Black Lives Matter is a political movement that started in the United States in 2013. As one of the most successful social media-led political campaigns in the world. It was only a matter of a few years before it started to mobilise people for its cause in the UK. 

In June 2020, organisers of the UK BLM set up a GoFundMe page to publicly fundraise for their efforts in response to the tragedy of George Floyd. They have since exceeded their initial target of £500,000 and have now accumulated over £1.2 million. 

Much of the public have taken appeal to their seemingly narrow efforts of trying to assure ‘social justice’ among the ‘black community’ as an effect of their title, Black Lives Matter. But, Black Lives Matter is a masquerade for its true purpose: “dismant[ling] capitalism, imperialism, white-supremacy, the patriarchy and state structures that disproportionately harm the black community”. It claims to use its roots in the “black radical tradition” to “challenge the rise of the authoritarian right-wing across the world”. Previously, their main website had also featured sentiments of “disrupt[ing] the Western-prescribed nuclear family” which have now silently been removed. 

Let’s deconstruct and fact-check their central claims on their UK GoFundMe page:

1. Black communities are hardest hit by the Coronavirus pandemic. Black people are dying at up to four times the rate of their white counterparts. This is racism.

In absolute terms, up until 9th June 2020, white people accounted for over 84% of Coronavirus deaths, the Asian community accounted for around 7% of all deaths and the black community made up around 5% of all deaths. However, if we look at these numbers proportionally and take into account factors such as age and location, according to the Office for National Statistics in May, it does seem that black communities (as well as other Black and Minority Ethnic (BAME) communities) are more likely to die from the virus than their white counterparts. So, is this racism?

No, not necessarily. The question we should really be asking ourselves here is: what factors contribute to the proportionally higher death rate of BAME/black communities and to what extent do they play a role in death-rate? Also, what evidence do we have that these death-rates are due to direct racial discrimination itself? It is important that we get a correct diagnosis of the problem in order to administer the appropriate remedy. 

However, these are complicated questions and many factors are at play here, such as pre-existing medical conditions, occupation, poverty, physical activity, obesity etc. For example, black people in the UK are more likely to be more overweight than their white counterparts which contributes to a higher risk of a serious adverse affect or death related to COVID-19. Black and South Asian communities also have higher rates of type-2 diabetes. So, finding answers to lifestyle habits and nutrition seems like a sensible avenue to investigate too. Additionally, understanding response to treatment given existing co-morbidities is, likewise, a sensible avenue to investigate. 

Asking pragmatic questions as opposed to saying “racism” allows us to discover potential impediments regarding health-care access. It allows us to look at real problems and suggest solutions, but oversimplifications of such critical problems do not. More research is needed for this reason. 

2. Black communities are decimated by the hostile environment policies, the Windrush Scandal was the tip of the iceberg. This is racism.

The Hostile Environment Policies were an immigration strategy first announced in 2012 by a Conservative-Liberal Democrat coalition government. At the time, Home Secretary, Theresa May, stated that these policies were put in place “to create a really hostile environment for illegal immigrants”. 

The reason why these policies were controversial was because of the inadvertent effects it had on the children of the Windrush generation, including incidences of wrongful deportation of such people. The Windrush generation was invited by Britain after World War II to address labour shortfalls and to help reconstruct British society in exchange for the right to permanently reside in the UK. Many of the children of the Windrush generation did not have British passports as some of them came on their parents’ passports or were, themselves, born in the UK. 

The Hostile Environment Policies wrongly assumed that all undocumented people in the UK between 2012-2015 resided here illegally, and it was only in 2017 where the Home Office realised that there was such a group of people who were undocumented, but settled here legally. A comprehensive review conducted by Wendy Williams concluded that she hadn’t uncovered any evidence to suggest a deliberate targeting of the Windrush generation by reason of their race or otherwise. But, it was an example of the ignorance and incompetence of policy-makers’ understanding of British history and a lack of consideration around the implication of such policies in an attempt to clamp down on illegal immigration.

3. Over 1700 people have died in police custody since 1990, the most violent examples being black men. Black people in the UK are more likely to be in prison than those in the US. This is racism.

There are two different arguments being made here. The first argument is that a certain amount of people have died in police custody in the UK since 1990. But, the most violent examples of these deaths included black men. The claim argues that this is racism. However, this claim doesn’t do a very good job at explaining which part of this argument it finds discriminatory. It doesn’t define what is meant by violent as well. All incidents were lethal, therefore, we ought to assume that whatever the degree of violence, violence was comparable as all cases resulted in death. Additionally, the above figure isn’t totally accurate. 1700 is the number of total deaths committed in police contact, including shootings, custody and pursuits. The real number of deaths only under police custody is around 1100 deaths. Therefore, it is unclear if these violent examples come from police custody or other means of contact for which we can compare white counterparts. 

The second argument is that since black people in the UK are more likely to be imprisoned than those in the US, this is an example of racism. It is unclear how the differences in imprisonment rate in these two countries conclude higher levels of direct discrimination or racism in the UK. In fact, it could be a pointer suggesting other factors at play, such as differences in the crimes committed, differences in attitudes towards the same crime in both countries and the locality of crime. The role of direct discrimination needs to be investigated thoroughly before any conclusions are made. Additionally, it is unclear why the BLM fundraising page chooses to use American society as a point of comparison and not other similarly functioning Western societies.

The statistic comes from a 2017 review conducted by David Lammy, and in this review, he also suggested much of the reason for the over-representation of black communities is a result of lone parenthood, school exclusion and poverty which the BLM group conveniently leaves out from their argument. Even then, a review of the Lammy Review by Citivas argued that “David Lammy’s 2017 review into the criminal justice system of England and Wales shows evidence of being overly credulous towards arguments that variation is explained by flaws in the system, rather than differences in crime rates. This is especially true given some of the substantial variation shows white suspects and criminals receiving more stringent treatment.”

Interestingly, according to the BBC, “over the last 10 years, a white individual who has been arrested was about 25% more likely to die in custody than a black individual who had been arrested.“

4. Black workers are paid up to 20% less than their white counterparts: that is the racial wage, and part of the cost of being black in Britain. This is racism.

There seems to be an appropriation of statistics by the UK BLM group to fit the narrative that they want. Previously, when speaking about health disparities pertaining to black communities, they spoke in relative terms because speaking in absolute terms would not show evidence of discrimination of the black community in the UK. However, the same relative perspective is lost in this claim because it would not fit the narrative which they wish to propel. 

The ethnicity pay gap is not to be confused with the issue of equal pay. The ethnicity pay gap uses data to calculate the difference in the mean hourly rate of pay for different ethnicity groups. Therefore, it does not take into account the types of jobs people work, sectors of employment, qualifications, holidays taken, sick leave etc. 

A recent government analysis in 2018, has shown that Chinese and Indian communities have a higher median hourly pay than their White British counterparts. This is partly explained by the type of work these groups do on average. People from Chinese and Indian communities are more likely to work in higher-paid professions and sectors, such as finance, law and medicine (i.e. doctors). So, why aren’t the Black community doing as well as other ethnic-minority communities? Black communities tend to work in public sector jobs and positions which are generally not as well paid as other professions. Self-employment is also very low among black communities, indicating less entrepreneurial activity. Finally, the ethnicity pay gap mostly diminishes when the aforementioned factors are taken into account. 

Indeed, it is also important to note a much more granular data is essential. The phrase “black community” lumps in people descended from the Caribbean with people descended from Africa, people whose family arrived in the last decade with those who arrived much earlier. It also lumps people born in the UK, with those born abroad. Such generalisations are unlikely to produce accurate conclusions.

By now, it is clear that most inequities in outcome, whether they be health inequities or financial inequities, are branded as examples of racism. If such claims were of true concern to anyone, they would also need to value the complex multivariate nature of such problems. We need real solutions to problems, but merely stating “racism” as the cause for all problems provides us very little to work with. 

Zara Qureshi