Category Archives: Race

RAF proposal to move Dambusters dog’s grave rejected

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West Lindsey council votes down proposal to relocate dog, named after a racial slur, to Norfolk airbase

Councillors have rejected proposals to exhume and relocate a dog buried at the former base of the Dambusters put forward amid concerns about the suitability of the grave’s location once the site is repurposed as accommodation for asylum seekers.

During an extraordinary planning meeting on Wednesday evening, West Lindsey district councillors unanimously voted down an application by RAF Heritage to relocate the dog to an airbase in Norfolk.

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Industrial Revolution iron method ‘was taken from Jamaica by Briton’

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Wrought iron process that drove UK success was appropriated from black metallurgists, records suggest

An innovation that propelled Britain to become the world’s leading iron exporter during the Industrial Revolution was appropriated from an 18th-century Jamaican foundry, historical records suggest.

The Cort process, which allowed wrought iron to be mass-produced from scrap iron for the first time, has long been attributed to the British financier turned ironmaster Henry Cort. It helped launch Britain as an economic superpower and transformed the face of the country with “iron palaces”, including Crystal Palace, Kew Gardens’ Temperate House and the arches at St Pancras train station.

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Rise in racist abuse against Sadiq Khan linked to London clean air zone expansion

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Study by Greater London authority finds mayor has received over 300,000 pieces of racist abuse since being elected

Sadiq Khan has received more than 300,000 pieces of openly racist or racially-oriented abuse on social media since he was elected London mayor, with a recent surge in such messages connected to his plan to expand the city’s clean air zone, research has found.

The study, carried out by the Greater London authority, found that racist abuse against the Labour mayor, which peaked when he was targeted on Twitter by Donald Trump, has started to rise again this year.

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‘We are seen as less human’: inside Marseille’s districts abandoned by the police

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In 2021 Emmanuel Macron promised victims of the city’s drug crime he would help. Grieving residents tell how he failed them

Inside, Emmanuel Macron was sharing a typically polished vision of a rejuvenated, safer Marseille. Yet it was outside the spruced-up gym in the impoverished Busserine district - tensions building on the hottest day of the year – where the real story was playing out.

Little more than 12 hours before the police killing of a 17-year-old boy 500 miles north in Nanterre would convulse the country, scores of officers clutching assault rifles and bulletproof riot shields clashed with teenagers of north African descent, trading insults as officers profiled potential troublemakers.

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Supreme court leaves intact Mississippi law disenfranchising Black voters

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Court turns away case on law implemented over a century ago with explicit goal of preventing Black people from voting

The US supreme court turned away a case on Friday challenging Mississippi’s rules around voting rights for people with felony convictions, leaving intact a policy implemented more than a century ago with the explicit goal of preventing Black people from voting.

Those convicted of any one of 23 specific felonies in Mississippi permanently lose the right to vote. The list is rooted in the state’s 1890 constitutional convention, where delegates chose disenfranchising crimes that they believed Black people were more likely to commit. “We came here to exclude the negro. Nothing short of this will answer,” the president of the convention said at the time. The crimes, which include bribery, theft, carjacking, bigamy and timber larceny, have remained largely the same since then; Mississippi voters amended it remove burglary in 1950 and added murder and rape in 1968.

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France riots: Macron urges parents to keep teenagers at home

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Government struggles to contain continuing unrest after police shooting of teenager in Paris suburb

• French riots – latest updates

Emmanuel Macron has urged parents to keep teenagers at home as France’s government said it was reviewing “all options” to contain escalating violence after three nights of rioting sparked by the fatal police shooting of a teenager at a traffic stop.

Promising additional security forces would be deployed on Friday night, Macron, who left an EU summit in Brussels early to attend a crisis cabinet meeting, appealed to “the responsibility of mothers and fathers” and said it was not the job of the French republic to take their place.

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Hundreds arrested in France on fourth night of unrest as reinforcements sent to Marseille – as it happened

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Nationwide ban on bus and tram services follows violence triggered by the fatal shooting of a 17-year-old on Tuesday. This blog is now closed

An ambulance driver was filmed berating police after Nahel’s death. In the video, which has circulated widely online, he shouted at officers:

He’s 17, you see he has a baby face. For a driving licence offence. For a driving licence offence, brother. I know the lad, I watched him grow up. His mother brought him up all alone, his dad left. She’s going to bury her son. For a driving licence offence.

You’re going to see how it goes tonight. Everyone’s sleeping right now – you’re going to see how Nanterre awakens.

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California’s first-in-nation reparations taskforce releases final report

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The 1,100-page document details examples of discrimination and recommends how to address the harms of chattel slavery

California’s first-in-the-nation reparations taskforce released its final report with recommendations for how the state should atone for its history of racial violence and discrimination against Black residents on Thursday.

This document, which could serve as a national model for how governments can attempt to right the wrongs of the past, marks the end of a nearly three-year effort that began in the wake of George Floyd’s murder and the ensuing reckoning around systemic racism and anti-Blackness in the US.

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France police shooting: violence erupts for a third consecutive night

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Police fire teargas at rioters as 6,000 march through Nanterre to protest against shooting of 17-year-old

Violence has erupted for a third consecutive night in France as Emmanuel Macron struggles to contain mounting anger after the fatal police shooting of a 17-year-old boy of north African descent during a traffic stop in a Paris suburb.

The officer concerned was charged with voluntary homicide on Thursday and placed in provisional detention in the capital as an estimated 6,000 people marched through the streets of Nanterre in memory of the teenager, identified as Nahel M.

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‘This is not a normal court’: Joe Biden condemns affirmative action ruling

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President says he will ask education department to look into ways to maintain student diversity as race-conscious admissions ends

Joe Biden slammed the US supreme court on Thursday as “not a normal court” after it ruled to end race-conscious admissions at universities across the country, and he announced he will ask the Department of Education to look into ways to maintain student diversity in higher education.

“The court has effectively ended affirmative action in college admissions and I strongly, strongly disagree with the court’s decision,” the US president said in a short speech at the White House scheduled specifically for him to react to the decision.

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‘There’s so much anger’: France braces for more rioting over police shooting

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Killing of 17-year-old in Nanterre has triggered nights of clashes and politicians fear unrest will spread

Amid the twisted and smouldering carcasses of burned-out cars, the stench of melted tarmac and smoke-blackened buildings, French housing estates were braced for more nights of rioting and soul-searching on fractured race relations and deep distrust of the police.

“There’s so much anger,” said Chakir, a 21-year-old youth worker, who had been awake until 5am on the streets of his housing estate in Roubaix, northern France, where more than 100 young people had lit firework rockets with cigarette lighters and thrown them at lines of riot police. They were protesting after the death of a 17-year-old boy, Nahel, of Algerian background, who was shot dead at close range by police at a traffic stop in Nanterre, west of Paris, on Tuesday.

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Idris Elba: racist backlash made speculation over James Bond ‘disgusting’

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Star of The Wire and Luther says playing 007 would be the pinnacle of an actor’s career, but the discussion became ‘off-putting’

Idris Elba has said that the racist backlash to the prospect of him being cast as James Bond “made the whole thing disgusting and off-putting”.

Elba was speaking on the SmartLess podcast about the continued speculation linking him to the role, saying: “I was super complimented for a long time about this. We’re all actors and we understand that role is one of those coveted [roles] … Being asked to be James Bond [would be] like: ‘OK, you’ve sort of reached the pinnacle’. That’s one of those things the whole world has a vote in.”

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‘Highly unusual’: lost 17th-century portrait of black and white women as equals saved for UK

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Exclusive: Unknown artwork was barred from leaving the UK after surfacing at an auction in 2021

A painting has been saved for the UK in recognition of its “outstanding significance” for the study of race and gender in 17th-century Britain, it will be announced on Friday.

The anonymous artist’s portrait of two women – one black and one white, depicted as companions and equals with similar dress, hair and jewellery – has been bought by Compton Verney, an award-winning gallery in Warwickshire.

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Australia’s eSafety umpire issues legal warning to Twitter amid rise in online hate

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Julie Inman Grant says platform has ‘dropped the ball’ on tackling ‘peddlers of outrage’

Australia’s eSafety commissioner says Twitter has “dropped the ball” on tackling online hate and has issued a legal notice to the social media giant demanding an explanation about what it is doing about the scourge.

The commissioner, Julie Inman Grant, said there have been more complaints about online hate on Twitter in the past year than any other platform, and complaints have spiked since Elon Musk’s takeover of the company in October.

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Fitzwilliam Museum in Cambridge explores founder’s slavery links

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Historic and contemporary pieces interrogate city and university’s connections to colonialism

An exhibition by the Fitzwilliam Museum will explore Cambridge’s connections to enslavement and exploitation for the first time, both in the university and the city.

Black Atlantic: Power, People, Resistance features works made in west Africa, the Caribbean, South America and Europe, and interrogates the ways Atlantic enslavement and the Black Atlantic shaped the University of Cambridge’s collections.

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Avon and Somerset police chief admits force is institutionally racist

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Sarah Crew also says force is ‘likely’ to be treating LGBTQ+ people, women and disabled people unfairly

The chief constable of Avon and Somerset police has admitted her force is “institutionally racist” and “likely” to be treating LGBTQ+ people, women and disabled people unfairly.

Sarah Crew said she was determined to fight an unjust system and would “root out” officers proved to be racist or behaving in a discriminatory way, and said she was not motivated by “wokeism or political correctness” but by “common sense”.

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Obama criticizes GOP hopefuls Nikki Haley and Tim Scott over racism stances

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Former president notes tendency among Republican candidates to gloss over effects of racism, prompting pushback from both

Barack Obama has criticized two Republican presidential hopefuls, the South Carolina senator Tim Scott and the former UN ambassador Nikki Haley, over their stances on race relations in America.

On a podcast interview, Obama, who became the first Black US president when he was elected in 2008, said that while presenting a hopeful message on race relations was important, “that has to be undergirded with an honest accounting of our past and our present”.

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Greg Abbott signs law banning diversity offices in Texas higher education

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The governor signed the bill prohibiting diversity, equity and inclusion offices in addition to another codifying tenure restrictions

Texas’s Republican governor, Greg Abbott, has signed a bill that will ban diversity, equity and inclusion (DEI) offices and initiatives across higher education institutions in the state.

Under SB 17, DEI offices across state colleges will close starting in January 2024 and activities that seek to promote certain groups of individuals over others based on race, ethnicity and gender will also come to an end.

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Romania recalls ambassador who allegedly compared monkey to African diplomats

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UN’s Africa group ‘not prepared to participate’ with Dragos Viorel Tigau after alleged comment in Kenya

The Africa group within the United Nations said it would never work again with the Romanian ambassador to Kenya in certain forums after he allegedly compared them to a monkey while attending a meeting in Nairobi.

The group also demanded an unconditional and public apology to the people of Africa.

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UK business leader diversity has not increased since George Floyd death

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Nearly 70% of office workers say their firms have not increased number of black, Asian or ethnic minority leaders

The number of senior business leaders from ethnically diverse backgrounds has not significantly increased since the death of George Floyd sparked global protests and $50bn (£40bn) of corporate pledges to address racial inequality in the workplace.

Three years on from the killing of Floyd at the hands of US police officers, which prompted chief executives including Apple’s Tim Cook and David Solomon of Goldman Sachs to declare that leaders also need to do more to address racial disparities in their own companies, nearly 70% of office workers say their firms have not increased the number of black, Asian or ethnic minority leaders.

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