“In this unfolding conundrum of life and history, there is such a thing as being too late. Procrastination is still the thief of time. We may cry out desperately for time to pause in her passage, but time is adamant to every plea and rushes on. Over the bleached bones and jumbled residues of numerous civilizations are written the pathetic words, “Too late.” There is an invisible book of life that faithfully records our vigilance or our neglect.”
This speech by Rev Dr Martin Luther King Jnr in 1967 is defined by the phrase “the fierce urgency of now”, later borrowed by Barack Obama in 2008. The message is crystal clear; failure to act now to do what is right could mean we are judged and defined forever for our lack of action. The message goes hand-in-hand with another from the great man.
“Cowardice asks the question – is it safe? Expediency asks the question – is it politic? Vanity asks the question – is it popular? But conscience asks the question – is it right? And there comes a time when one must take a position that is neither safe, nor politic, nor popular; but one must take it because it is right.”
50 years ago Dr King did what is right over the Montgomery bus boycott and was sent to jail. One month later, on 23rd June 1963, he led 125,000 people on a freedom march in Detroit and in August of the same year he delivered his iconic “I Have A Dream” speech at the Washington monument before 250,000 people.
Where others procrastinated, asking themselves whether it was safe, popular or politically expedient to stand up for the civil rights of African Americans, he led from the front and his legacy now lives on forever. Had Dr King not stood up and navigated the tightrope between being uncompromising in his demands for justice yet persuasive to the wider public and politicians we have to ask where civil rights would be today. Many would argue that the combination of bottom-up and top-down saved America from a race war despite his assassination.
If he were alive today I have no doubt he would continue to do as he did during his life; chart the progress made, instil confidence and resilience in his audience while being forthright at the continuing racial and social injustice in America, Britain and across the globe. He would still castigate the “anaemia of deeds” of politicians and would repeat his call for all of us to be dissatisfied with the status quo.
To quote another of his speeches:
“Let us be dissatisfied until America will no longer have a high blood pressure of creeds and an anaemia of deeds.
“Let us be dissatisfied until the tragic walls that separate the outer city of wealth and comfort and the inner city of poverty and despair shall be crushed by the battering rams of the forces of justice.
“Let us be dissatisfied until those that live on the outskirts of hope are brought into the metropolis of daily security. Let us be dissatisfied until slums are cast into the junk heaps of history, and every family is living in a decent sanitary home.
“Let us be dissatisfied until the dark yesterdays of segregated schools will be transformed into bright tomorrows of quality, integrated education. Let us be dissatisfied until integration is not seen as a problem but as an opportunity to participate in the beauty of diversity.
“Let us be dissatisfied until men and women, however black they may be, will be judged on the basis of the content of their character and not on the basis of the color of their skin. Let us be dissatisfied.
“Let us be dissatisfied until every state capitol houses a governor who will do justly, who will love mercy and who will walk humbly with his God.
“Let us be dissatisfied until from every city hall, justice will roll down like waters and righteousness like a mighty stream.
“Let us be dissatisfied until that day when the lion and the lamb shall lie down together and every man will sit under his own vine and fig tree and none shall be afraid. Let us be dissatisfied.”
There is every reason to be dissatisfied with race equality in Britain today where everyone has an equal right to a job but yet African and Caribbean men are twice as likely to be unemployed as their white counterparts.
There are a higher proportion of British-born Black and Asian students in universities than ever before yet they are so chronically under-represented in the Russell Group of old red brick institutions – particularly Oxford and Cambridge.
And where Black youth unemployment is running at 54 percent, almost double the rate of white youth in the same age bracket and a similar level to youth unemployment in Greece and Spain.
We are a nation where too many Black young people, including graduates, look around them and see a lack of hope, a nation where expectations are crushed, talents are untapped and the worlds of politics, finance and the law might as well be on a distant planet.
Experts like the civil servant Joe Montgomery warned us five years ago that Britain was in serious danger of losing a whole generation of BAME talent just as many of my generation who emerged into the recession-hit life of the 1980s have never recovered from the trauma of unemployment.
The great national scandal of disproportionate unemployment for Black citizens has been largely sidelined by Britain’s mainstream media and as a result is hardly on the political agenda. Which is why the launch of the Liberal Democrat Race Equality Taskforce tomorrow morning is so important.
It is a debate that cuts across party lines. The need for this debate is urgent and the cause is right. Everyone would agree that the employment gap of 16 percent between working age BAME and white people is completely unacceptable. Yet few in politics have championed this.
Everyone would agree that the pay gap – the so-called ‘ethnic penalty’ – whereby most BAME workers earn less than their white co-workers is intolerable. Yet how often is this raised on political discussion shows? Previous studies have shown that the gap persists even between workers of the same grade and qualification and amounts to tens, even thousands of pounds, less in take-home pay in a lifetime.
The previous government promised to eliminate the employment gap by 2023 yet without specific initiatives it is hardly surprising that Britain is going even backwards, as historically happens in economic downturns where workers of color are the first out the door.
As the taskforce report noted, BAME citizens are far more likely to encounter racism in the private sector, which was kept exempt from large sections of Equalities laws.
As public authorities shrink with government-imposed austerity cuts the sector where BAME workers are disproportionately concentrated are losing their jobs while the slowly-expanding private sector continues to discriminate at will.
We cannot tolerate this state of affairs any longer. We must be dissatisfied, enough to demand action as fervently as Dr King did 50 years ago.
Today Jim Crow would profess himself to be against racism. If asked he would welcome multiculturalism. But his everyday decisions to hire and fire staff are underpinned by conscious and unconscious prejudice. Who he feels ‘comfortable’ with. Who he feels will ‘fit in’ to the workplace culture. Inevitably it will be people who look like him. Diversity is for others. He fully supports the concept, but evidently not in his office.
Before the recession three quarters of white people of working age had a job compared to just 60 percent of African and Caribbean people. Now, the figures for white people are largely unchanged but for Black people it has fallen to just over 50 percent. Britain has become less equal.
That is why the taskforce, of which I am a member, is recommending that the private sector be brought fully underneath the umbrella of equalities laws, and that government uses its’ muscle to force firms to embrace equality by scoring this area highly when it comes to procurement, signing contracts with them. We recommend that the private sector monitor and publish equalities data as the public sector currently do.
Back in 2010 Nick Clegg said the Lib Dems were in the “last chance saloon” over the lack of BAME political representation. I would suggest that the party are sitting in the same drinking den over policies to tackle unequal racial outcomes. We have to deliver, and it is my sincere hope that the taskforce report – which is published tomorrow morning – will not sit on the leaders’ shelf but will be a torch that is paraded throughout Whitehall where mandarins will be ordered to turn it into action.
I began this blog with a quote from Dr King: “Over the bleached bones and jumbled residues of numerous civilizations are written the pathetic words, “Too late.” There is an invisible book of life that faithfully records our vigilance or our neglect.” With the political will change can be achieved.
It is sensible to commission a taskforce to produce a report but it takes courage and commitment to truly prioritise the need to heal the scars of a society racially-divided by figures which show just how different the Black experience is from white.
By Lester Holloway @brolezholloway
