Race equality issue every country?

 

 

 

Race equality issues

This Resource Guide provides a brief outline on legislation and good practice with reference to race equality issues.

The relevant legislation is

• the Race Relations Act 1976 (as amended)
• the Race Relations (Amendment) Act 2000 and
• the Race Relations (Northern Ireland) Order 1997 (as amended).

Race Relations legislation makes both direct and indirect discrimination on the grounds of

• race
• colour
• nationality (including citizenship) or
• ethnic or
• national origin unlawful.

The law covers people from all ethnic groups, for example Irish people, Gypsies and Travellers¹, and applies to employment, planning, housing, the provision of goods, facilities, services, and education.

The most recent legislation strengthens and extends the remit of the earlier laws. Not only do public bodies have to ensure that their policies, procedures and practices are not racist, but now they also have a positive general duty to eliminate unlawful discrimination and promote equal opportunities and good relations between people of different racial groups.

In addition, pursuant to the Race Relations Act 1976 (Amendment) Regulations 2003, racial harassment is also now regarded as a form of racial discrimination and is unlawful.

The term ‘institutional racism�?is not enshrined in law but is widely used to cover the ‘indirect�?discrimination that persists in many organisations. The Macpherson report defined ‘institutional racism�?as:

‘The collective failure of an organisation to provide an appropriate and professional service to people because of their colour, culture or ethnic origin. It can be seen or detected in processes, attitudes and behaviour which amount to discrimination through unwitting prejudice, ignorance, thoughtlessness and racist stereotyping which disadvantage minority ethnic people².�?/P>

Practical tips and information

• Be clear about why race equality matters and where you can make a difference.
• Challenge people who behave in unprofessional ways, e.g. bi-lingual people speaking in a language other than English amongst colleagues and/or patients and service users who speak only English.
• Be aware that certain training programmes, covering customs and death, birth and diet, may reinforce stereotypes such as:
• “minority ethnic groups behave in similar ways�?/LI>
• “aspects of cultures are static and do not change�?/LI>
• “staff trained in ‘cultural�?knowledge means that the health service is now culturally competent³.�?/LI>

The following web sites have detailed information on race equality issues in the context of health and medicine.

Key Web Links

General issues

Organising Medical Networked Information (OMNI) is a gateway to evaluated internet resources in health and medicine.

The Multicultural Matters website provides information on festivals and communities.

Department of Health, Social Services and Public Safety website: See Race Equality in Health and Social Care - Good Practice Guide which covers barriers, the law and good practice strategies, as well as a contact list for interpreters, religious/spiritual leaders and training.

The Northern Ireland Council for Ethnic Minorities site includes Interpreter Support Network information.

The NHS Scotland website provides a range of health promotion information in a variety of formats and languages including ‘Mrs Khan goes for breast screening�?(video in Urdu/Hindi) and a kit on nut allergies (in Arabic, Bengali, Chinese, Urdu, Hindi and English). (PDF format). (Scotland).

The London Health website provides information about health issues specific to ethnic minorities, with a UK directory of health-related self-help organisations of white and black ethnic groups (including Tamils, Greeks and Bosnians).

EthnoMed (USA) (is a comprehensive web based clinical resource covering a wide range of ethnic groups (such as Vietnamese, Ethiopian and Chinese) and medical conditions, as well as general cultural health clinical topics. Patient information on TB is available in Amharric, Russian, Somali, Spanish, Tagalong, Tigrean, Vietnamese etc.

Advocacy

The Ethnic Minority Foundation (in partnership with the King’s Fund) Health Advocacy Network was established to facilitate better access to healthcare for minority ethnic groups through the use of trained advocates, and promotes the sharing of best practice as well as organising training seminars.

Blood

The National Blood Service’s site covers discussion of blood groups in our multi-ethnic society and has four short animated films, each from the perspective of a person from a different cultural background.

Cancer

The Directory of Cancer Information is available in ethnic minority languages (2004).

The Mouth Cancer Foundation has a Patient’s Guide: ‘Chewing Tobacco, Betel Nut, Areca Nut�?/A> and includes a link to the NHS Asian Tobacco helplines (where patients can speak to an expert confidentially in their preferred language⁴).

Child protection

An NSPCC service for professionals working with members of the Asian communities who need culturally sensitive advice about child protection issues. There is a multilingual Helpline service for the UK’s Asian communities - Bengali/Syllheti, Gujarati, Hindi, Punjabi and Urdu.

The NSPCC service also has a Welsh Helpline :

Cultural competence

The Multikulti site contains information, advice, guidance and learning materials in several languages, for example, Portuguese, Gujarati, Albanian, Arabic, Bengali, French, Farsi, Spanish, English, Turkish, and patient information such as getting products that help make someone’s life easier; what is autism; post natal depression.

Ethnicity Online - Cultural Awareness in Healthcare was developed in Norfolk, Suffolk and Cambridgeshire and has some information specific to the area, such as a list of interpreters. Other material is of general use, for example good practice guidelines on hygiene, death and dying. The patient information is in Bengali/Sylheti, Farsi, Mandarin Chinese, Portuguese and Urdu.

The Northern Ireland Cultural Traditions Programme is aimed at encouraging greater understanding and cultural diversity between ‘people from the two main traditions�?

The Centre for Caribbean Health was established to improve the health and welfare of people of West Indian ancestry living in London and elsewhere in the UK. The site contains reviews of the main health conditions relevant to the African Caribbean communities in the UK, such as diabetes melllitus. It also has a list of black-led and other charities working with this community, and CHASe (Caribbean Health Alert Service) - an electronically distributed digest of recent research relating to the health of Caribbean people.

HIV and AIDs

Racism is a belief or doctrine which states that inherent biological differences between human races determine cultural or individual achievement �?with a corollary that one's own race is superior and has the right to rule others.^[1]

The term racism is sometimes used to refer to preference for one's own ethnic group (ethnocentrism),^[2] fear of foreigners (xenophobia), views or preferences against interbreeding of the races (miscegenation),^[3], and/or a generalization of a specific group of people (stereotype); regardless of any explicit belief in superiority or inferiority embedded within such views or preferences. Racism has been used in attempts to justify social discrimination, racial segregation and violence, including genocide. Politicians are known to practice Race baiting in an effort to win constituents.

The term racist, when used to describe someone who supports racism, has been a pejorative term since at least the 1940s, and the identification of a group or person as racist is nearly always controversial.

Contents [hide] 1 Definitions of racism 2 Racial discrimination 3 Academic racism 3.1 Scientific racism 4 Individual racial prejudice 4.1 Crypto-racism and aversive racism 5 Institutional racism 5.1 Nazism, Fascism and Shôwa imperialism 5.2 South Africa 5.3 United States 5.4 Uganda 5.5 United Kingdom

ref message 11

 

Thomas Jefferson made that quote but he contradicted himself for going after Burr for his attempt to steal the louisiana purchase.

 

T-Man

In GB the Prime Minister can remain in office for as long as his/her party want them as leader or as long as the electorate keep voting for them. Margaret Thatcher served for over eleven years and Tony Blair has been PM for nine years. So as an outsider it does seem a little odd that a President should be restricted to two terms, if he is popular with both the party and the voters let him stand for a third term I say.

But Mark

We have a nasty little fillip.

Unless I'm out of date, the Labour NEC (National Executive Council) has the right to ratify every MP's appointment, or deselect them. The NEC is 65% Trade Union funded. It re-selected Ken Livingstone, and de-selected the previous Labour GLC leader to give Livingstone his original seat.

Sop, no matter how Tony Blair soft-pedals the matter, the Trade unions decide which Labour PM stays.

Peter 

Ken Livingstone isn't an MP and is unlikely ever to be one again.

I know, but he was re-selected by the NEC as mayor.

As Mayoral candidate yes, but it was the voters who kept in in the job and could kick him out of it if they so desired.

He cannot hold his position without the sayso of the NEC. And the NEC can de=select any labour MP after election.

As can the grandees of the Tory party, there's no difference there. We've seen both Labour and Conservative MPs deselected over the years.

 

Not always the case. Dave Nellist was deselected in Coventry North East in favour of a New Labour man. Nellist stood under the Socialist Alliance in 2001 and came a poor fourth with 7% of the vote.

Well researched Mark.Was Socialist Alliance to the Left or Right of New Labour?

I happen to know the Coventry area well, and it's a very "conservative" Labour area. take Solihull, for example. Bit like Chester and Rugby. (Bloody good roast pork sandwiches there.)