We should not be surprised by the UK race riots

Throughout the 1960s, ’70s and ’80s, a lot of UK culture was based on what many saw as a “harmless bit of fun.”

But maybe we should pay more attention to this so-called harmless fun and ask ourselves if it is merely a coincidence that the people recently rioting in the streets of England and Northern Ireland are the same people who grew up laughing at jokes about Irishmen or fictitious black men called “Chalky” on television?

The riots are not typical of everyday life in Britain, but they should not have come as a surprise.

There now seems to be a lull in the most recent unrest to have hit British streets, as hundreds of extreme right-wing rioters are hauled into court, with many receiving lengthy prison sentences.

But the underlying current of everyday racism in Britain will likely continue.

Historically, English jokes about “an Englishman, Irishman and Scotsman” were 10-a-penny — with the Irishman inevitably the butt of the gag.

Prime-time viewing included comedy shows with white people mocking just about every nationality and culture but their own.

If you took offense, you were told to “lighten up, it’s just a joke.”

And, for many, this seemed reasonable — after all, seemingly “no one was hurt,” not physically at least.

Even as people began to recognize the negative connotations of such language, it was dismissed as “casual racism,” as if it were somehow acceptable.

This is not a new concept that can be simply written off as “woke.”

Back in September 2014, The Conversation website explained that referring to certain experiences of racism as “casual” diminished their importance.

“‘Casual’ suggests ‘irregular,’ which is inaccurate and also implies we need not take this type of racism too seriously,” the website said.

The Financial Times newspaper reported in June 2020 that a YouGov poll of black, Asian and minority ethnic Britons surveyed in the same month found that two-thirds of black Britons had had a racial slur directly used against them or had people make assumptions about their behavior based on their race.

Again, it was hardly surprising given that jars of jam had gollywogs on the label, while on television “The Black and White Minstrel Show” and its song-and-dance troupe featured white men with their faces blacked up.

Intended or not, in all aspects of culture, racism was effectively both directly and indirectly encouraged.

People in London subjected to racial abuse were also less inclined to report their experiences, while the capital’s Metropolitan Police force was found to be institutionally racist, with examples dating as far back as the 1970s — and it didn’t stop there.

In March 2023, UK national daily The Guardian cited a report by Dame Louise Casey, which described the Metropolitan Police as “broken and rotten, suffering collapsing public trust and is guilty of institutional racism, misogyny”.

In her report, she placed the primary blame on the force’s past leadership, saying that public respect had reached a low point, with those Londoners holding no confidence in the force outnumbering those who did.

The report quoted Casey as saying: “The Met has yet to free itself of institutional racism. Public consent is broken.”

The underlying current of everyday racism will likely continue

Peter Harrison

However, the racism does not stop there — throughout British society there remains a disproportionately low number of non-white people in positions of power.

In 2022, the Chartered Management Institute found that 71 percent of employees from a black background reported feeling overlooked for opportunities because of their identity.

Populations of Britain’s small towns are largely white compared with those of the country’s major cities.

A 2017 study revealed that just 2 percent of Britain’s black population lived in the UK countryside — those that did spoke of receiving strange looks, and were often asked where they were from or “really” from when they described themselves as British.

But, as history has shown us, migrants and their descendants will continue to bear the brunt of hate crimes and bullying in all aspects of life.

Statistics will be ignored, and any failure in the country’s economy will be put down to an unproven takeover by nonexistent waves of foreigners.

Supposedly well-educated people will continue to complain of an increase in foreign accents despite living in cities such as London, Birmingham and Nottingham that historically have had mixed-race populations for decades.

People will forget history and how in the 1950s thousands of people from South Asia and of Afro-Caribbean origin were encouraged to come to Britain to help rebuild the country, earn their fortune and then leave.

Of course, there was no fortune, but these people made the best of a bad lot and stayed, building themselves a life in the UK while they continued to work — contributing to society.

People forget that many of the world’s problems are the long-term outcomes of decisions made in the past, by former empires that created nations and redrew borders.

These same people will ask why those fleeing war in their own countries have to “come here.”

Economic failings will continue to be blamed on those who allegedly stole other people’s jobs. And the country will seem to ignore the apparent damage caused by Brexit and years of economic mismanagement by predominantly white politicians.

The recent race riots in Britain are not a one-off — they were big, but not an isolated incident.

As long as politicians continue to play the migrant card in order to appease the masses, the real issues within British society will not be addressed and, instead, people who dare speak out about generalizing and so-called passive racism will continue to be told to “lighten up” or worse.

• Peter Harrison is a senior editor at Arab News in the Dubai office. He has covered the Middle East for more than a decade. X: @PhotoPJHarrison