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Trevor's At It Again
Chairman of CRE comments not helpful
Trevor Phillips, chairman of the Commission for Racial Equality (CRE) is becoming famous for making statements that rub some people up the wrong way and his latest is no different.
In a recent speech, Trevor was quoted in The Times as saying that mixed-race families 'exhibit the highest rates of lone parenthood and family breakdown, in some cases three times the average. They suffer the highest rates of drug treatment . . .Many people talk of identity stripping — children who grow up marooned between communities'.
Journalist Laura Smith voiced her concerns in this week's Guardian saying: 'It is a shame, that Phillips felt the need to repeat the well-worn theory that mixed-race individuals will inevitably face identity problems. In typical Phillips style, he even created a new hack-friendly catchphrase, 'identity stripping', to describe the condition of being unsure of which community to belong to.
Laura also pointed out that 'Phillips' comments this week mark a long-overdue acknowledgement by an organisation that should have been leading on this issue but has so far failed to do so.'
Intermix.org.uk founder Sharron Hall adds: Trevor's comments are not helpful, there are so many other things he could have said about the mixed-race experience in the UK, instead he added another derogatory description to the many that mixed-race individuals already have to contend with.
Figures for the rates of lone parenthood, family breakdown and drug treatment among mixed-race individuals and families cannot be trusted as the term mixed-race is still not in regular usage and many individuals and families may be put into other racial groups. As Chairman of the CRE Mr Phillips should already be aware of that, the fact that he appears not to be says a lot about his knowledge of the subject and the effectiveness of the CRE in understanding the needs of mixed-race individuals and families. Promoting stereotypical portrayals is not and should not be part of their job.
As for his use of the term 'identity stripping', this assumes that mixed-race individuals already have an accepted identity in the UK which they presently do not. It would be more appropriate to say that mixed-race individuals are more likely to fall victim to identity denial and discrimination in that most of the time society tends to assign them an identity because to allow them to be anything different would involve having to re-examine the whole race issue.
To read Laura smith's article click here:
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