Hump Day: The reports have been written, no institutional racism or sexism here

IN CASE starting the week off with George Floyd’s trial did not notify you, this may be a moment of reckoning. 

I write just as the police watchdog have decided that Sarah Everard’s vigil was handled appropriately. In response, campaigners have judged the police institutionally sexist. 

We are also on the cusp of April – the anniversary of Stephen Lawrence’s tragic death. That too, led to accusations of institutional discrimination against the police in the infamous McPherson report. At that time, the charge was racism. 

This week, Richard Okorogheye’s mum told Sky News that when she first told police about her missing nineteen year old son, she was not taken seriously. 

She said simply: “I was expecting assurance. My son was missing and it broke my heart.” 

What strikes me, is that in all these scenarios, women stood at the edges of grief unimaginable, unbearable, immense and deep. The entire premise of a police service, is that it should try to help us in these challenging moments. 

It is clear to me, that they have shown themselves incapable.

I thought perhaps this was becoming clear to others too. Not just the many black people, who may have known for longer, what it is to sense the discord between what you know to be true, and what is officially understood to be so.

I wondered if in time, this shared feeling would lead to new lines of solidarity and deeper levels of mutual understanding. 

However, the headlines from the Independent Commission on Race and Ethnic Minorities’ report made me pause. 

I should point out here that I do know who chaired the commission.

With a focus on education and employment, the committee seems to conclude that institutional racism and discrimination are not problems. Rather, the “well-meaning ‘idealism’” of young people is what’s causing the real problem. These would be the young people in the schools, and entering the workforces they’re talking about then?

My mistake. Perhaps this is not a time of reckoning, evaluating and judging. Not in the UK anyway. 

The reports are out. The conclusions seem to have been drawn. Perhaps they had long been drawn.

No racism or sexism here. 

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