Benjamin Zephaniah has done all of us a great favour by refusing to accept the `honour' of the Order of the British Empire. A few weeks ago it was the footballer, Ian Wright, complaining in the Voice of racism in football and suggesting that since they had wealth and influence they should use both to ensure that they had a proper place in society. This is a symptom of the fact that Blair has no intention of allowing equality for ethnic minorities. Mrs Lawrence is quite right to claim that the impetus of Institutional Racism given by the death of Stephen her son has worn off and Equal Opportunities is something that everyone now pays lipservice to, but now you never know whether you are talking to a genuine anti-racist or a humbug. In a separate document we will be discussing all the sorts of people in Wolverhampton who closed Bilston Community College, the first multicultural College in Britain and who now claim to be anti-racists, although they are not the solution but part of the problem.
Fortunately the Chair of the Commission for Racial Equality understands that there are fair numbers of ethnic minority people who feather their own nests and betray their own nation. We are following the example of the USA where black people are no nearer equality than they were in 1860.
Who am I, a white person, to say this? Well, black and white will both have their reasons for opposing imperialism and each will have their own standards of integrity. Mine are that when I came to Wolverhampton in 1956 and became secretary of the Communist Party, the police took out a dossier about me. This is the only sort of honour I will accept from a capitalist state. Also in 1943 as a young soldier supporting the call for a Second Front to support the Russians ( who then were `tearing the guts out of the German army', virtually alone) during the war, the only thing the army authorities could think of doing with me was to send me to Burma and India, where I fought not only against Japanese fascism, but against racism in the British army. I suggest that a present day case of true integrity is Michael Moore who opposes US imperialism and whose Stupid White Men are to be found in Wolverhampton as well as the USA.
At a time when everything set up to benefit ethnic minority people is being hijacked by Blairites, it is a life and death question that the level of opposition should be raised to that pioneered by Ben which questions not only the motives of many white people who claim to be anti-racists but are only in it to benefit themselves, but also the motive and understanding of many black people who do not support the radical changes which are now essential if we are to move beyond the level of `institutional racism'.
The essential characteristic of British racism is its hypocrisy as Chanu begins to realise in Monica Ali's book Brick Lane, when after many years believing his amiable and polite employer will promote him because he has qualifications he at last realises, this white man has no intention of promoting a Bengali.
Another example is the daily array of commanders and diplomats who are paraded before us on the TV and present with such assurance a case of seeming reasonableness that puts the Americans to shame; their only response to any attack is to demolish another village. The appearance of reasonableness, however, reflects the practice of British imperialism, the most experienced in the world.
The last straw is the new organisation intended to replace the Commission for Racial Equality which also deals with five or six other issues. All very worthy, but the main aim is to make more difficult the representation of Race. If Blair gets away with this racism in Britain will revert to the pre-Stephen Lawrence position.