Black Lives Matter: Will Britain change? Hard facts laid bare in Race And Revolution TV show – Sky News

The premise was simple: An hour-long TV show to examine whether - after the killing of George Floyd, all those toppled statues and tensions on the streets of major cities - anything has really changed for black people in Britain over the last six months.

The idea for a second Race And Revolution show actually followed the airing of another TV show on another channel - the Black Lives Matter-inspired dance performance on Britain's Got Talent that prompted 24,000 complaints.

Ofcom did not investigate, but the fallout begged the question: What does the fury the performance clearly roused tell us about attitudes to racial inequality in the UK?

Race and Revolution was not designed to produce a definitive answer, or as something to quote on the same social media feeds that were plastered with black squares at the start of June.

But anyone watching will have seen and heard some harsh truths being laid bare. These are some of the key takeaways:

1. When a Christmas advert can provoke a racist response, there is still more to be done

Audience member Jannett Walker pointed out that it is still not the "norm" to see black families on TV - and that until it starts to happen, we will not see a change in attitudes.

She referenced a Sainsbury's Christmas advert which featured a black family and sparked a negative backlash on social media, with one user writing: "Where are the British people? I'm dreaming of a white Christmas."

Panel member Patrick Hutchinson, who went viral when he carried a far-right protester to safety, said it "beggars belief" how people could find the advert distasteful.

A black father himself, he said he had enjoyed seeing a family much like his own represented.

Chi-Chi Nwanoku, founder of Chineke! orchestra, said she believed racist attitudes were "passed down from parents through generations".

"It's just alarming and distressing to think that still the visual aspect of anyone and anything goes before even hearing a single word from anybody," she said.

2. Social media means we have never known so much about what is happening - but there is also a dark side

As the Black Lives Matter movement picked up momentum again this year, many people were taking part in "social media activism" - with thousands posting black squares on their Instagram pages for "Blackout Tuesday".

But audience member Zen Addai asked whether the rise of social media activism trivialises issues of race.

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Lord Simon Woolley, the founder of Operation Black Vote, said social media has allowed people to know more about what is going on than ever before.

"We've never had such a conversation about our history," he said, referencing how people were able to see protests and the toppling of imperialist statues.

But criminal barrister Alexandra Wilson, who was mistaken for a defendant three times in one day, said she believed there was a "dark side" to social media.

"Social media now provides this platform where you can hide behind a screen," she said.

Ms Wilson said she had personally experienced abuse on social media from anonymous bots.

3. Damning statistics

Some of the numbers produced on the show were stark: Black women are five times more likely to die during childbirth and four times more likely to be the subject of a mental health detention; they occupy just 1.5% of top management jobs and, shockingly, only six FTSE 100 companies and two FTSE 250 companies have signed up to a Confederation of British Industry (CBI) call for UK firms to appoint one non-white board member by 2021.

And we know now that these inequalities, which has always been a reality for black people in the UK and beyond, are even more profound during a pandemic.

4. The shame of UK sport

The players may take the knee before every Premier League game, but football, our national game, still has so much to do.

It's a fact that the Premier League does not have a single black owner, chairperson or chief executive - it is a fact too that there is only one black board member in the entire English Football League.

The picture is replicated in the women's game. England international Lianne Sanderson was asked for the show if anything had changed since George Floyd's death almost six months ago to the day.

"Companies, teams, are now thinking hold on a minute, we're not really giving equal opportunity here," she said.

"One thing that really stands out for me is the lack of black players and ethnic minority players in the women's top league.

"We have to look at why that is the case. I think sometimes there's a combination of things. I think sometimes people do know, sometimes there's subconscious systematic racism, sometimes it's ignorance.

"I've definitely seen a lot more people that have woken up during this time which is fantastic to see and we must continue the conversation."

But this problem is not just confined to football.

5. Without visible protests, black people fear nothing will change

The Black Lives Matter movement was born out of police brutality in the United States, and with vast inequalities remaining in the UK's own criminal justice system, the show got the view of one of the country's most senior black police officers, Detective Chief Inspector Karen Geddes. Does she see change happening within the force?

"We are still underrepresented within policing around recruitment, there's still a disproportionality around stop and search - that's not going to go away in six months," she told the programme.

"There's been some change in regards to how I feel as a senior officer.

"What I've noticed is there's more acceptance there is a problem and acknowledgment and a willingness to talk about race.

"But the danger is when you don't see the protests, you don't see the statues falling, we lose that visible message and then we go back to that position of comfort.

"So it's important we continue that conversation and it's important we generate the energy for change because otherwise we go back.

"My fear is we go back and in 10 years' time we're discussing the same question about what concrete changes have been made."

6. Black university students can expect lower pay and fewer prospects

Black people seem to face barriers in all areas of their lives, and some say the education system is inherently racist.

Melz Owusu has managed to get into one of the UK's top universities, Oxford, but says they "feel like I don't belong here".

"I studied philosophy and politics as my first degree [at Leeds University], and in my entire three years studying, I never once read somebody that wasn't white in the philosophy side of my degree," they said.

"I'd flick a page and they're saying black people are less than human, like literally. If I'm reading Kant in philosophy, like Kant's in every single philosophy degree across the country, all you have to do is flick a page and you'll be met with ideas about yourself, about your humanity that are fundamentally harmful."

The problems continue even after graduation.

Department of Education figures show that, five years after graduating, white people are on higher average wages and are more likely than their black counterparts to be in sustained employment or further education.

7. Beyond this, black people say they aren't seeing much change in the workplace

When presenter Gillian Joseph asked how many audience members had noticed change at their places of work in the last six months, less than a third put their hands up.

One of them, Asher Prower, wanted to know whether we might see companies reporting their ethnicity pay gaps, as they now have to for their gender pay gap.

While Ms Nwanoku said she had not experienced such issues in the entertainment industry, Mr Hutchinson said he had personal experience of being paid less than his colleagues.

"I would say definitely when I was working in the City, I used to have discussions with my work colleagues regularly and on several occasions I found I was paid less, along with some of my Asian colleagues," he said.

"It definitely exists, it's not a fantasy."

So has Britain changed? We will give the last word to Patrick Hutchinson, whose life turned upside down after a now-iconic image of the Black Lives Matter supporter carrying a rival protester to safety during violent clashes in London went viral.

Half a year on from the death of George Floyd in Minneapolis and the global rallies that followed, Patrick said that many people are yet to accept the level of systemic racism and unconscious bias in society.

He said: "Have things changed? I know there are a lot of things that haven't, and we still feel like there's been no change, but in all honesty there has been change - because I don't watch out and out racism on the TV anymore."

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Giving examples, Patrick mentioned 1970s sitcoms Love Thy Neighbour and Til Death Us Do Part, featuring the fictional character Alf Garnett, saying "just watching it on YouTube, going back and looking these things up on YouTube, you just can't believe this stuff was on TV".

"Back then, things were really, really overtly racist," he said. "And you heard the N-word and the P-word against Asian people almost every single day out of children's mouths when playing out, and from their parents - things like that don't happen anymore.

"So the overt racism has really, really died down, although it still exists in pockets. But it's the covert racism now that we're having to deal with, the stuff that's embedded and systemic, and that's embedded in our society. That's what we're fighting now.

"But I do believe eventually we will get there.

"How long it will take, who knows."

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Black Lives Matter: Will Britain change? Hard facts laid bare in Race And Revolution TV show - Sky News