News

Looking back to move forward

Below we reproduce a speech by Rosemary Campbell-Stephens given at the recent London Schools and the Black Child conference. ‘Greetings. It is an honour to be invited back to address the sixth London Schools and the Black Child Conference and respect is due to Diane Abbott MP for organising these conferences annually. This conference, unique

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Comment

Conference highlights exclusions

A report on the recent London Schools and the Black Child (LSBC) conference organised annually by Diane Abbott, MP. The sixth London Schools and the Black Child conference was attended by about 1,200 people at Queen Elizabeth II Conference Centre in Westminster. A sample survey indicated that about 85 per cent of the delegates were

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News

Campaign to outlaw caste discrimination in the UK

A number of groups in the UK are campaigning for the new Single Equality Bill to address caste discrimination. Caste does not just thrive in India. Caste discrimination is based in Hinduism (though it is also practised in other religions) and today, in the UK, where many South Asians have made their home, caste discrimination

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Comment

Young? British? Muslim? Listen Up!

An innovative new youth project has made itself felt in north London, challenging media stereotyping and an increasing sense of marginalisation amongst young British Muslims. The project, Young Muslim Voices (YMV), could provide a useful model of successful youth engagement for other groups of young Muslims in the UK, and young people more widely. IRR

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Comment

Refuge and fortress: a tale of two cultures

We publish below the talk by Jeremy Seabrook launching his new book on the struggles of newly arrived refugees commissioned by the Council for Assisting Refugee Academics (CARA). ‘It has been a privilege to meet a new generation of academic refugees assisted by CARA. It needed great courage for many of them to speak publicly

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Review

A new take on Michael X

A new play on Michael X provides a thought-provoking night out. I had concerns that the new play by Vanessa Walters entitled Michael X might dwell on Michael X’s rather insalubrious past as the flyer for it suggests: ‘Who was Michael X? Black Power activist and political icon? Liar, pimp, murderer?’ Michael X, the play,

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Press Release

New Black history DVD

  Four seminal Black films on Tiger Bay, Leicester, Ladbroke Grove and Southall have been reissued in a new DVD by the Institute of Race Relations. The four films, Struggles for Black Community, made for Channel 4 at the beginning of the 1980s, chart the milestones in Black people’s fight for justice – ‘race riots’

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News

‘Common Values’ campaign

Liberty, the human rights organisation, has launched a new campaign, ‘Common Values’ which aims to increase awareness and understanding of human rights issues. Coinciding with the 60th anniversary of the Universal Declaration of Human Rights and Fundamental Freedoms, the campaign hopes to bring about a renewed appreciation of and respect for the need and function

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Comment

Media hysteria around new book

A recent guide on how to deal with race equality issues with pre-school age children has been mercilessly distorted by sections of the media. Two of the UK’s experts, one Black, one White, one in the Lords, one a ‘commoner’ and both seasoned practitioners, helped produce a three hundred-plus page book on one of the

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News

Germany: ‘belief test’ for Muslim students

As university lecturers in the UK warn of the threat posed to academic freedom by government guidelines on dealing with extremism on campus, university lecturers and students in North-Rhine Westphalia are campaigning against the targeting of foreign students and academics from Muslim countries. It was recently exposed by the Frankfurter Rundschau that the interior ministry

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