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Politics
Strategy
for a Black Agenda
Public
leaders and academics must collaborate in saving black communities
Outposts
of Africa and the Caribbean are everywhere in Europe after massive mid-twentieth
century worker migrations. In Britain, where race barriers have crystallised,
a giant failure syndrome frustrates black advancement. Black leaders
have no real program for change, and black academics show no rage or
passion in affirming black humanity. The truth is they have lost the
ability to imagine a better future.
How,
then, are beleaguered black communities in Britain to survive and succeed
in the 21st century? Surely, the answer must lie in forging new leadership
goals.
Enhancing
black progress
No
black leader in the public realm - whether in parliament and government,
town council chambers or quangos - can remain insulated from the search
for solutions to racial problems.
To
be strong, proud and effective, black leaders will need to promote a
range of policies that enhance black progress. Building up a supportive
critical mass of intellectuals and information is essential.
The
momentum behind this idea is unstoppable. It began with a veritable
revolution in policy thought and practice. The trigger was the 1989
inaugural seminar in London of the Parliamentary Black Caucus organised
by the new black MPs Diane Abbott, Bernie Grant and Keith Vaz, and Lord
David Pitt. Allied with them were the US Congressional Black Caucus
led by Congressman Ronald Dellums and the presidents of major US organisations
of black elected officials.
One
thousand delegates from around the UK, and from different political
and educational backgrounds, voiced their views and grievances. "Agendas
for black advancement" in education, politics and economic development,
and international affairs were debated.
"Our
formation is a vital development in ensuring the political representation
of black people at national and international levels," said Bernie Grant
MP for Tottenham, "For far too long the black community has had no voice
in Britain and we are seeking to redress that".
A
year later, intellectuals and researchers rallied to this view. Forty
Black British, African Caribbean and Asian, academics, local activists
and politicians came together at an unprecedented series of meetings
in London and the University of Warwick. They aimed at common agreement
on research action for policy solutions to pressing social and political
problems.
Strategy
for a black agenda
From these
unique beginnings one can perceive the outline of a strategy for a black
agenda. It is based on the collaborative efforts of policy makers and
intellectuals, with the participation of the black communities they
seek to serve.
Mapping
the agenda is the first step. This task outlines what must be done to
aid a deeply distressed populace in all the areas of their concern.
Work
and social class
- Employment:
to find creative remedies to reverse the bleak trends in black unemployment,
to integrate the workplace and to reduce the growing racial disparities
in employment.
- Education:
to shift the focus from the supposed deficiencies of minority children
to addressing the institutional barriers to academic progress, at
all levels of the educational system.
Material
conditions of life
- Housing:
to support beneficial regeneration of down-trodden areas with large
black concentrations through links with community aspirations, requirements
and priorities, and to address the policy implications of the shortage
of affordable, decent homes for lower income groups.
- Health:
to expand and integrate provision for the needs of black people
in the training, planning and delivery of health services.
Politics
and governance
- Participation:
to increase black representation in councils of goverment, industry,
trades unions and political parties, and in the running and planning
of public services agencies.
- Urban
Renewal and Development: to link urban resource investments by government
and corporate Britain with statutory equal opportunity and affirmative
action practices.
- Budget
Allocations: to gain advantage from census-related urban financing,
and to take steps to reduce the impact of under-counting of blacks
and ethnic minorities.
- Movement
of Peoples: to continually review discriminatory aspects of immigration
policy and provisions for work and travel in "Europe without frontiers".
Crime,
law and justice
- Welfare
and Justice: to review and redress black over representation as
welfare dependants and in prisons and mental institutions, and to
pinpoint required changes in the legal profession, probation service,
judiciary and magistracy.
- Racial
violence: to examine and recommend solutions to the prevention of
racially motivated crimes against black people.
Arts
and enterprise
- Arts:
to advocate the management and control of black cultural reproduction
in literature, the arts, media, journalism, entertainment, leisure
and sports
- Business:
to expand the training and involvement of black enterprise in the
local and national economy, e-commerce and in exports and trade.
- Mutual
aid: to examine and promote the success of voluntary activities,
charitable appeals and fund-raising techniques within black communities.
Social
Organisation
- Institutions:
to promote organisational safeguards against Institutional Racism
and for effective race relations policies; to strengthen black-led
institutions in education, welfare, religion and political affairs,
and to harness cultural pride and moral conviction with the attainment
of collective secular goals.
Establishing
a black policy centre
Secondly, promoting strategic thinking about agenda solutions is a task
that can be spearheaded by a black-led policy centre. The centre, appropriately
located, staffed and funded, would compile a State of Black Britain
report on the lives, livelihood and living conditions of black people.
Further activities would include creating a register of black academics
and leaders in the public realm; encouraging policy seminars, training
programs and information sharing; and publishing monographs and popular
reports, fact sheets and guidelines.
Together,
the agenda and the centre's activities herald important changes that
must be made in the ways black political leadership and black academics
relate to and work with each other. On the one hand, leaders in the
public realm would benefit from research information and insights that
help them in charting the direction, intensity and rapidity of positive
change. On the other hand, black scholars would explore policy-driven
issues and offer guidelines for policy action.
Bridging
two cultures
In future, there will be large questions to resolve. How to consolidate
and advance the progress already made by blacks in Britain? How to develop
life-enhancing and danger-limiting strategies to survive? How to increase
the capacity of black people to define, express, and pursue their interests
in a competitive and often hostile policy making environment?
Establishing
a strategy for a black agenda is of crucial importance in answering
these questions. With it black people everywhere will be enabled to
debate leadership accountability and open dialogues on the way forward.
Undoubtedly,
this idea, this plea, will face great obstacles. Bridging two cultures
of black politics and academia will be bitterly opposed by those who
wield power in both spheres. The ire of the bigoted and prejudiced will
be raised. Fair-minded liberals may be disquieted.
Nevertheless,
forging a strategy for a black agenda is timely. With it we can gain
early warning of the issues of the coming era, and test our genius in
resolving them. Without it we lack a compass in a sea of black despond.
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