On May 25, 2020, George Floyd was held down on the pavement, with the knee of a Minneapolis police officer pressed on his neck, for nine minutes, slowly and inhumanely ending his life. What sets this story apart from the countless other experiences shared by Black men and women in America, is that the entire ordeal was filmed and posted online, and within hours the murder of George Floyd was global news. The uproar from communities all over the world was deafening. This time, people were not going to stay at home and turn a blind eye to what they had seen. Thousands upon thousands hit the streets to protest against not only police brutality in the United States, but also to amplify the voice of the Black Lives Matter movement in an attempt to mobilize social change. All around the world, communities are coming together to fight for what they feel is right. And those protests and conversations extended all the way over to my home in England: a country with its own turbulent and disturbing history with race, through its integral role in the creation of the slave trade in 1660. In the wake of George Floyd’s death, there has been a focus on looking at yourself introspectively, checking your own white privilege, and trying to understand the role that you may play in systemic racism. As a white Briton, this is something that can be incredibly scary, but it is this fear and denial that perpetuates the racial divide in the United Kingdom.

“History is written by the winners”, is a phrase that has been taught to students in history classes for decades, and is often attributed to Winston Churchill, the Prime Minister of England during World War II; a man that is heralded by many as a hero, or “The Man Who Saved Western Civilisation”, as Forbes favourably referred to him as in a headline for an article published in 2014 (Forbes, 2014). By all standards, the majority of people in England especially will defend Winston Churchill to their death and will hear nothing but accolades when his name is mentioned. However, on June 8, 2020, during a Black Lives Matter protest in London, the statue that immortalizes Churchill was altered by a protestor who spray-painted the words “was a racist” underneath Churchill’s engraved name (Stubley, 2020). This caused uproar amongst British print media, television broadcasters, and a large section of the more ‘patriotic’ members of the British public. To truly understand the reasoning behind the alteration made to the statue means that we have to draw attention to the darker side of Churchill that many Britons choose to ignore, or simply feign ignorance towards in an attempt to protect the man that they see as a guardian angel for our nation during WW2. Furthermore, whilst it is imperative to pay credit where credit is due and accept that yes, without Churchill’s leadership, there is a very strong chance that we would not have defeated the German’s in WWII, and that had things turned out differently, I might not be writing this essay in the language that I’m currently writing it in. However, nothing in history is black and white, and the same principle has to be applied to historical figures, and that is where, in the case of Churchill, the waters start to get slightly muddy. From this emerges the argument that one of the greatest leaders our country has ever had may have also been a white supremacist. 

In 1937, Winston Churchill told the Palestine Royal Commission that he saw the colonization of “Red Indians” in America, and the similar treatment of the “Black people of Australia”, also known as Aboriginals, was nothing more than “[a] higher grade race, a more worldly wise race, [taking] their place” (Heyden, 2015). This statement, in a vacuum, is troubling as it suggests that Churchill views white people as the genetically superior race. However, when you pair this with his treatment of Indian people, or lack thereof, during the Bengal Famine in 1943, it paints a far more sinister image of the man. In 1943, India was still a ‘possession’ of Britain, and when a terrible famine hit the North-Eastern region of Bengal, due to the Japanese occupation of Burma in the year prior, the responsibility of aiding the people of Bengal fell at the feet of Winston Churchill (Radcliffe, 2017). Now, if you were to share the mindset of millions of people, where Winston Churchill is a hero, then you assume that the correct aid and support would have been offered to India, especially seeing that 2.5 million Indian soldiers fought in WWII (Khan, 2015). It is also worth noting that oftentimes, the Indian soldiers that were fighting alongside British soldiers, were largely doing so under worse conditions than the white soldiers they were standing with (Gupta, 2019). In actuality, what happened is far more sinister; instead of sending food over to one of Britain’s largest allies, Churchill instead decided to “stockpile wheat for feeding European Citizens after they were liberated” (Heyden, 2015). What this consequently meant was that 170,000 tonnes of Australian-grown wheat was withheld from a famine-stricken India and was largely reserved for whiter, liberated European countries (Biswas, 2010). Perhaps, there is an argument to be made that Churchill was stockpiling food because he was in the middle of a world war in 1943, and so, in the interest of protecting his people, he felt the need to have food reserves. From an outsider perspective, this could be seen as just one of the grim realities of war. However, troublingly, it appears as though Churchill may have placed the blame for the famine solely on the Indian people, as he claimed that “they breed like rabbits” (Heyden, 2015). Not only is the fact that Churchill seemed to blame India for the famine problematic, so too was his decision to liken Indian people to animals. In this case, ‘rabbits’ is a dehumanization that is still present in British ideology now. 

A contemporary example where this dehumanization of the ‘Other’ is present is through media personalities like Katie Hopkins. Hopkins wrote a column for a British newspaper, The Sun, in which she called the migrants who were coming over in boats from the Mediterranean trying to find refuge and work in Britain, “Cockroaches” (Hopkins, 2015). You would imagine that in today’s climate, a comment like this would mean career suicide, and whilst 200,000 complaints were filed against this article, the fallout from the entire debacle did nothing but raise her profile (Plunkett, 2015). Within a month of the article being posted, she had been given her own weekly radio show, which not only gave her an even larger platform to spread her views but seemingly, rewarding her outspoken nature, regardless of the hurtful impact it may have on thousands of people. Now, when you look at all of this information together and take into consideration that the vast majority of British people disagree with the vandalization of Churchill’s monument and that they will continue to defend him as if he was a saint, it suddenly becomes a lot easier to understand why many British minorities feel as though systemic racism is still rampant in society. Especially since many Britons still look at Churchill as nothing but a hero, despite his racist leanings and white supremacist tendencies.

The idea of racial minorities “breeding” at a high rate is still being echoed in British society today. Far right-wing activists, such as Katie Hopkins and Tommy Robinson, are staunch believers in and promoters of the great replacement theory, which is an ideology that originated in France that believes that the “[w]hite Christian, European population is being systematically replaced by non-European, non-white, Muslim immigrants”, which will, in turn, lead to white people becoming a minority in Europe (Dyer, 2019). This stems from a fear that eventually white people and white British nationalists will feel unsafe or uncomfortable in their own homes, and feel pressure to move. The irony of this statement should be obvious; however, if it isn’t, what makes this so ironic is that, for a large number of immigrants, especially to the UK, their reason to flee their own countries was for that very reason. Whether it be due to wars, famines, or political unrest, a lot of the immigrants that now live in England are here because they felt uncomfortable in their homes. What is interesting is that those same groups of society that are uncomfortable and unhappy with the numbers of immigrants moving to their country, seemingly ignore the fact that these minority groups have felt subjugated, threatened, and unsafe in predominantly white places for centuries and that the very reason that they felt the need to leave their home nation, is because of the very same feeling that right-wing advocates are complaining about now.

Now, if you decide that the irony itself is not enough to denounce the ideology that immigrants will soon no longer be a minority in Britain, then there are also more than enough statistics that can highlight how outlandish the statement is. For example, according to a 2011 census carried out by the British Government, the population of the United Kingdom is 56.1 million, and out of that 56 million, 86% are white. What this highlights is that all other ethnic minorities in the United Kingdom combined makeup just 14% of the overall population, with the largest of those minority groups being Asian (at 7%). Immediately then, it is abundantly clear that white Britons are in no way even close to being a minority in their own country, as Hopkins would like to believe. To delve deeper, it is true that between the years of 2001 and 2011, the white British population decreased from 87% to 80%; however, it is also key to notice that ethnic group that saw the largest population increase within that same time frame was ‘White Other’, meaning a Caucasian person that was not born in the United Kingdom. This group grew from making up 2.6% of the population to making up 4.4%. To put this into perspective, according to this same census, Indian and African ethnic groups make up a mere 5.4% of the total population of Britain combined. 

So, with all of this in mind, I implore you to once again to think about the great replacement theory, and understand that it is nothing but a fear-mongering tactic employed by believers in right-wing politics to incite a resentment towards ethnic minorities, such as Black and Asian, which manifests itself in the idea that, “minorities are coming to Britain and taking our jobs”. What is so interesting about this statement is that it places minorities in a lose-lose situation, where if they do not find a job, racists and xenophobes will scream from the rooftops that minorities are leeching off of state-funded benefits. However, if they do secure employment, those same people will come back with the idea that ethnic minorities are taking all of the jobs off of white British people. So, honestly, what are minority ethnic groups supposed to do to appease the racist mindsets of British people? The answer to this, I fear, does not exist, as there will always be people that choose to be ignorant of history, and to statistics. So, if we truly want to incite change, the focus now needs to be on teaching the next generation and instilling the knowledge and the tolerance that we know to be right into our children. All of this in the hope that they will then become the people that we wish we lived at the same time as.

It feels as though, as it does a lot of the time, that these same negative and racially charged rhetorics are being tossed around in Britain. Phrases like, “They’re coming over here and taking our jobs”, or “I feel out of place in my own country”, are just a couple examples of everyday racism and xenophobia that you are likely to encounter in Britain. However, there is one statement that people love to use here more than any, especially in relation to Black people, and that phrase is, “Why don’t you just go back to where you come from?” Now, if you are unaware of why this is such a ridiculous statement, you need to look no further than the Windrush Generation. For those who do not know, in 1948 ship carrying 492 passengers comprised of men, women, and children, moved to Britain to work, as Britain was facing severe labour shortages in a post-WWII climate (BBC, 2020). People from all over the Caribbean were asked to emigrate to Britain, with the first boat that made it to British shores, being mainly composed of passengers from Jamaica, Trinidad & Tobago, as well as many other islands which were all members of the British Commonwealth (BBC, 2020). 

Taken at face value, this influx of able-workers to Britain could be seen as an excellent opportunity for families in poorer nations to make money, and then send it back to support their families in their home countries. However, much like everything in history, there is a flip side and a more sinister way to look at this stage of British life. When British officials made the trips over to the Caribbean, they handed out leaflets advertising how great an opportunity immigration would be, with many people even being told that there was “gold on the streets” (Lee, 2018). When in reality, Britain was still crippled by the effects of the War, and so many parts of the country were in terrible disarray. On top of this, British officials also pushed the narrative that Jamaica, Bermuda, and Trinidad were all still in debt to Britain, as they remained members of the Commonwealth, meaning that by coming over to work, these Black immigrants were fulfilling their role as a member of the Commonwealth (Brittanica, 2020). When families finally made it to the docks in Essex, the grim reality of what they now faced became clear. The only jobs available were the ones the British people did not want to do themselves, as they saw it as beneath them. The migrants from the Commonwealth were not invited to Britain to become an equal part of society; they were invited to do the dirty work. This idea was further supported when three weeks after the first boat landed: “76 [people] had gone to work in foundries, 15 as labourers, 15 on railways, and 15 as farm workers” (Understanding Slavery, 2011). Within weeks, it became clear that the lives that were promised to the Windrush Generation did not exist: there were no streets paved with gold, just more bumps in the already never-ending road to a better life.

One of the main issues that faced what is known as ‘The Windrush Generation’, was highlighted by Sam King when he said that “[a]s we got closer to England, there was an apprehension...as to whether the boat would be allowed to dock” (Understanding Slavery, 2011). This was because there was resentment amongst the British population, as many believed that in a post-war economy, Britain was struggling to financially support the people that already lived in Britain. So the idea of inviting thousands of people from the colonies was ironically foreign to them. When the boats eventually did land, many of the people on board were subjected to vile racist abuse. With many landlords refusing to house Black immigrants, entire families that had come over to Britain with the sole purpose of trying to rebuild it after the war were left without housing (Bulman, 2018). These initial families that came to Britain, and lived largely in London, obviously had children of their own, and subsequently raised their children in Britain. So many of the 1.1% that made up the Black British population, according to the aforementioned census, are children or grandchildren or great-grandchildren of the Windrush Generation. So to now come back to the idea of “Why don’t you go back to where you came from”, levelled against countless Black communities in Britain, is laced with a deep founded ignorance to the fact that a lot of these Black families were actually invited over to Britain by the British Government, or more specifically, by Winston Churchill, the same man that many revere as a hero. So really, the people who spit that rhetoric only have their own leaders, and their heroes, to ‘blame’ for the Black population in the UK. 

Children of the Windrush Generation will continue to live and raise families in Britain, many now as citizens. However, in 2018, these families were hit with even more turbulence. When those first Black families came over to Britain, the majority were not given proper paperwork or made legal citizens (Sandhu, 2018). As a result of this, in as many as 83 cases, members of the Windrush Generation, who, once again, just to reiterate, were begged to come over to Britain to help us rebuild post-war, were deported for having insufficient paperwork to prove that they were legally allowed to live and work in this country (Agerholm, 2018). Many of those affected, had been working and living in Britain since the late 1940s and had raised families at that time. Suddenly, out of nowhere, they were told that they had no place in the country which they had helped to rebuild. The Home Secretary at the time, Amber Rudd, initially denied this but was later forced to admit that there were “targeted assisted returns” who the government was focusing on to deport members of the Windrush Generation (Hopkins & Stewart, 2018). When news of the Windrush Scandal became common knowledge, Rudd was forced to resign as an impact of the events, because she claimed that she “inadvertently misled” the government (McGuiness, 2018). For the next few years, Rudd laid low, before re-emerging in 2020, when it was announced that she had been given her own radio show in a prime time slot (Brooke, 2020). So much in the same way, as Katie Hopkins was seemingly rewarded for her comments comparing immigrants to cockroaches, Amber Rudd was so too rewarded, and so it really is no wonder that many people in Britain, including rapper Stormzy, believe that the UK is, “definitely, 100% racist”, when the perpetrators of it are given high paying roles (ITV News, 2019). Whereas Black families and communities that are affected by that very same racism are some of the most impoverished in the country, with 45% of Black Africans and 30% of Black Carribeans living under the poverty line (Kenway, 2007). 

There are, of course, other avenues that you can observe regarding racism in the UK; for example, there is an idea that racism was created by the lower, or working-class people in the country, which is untrue (Akala, 2015). Racism was in fact created by elite academics, through pseudo-political science, and perpetuated as political policy. So, when you really look at it, the Black families and communities that were being racially discriminated against in Britain post-WWII had far more in common with the working class than they ever did with the social elite. But, quite simply, it creates a much better outward persona of Britain, if we suggest that it is just the lower class that is racist. There is also a perception amongst a section of the British Public, that if you are of a lower-class background, then you also have a lower IQ than someone who was born into money. So when you pair this with the knowledge that 45% of Black Africans in the UK live under the poverty line, it suddenly becomes very difficult to not see the link between this harmful stereotype, and the often poor treatment that Black children receive during their education (Kenway, 2007). Although, regardless of whether wealth directly impacts a person’s IQ, Black students are still at a disadvantage to white people because they are often neglected in regard to their learning. For example, if you take a look at the ethnic breakdown of the attainment of the highest possible grades in exams according to the 2019 census, 46.1% of white students were able to attain that grade. In contrast, in that same year, 45% of Black students were able to attain that same grade, meaning that the difference in attainment is 1.1%: a minuscule percentage when put into context. You would imagine then, that when it came to the top universities accepting applicants, the racial disparity of whom they accepted would be relatively similar. However, the most recent reports state that only forty Black students out of  2,210 applicants to Cambridge were accepted, and, similarly, only 35 Black students out of 2,210 applicants to Oxford were accepted (Dodgson, 2017). So, if we now look at those numbers and compare them to the fact that there was only a 1.1% difference in grade attainments, the lack of Black students being accepted into the highest levels of education is troubling and must be rooted in reasoning other than the idea that they did not attain high enough grades. 

If you want to look at this in a wider context, that is also possible; assume for a second that if you accept that 45% of Black students attain the highest possible grades, and then do manage to actually get accepted into a top university, you would imagine that this would lead to a high percentage of Black people in the highest paying jobs. However, when you look at the facts, you realize swiftly that this is not the case. In fact, the Top 10 bank CEOs in the country are 100% white, the Top 10 UK Rich List is 90% white, the Top 10 newspaper editors in the UK are 100% white, and UK Court Judges are 93% white, with the Cabinet of the UK being 90% white. Now, you can debate the existence or prevalence of racism in British society all you want, but the fact of the matter is, despite relatively similar grades at school, Black citizens of the UK do not take up even a fraction of the highest paid jobs in the country, and then you have to start asking the question as to why that is. 

To stay on the topic of education, and relating that to current world events, due to the Covid-19 pandemic, the British Government took the action to close schools and cancel exams for the year, and give the students their predicted grades, as their final grades (Stewart, 2020). In principle, this may seem like the fairest option, that is until you then understand that Black students were statistically more likely to out-perform their predicted grades than their white counterparts are (Cowan, 2020). This is because the reasons for them being given lower predicted grades than their white counterparts have been attributed to social stereotypes and biases, reinforcing the idea that racism in the UK is systemic. What this ultimately means is that we are now facing yet another year of Black students being shunned from the top universities through powers out of their control. Where this becomes even more problematic is that it may lead to an entire generation of Black students missing out on opportunities due to circumstances that are completely unrelated to their academic capabilities, which will only decrease even further, the number of Black people in those top-paying jobs in the future. 

When Britons say that we are not a racist country, what they really mean is that we are not as racist as other countries, and even then, that is not true. We just exhibit racism in different ways than others. Yes, police brutality in the UK does exist, however, to say that it is as overt as these incidents that we have been seeing in the US over the past few years, would be disingenuous and disrespectful to those that have had their lives taken from them by enforcement officers. In the UK, the systematic racism that can often be found in police officers takes the shape of countless microaggressions and the knowledge that they are in an almost untouchable position when it comes to being held accountable for any potential wrongdoing. Statistically, there is more crime in the poorer areas of the country, and so in those areas, there is oftentimes a higher police presence (Drewett, 2018). And, to return to the poverty rates mentioned earlier in this piece of writing, a lot of those poorer areas are lived in by the Black British population. So, even if a Black person is treated unfairly by a police officer, the chances that victims will have the funds to launch an investigation into that wrongdoing is low, and so officers will largely get away with any act that they carry out.

Racism in the UK is shown through immortalizing people like Churchill and rewarding people like Amber Rudd or Katie Hopkins by erecting statues or by awarding those people with high paying jobs, regardless of their racist ideas, which is essentially a slap to the face of every minority group that they speak out against. Racism in the UK is families being deported after years of employment service, and building a new life in a country that they were invited to come and live in because of the shortcomings of the British Government, the same Government that then tried to cover up and deny the very existence of targeted deportation. And so, when people want to believe that racism in the UK is not as big of a problem as it is in America, they are willfully ignoring the direct role that Britain's history has in perpetuating the racist beliefs that exist within those countries. Britain is not less racist than America, we just hide ours better. 

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