiralling towards racial segregation came under fire in Islington this week – from his predecessor.
Lord Herman Ouseley dismissed Mr Phillips’ fears on Monday, claiming that it was one-sided to put the onus on integration on black people.
He told a packed audience at the Guardian and Observer archives centre in Farrington Road: “We hear about the all-black schools and the all-faith schools, but the majority of schools in this country are all-white – is that a problem? Is this a one-way process?
He added: “I haven’t heard the chair of the CRE say to the Protestants in Northern Ireland ‘you’ve got to integrate’ or to the Chinese they have to get out of Chinatown.
“But I have heard that black people had better get out of their ghettos and integrate.
In a call for action following the July 7 bombings, Mr Philips warned last month that 100 years from now “we could end up living in a Britain of passively co-existing ethnic and religious communities, eyeing each other defensively over the fences of our differences”.
Lord Ouseley was introduced by Lionel Morrison, of the National Union of Journalists ethics council, at the Guardian’s annual Claudia Jones memorial lecture, this year on Segregation and Integration.
The peer, who chairs the Kick it Out campaign fighting racism in football, said terms like “diversity” and “multiculturalism” were clouding a deeper issue, having almost erased the word “racism” from what he believed was still a racist society. Ghettos were still associated with non-white communities, he pointed out.
Lord Ouseley also disputed Work and Pensions Minister Margaret Hodge’s assertion that the deepest racism comes from the poorest whites. He claimed the underlying problem lay with the middle classes – those with the power.
He said: “Those who have least have the most resentment and who do they blame for their circumstances? Others who have little or less. What power do they have?
“It’s still those people who make the decisions that are the most racist.”
Lord Ouseley criticised the media for helping to perpetuate racist attitudes, as was apparent in recent “sensationalist and aggressive” reporting of the numbers of asylum seekers expected to “flood” to Britain. Calling on journalists to show a greater sense of responsibility, he said: “We are all driven by fear of the unknown. That is the heart of the problem.
“For many in the media it doesn’t much matter whether what they write is lies.”



Get to work on your tannin

BORDEAUX winemakers – long regarded as the world’s greatest – are in trouble. Government health campaigns and strict enforcement of French drink driving laws are causing a dramatic decrease in French wine consumption.
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It all comes down to cash

AFTER confessing to not being able to swim the other week, I was deluged with offers of help.
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