Publish details of work to tackle racism in city
I REFER to the article “Meet the politician who is leading the fight against racism and disadvantage in Leicester” published on the Leicester Mercury website on June 21.
The attention Leicester City Council is paying to issues around racism and discrimination is commendable.
However, it is cause for concern that close to two years after the city created the role of assistant mayor with responsibility for tackling racism and disadvantage, apart from the June 21 Leicester Mercury article and a few statements on the council’s website, the city still has not published a report on the work the council is doing to tackle these issues.
Not only is Leicester the most diverse city in Britain, it is also one of the most unequal cities in the country.
For example, research by the Department for Work and Pensions (DWP) shows there is a nationally significant employability gap between the city’s African heritage and white populations.
There is also a significant difference in earnings, even among Leicester City Council employees, between the city’s African heritage and white employees.
People of African heritage are also significantly underrepresented among those Leicester City Council employs.
This underrepresentation is also replicated across the private, public and third sectors in Leicester.
Among those who are unemployed and on welfare benefits, people from African, Chinese and mixed heritage backgrounds are over-represented among those job centres have been sanctioning in the city.
How do we dismantle these inequalities and the institutional racism that underpins them? How do we build a city that works for all?
It’s certainly not by doing this work in secret.
Leicester needs to have a public, open and honest conversation on the state of affairs in the city and the work that needs to be done to dismantle racism and discrimination.
Publishing regular reports on the state of affairs, the work that is being done and that which still needs to be done is a very important part of the process.
Without the reports and without the open and honest conversation, it is highly unlikely that Leicester will be able to dismantle the institutional, structural and systemic racism that bedevils the city.
Ambrose Musiyiwa, facilitator, CivicLeicester