Response to the recent Racist and Islamophobic violence
‘I remember the 80s, I remember growing up in Fulham. I remember coming out of Fulham Broadway train station that’s very near Chelsea football ground and I remember being faced with the National Front right outside or coming out of the nightclub getting chased Down the road By Skinheads. …. we thought that we had left that behind, and maybe that was a bit naive of me…. I think the second bit then is what about the young people that are experiencing this for the first time? you know, what about the fact that I had to tell my children that they couldn’t go out with their friends?’
Last Friday, Community Voices members came together to check in with each other and reflect on the racist and Islamophobic violence that erupted in the country—both in person and online—during the last two weeks. To us, it is clear that the racist and Islamophobic eruption has been bubbling under the surface for quite some time and fuelled by an active and persistent narrative that demonises whole faiths and communities.
While as shocking as these riots are, they are neither new nor surprising. History has shown this before, from the Notting Hill Carnival Riot to the Brixton, Toxteth, and Broadwater Farm riots of the 80s and 90s, and more recently, the 2011 Tottenham riots following the death of Mark Duggan.
What is also familiar and predictable is the response of national and local organisations, government agencies, public and private sector leaders in condemning the violence, reviewing immigration and race policies, reaffirming commitments to tackling racism and islamophobia.
While these commitments are important and welcomed, they are transactional in nature, play to organisational agenda and protect the status quo; not only that, but they also detract from the stories of people directly affected by the current violence. They deny the daily fears and anxiety that do not subside simply because the violence is no longer visible in the media and on the streets.
What Community Voices have learnt from coming together in the last few years is that we need spaces for a different type of conversation and to co-create a counter-narrative / an emerging narrative for change that his not framed through the lens of the system / status quo but develops over-time and connects to the lived experience. It is this very reason that we come together on an ongoing basis to not only challenge assumption but advocate for different types of solutions:
1. We have enough data, reports, policies, frameworks, what we need is a different starting point and new framing that embraces the richness of every day stories, experiences and offers community owned solutions. experiences and community owned solutions
2. Language is a connector and there is a disconnect between corporate and community language. We invite leaders to develop the skills to navigate between these two seamlessly, with intent and purpose and this starts with ‘how are you?’ ‘how are you feeling?’
3. These are challenging times, and our communities expect something more than gestures of support that can obscure lack of intent to take action and made difficult decisions. Our ask is for a different type of organisational and leadership competency which would go some way towards enabling us all to feel safe in our homes, our neighbourhood (and when we travel to other neighbourhoods) and at work. In the meantime, our Community Voices members have some very specific and immediate asks.
4. Check in with your colleagues, your neighbours, and local places of worship.
5. Create space and facilitated spaces to provide support for local people to come together to share their experiences. make talking therapies accessible and available quickly at communities and schools, particularly in emergency mobilisation. Deal with the issues quickly. Have a trained professional person in the room. Give guidance to communities as to what to do next, a set of recommendations from a trusted source.
6. Join anti-racist protests if you can but there are other ways to show support too through song, stories, and food, by volunteering, by befriending.
Finally, for those who are not familiar with Community Voices
We are a group of over thirty individuals from across Health, Care, Local Government, Community and Voluntary Organisations and Systems. We have come together to think differently about the relationship between communities and systems and to take action to address this.
We accelerated our collective effort during lockdown and in response to the disproportionate impact of COVID on our communities. We belong to communities whose voices are often unheard and mis/underrepresented, and we see it as our role to amplify their voices.
We are determined to bear witness and document for future learning – through stories and data the negative impact of institutional racism.
As well as documenting stories, we are committed to ensuring the currency and ownership of voices in those stories are treated with respect, academic integrity, and only used for the purpose it was collected with the permission of the voices, experiences and lives it represents.