State racism, collusion and resistance

A two-day conference discussing the pervasive nature of racism, injustice and austerity in contemporary Britain and their impact on working class communities. Saturday 13 October 2018, 9:45am – 5:15pm Sunday 14 October 2018, 9:45am – 4:45pm Speakers include: Professor Gus John (Award winning writer, campaigner and consultant) Liz Fekete (Director, Institute of Race Relations) Stafford Scott (The Monitoring Group): The Government’s

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Interrogating State Violence: Custodial Deaths, Justice and Resistance

A conference to mark the twentieth anniversary of the United Families & Friends Campaign. Friday 26 October 2018, 9am-9pm The Light, Friends House, Euston Road, London NW1 Speakers include: Janet Alder – sister of Christopher Alder who died in Hull Police Station in 1998 and who has since campaigned for justice Sherene Razack – Distinguished Professor and the Penney

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News

Calendar of racism and resistance (13 – 26 September 2018)

A fortnightly resource for anti-racist and social justice campaigns, highlighting key events in the UK and Europe. Asylum and migration 6 September: The Spanish Congress of Deputies reinstalls access to healthcare for undocumented migrants, regardless of status. (ECRE, 14 September 2018) 12 September: Despite the efforts of British Conservative MEPs, the European parliament votes to

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What is in a name? Criminalising the unworthy

How labels serve to justify and normalise the worst of the EU’s migration practices. The expansive catalogue of terminologies – refugees, displaced, migrants, asylum seekers, expelled, stateless, repatriated, returned, illegal, unauthorised, undocumented, irregular – has not, according to Tazreena Sajjad at the Global Governance, Politics and Security Program at the American University in Washington, DC,

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Solidarity with the Stansted Defendants

Day of action at Chelmsford Crown Court to express solidarity with the ‘Stansted 15’ who grounded a deportation charter flight and have been charged with a terrorism related offence. Monday 1 October 2018, 8.30am At Chelmsford Crown Court, New Street, Chelmsford, Essex, CM1 1EL   Related links Solidarity with Stansted defendants Donate to trial-related costs here  

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Comment

Empire Windrush, Notting Hill and the importance of archives

The coordinator of the IRR’s Black History Collection digs deep into the archive and shows how public opinion is constructed For reasons that are deeply contradictory, the Caribbean community in Britain has been at the forefront in media and parliamentary debate this summer. Its contribution to British society was rightly highlighted and praised in the

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News

Calendar of racism and resistance (30 August – 12 September)

A fortnightly resource for anti-racist and social justice campaigns, highlighting key events in the UK and Europe. Asylum and migration 21, 28 August: Three volunteers with the Emergency Response Center International (ECRI), including German-based Syrian refugee Sarah Mardini, are arrested on Lesbos and in Athens on charges of facilitating illegal entry for profit, having advance

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Review

Society in black and white

A review of a publication on The Stars Campaign for Interracial Friendship, which arose to combat racism after the 1958 anti-black ‘riots’. What a welcome job of historical recovery this pamphlet is. The community resistance to the Notting Hill and Nottingham anti-black race riots of August 1958 are well known. Much, much less well known

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Stealing C. L. R. James

One of the most influential black Marxist thinkers of the twentieth century is now being rebranded for the neoliberal era. In a very daring article in Race & Class (October 2018) New York college teacher Jonathan Scott, author of Socialist Joy in the writing of Langston Hughes, takes issue with the way that C. L.

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Comment

Anti-racism and progressive values

Below we reproduce the speech given by human rights lawyer Frances Webber to the meeting ‘Confronting Racism in the UK: a return to collective principles’, organised by the Monitoring Group at Conway Hall on 6 September. I very much welcome the opportunity to speak here today, because there has been a long history of progressive

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