C launched a campaign to smash mediately, Roy Hattersley took at Phil Murphy has now been Istrict council Labour group spective parliamentary e expulsion from the party, and re Black Section expulsions will has been blasted across excludes black people. Wednesday's (30 April) party political broadcast did not contain one black person. I read from this the assumption that there are no black people in the country. How can you look at the health service, as the broadcast did, and not even mention the double discrimination black health workers face, both as workers and users?
A further example of racism is the party's glossy, slick job Catalon itiative. I want to see a million real jobs created, but there is no mention of the steps that will be needed to ensure that black people, who are twice as likely to be unemployed as whites, have a fair share of those jobs.
These examples may seem trivial to those who argue that first we have to get a Labour government and then concentrate on the fine detail. But history and experience suggests that if we do not get these things right now they will never happen.
The GLC looked at the detail of how racism operates and did so, incidentally, by drawing on the experience and expertise of black activists. It took bold and often controversial measures racis, by first acknowledging that it exists. Some of us within the Labour Party are seeking to do the same. For our pains two have so far been disciplined and there are threats of action against others, including myself.
We have been accused of stridency and militancy but the issues are not pleasant ones to be tackled over fireside chat. Racism is a daily reality for millions of black people in this country.
We face discrimination in employment, housing and education, harrassment, violent attacks - even murder - and the separation of our families by racist immigration laws. We have not negative or bitter about this but constructive. We have come forward with concrete proposals which will overcome racism because the sops and palliatives of liberalism have not achieved enough.
Black people are in the best position to termulale postlive proposais to lackie the real issues. It is not racist for us to WISE O GO so • - indeed, specific provisions within the Relations Act emergence of the autonomous black groupings within trade unions, and most especially of the Black Section within the Labour Party, has been coupled with the appointment of the first black deputy general secretary of the TGWU, a spate of black Labour councillors elected last May, and a number of black Labour prospective parliamentary candidates chosen. some for sate Labour seats These are the material achievements of the Black Section's fight for anti-racist policies within the Labour Party. They are the livine proot of Linda Relos assertion that black people must lead the struggle against racism.
Black people have entered the organisations of the working class to fight they understood that these institutions offer women damage the party's electoral standing. Neil Kinnock claims that it is references to racism with the party that has hurt Labour. But the. opposite is the case. On the eve of the election, the right wing has demonstrated that they prefer to see Labour lose the election than witness the growth of support for black self-organisation in the party. LINDA BELLOS, in article reprinted from the Independent, elaborates why black people must lead the fight against racism. CAROL TURNER explains that recognising the influence of racism within the party is a precondition for fighting it.
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