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I can't get over this stat on the difference between confidence in African and Carribean communties in Police. I can't believe people aren't seizing on this. It is clearly important as I will try and explain. https://twitter.com/gmhales/status/1277200494583259137
Unless someone is suggesting that the Police are somehow working out what someone's ethnic heritage is on sight, and then in a large scale conspiracy, making sure we are mean to Carribeans (no one is suggesting this), this is a 20 point difference caused by outside effects!
We know that one of the biggest, if not the biggest, divide in your experience of Policing is poverty. However if this were to account for the drop it would be seen in the Bengali figures as well.
If it was to do with education or lack of access to services, again it would be seen in some of the other groups certainly and crucially, if it was about skin colour it would be seen across all black groups.
This is what many of us have been saying for some time. That the perception of Police among some communities is not actually based on THEIR experience of Policing. It is based on historic experiences and verbal recounting which often contains inaccuracies and lack of context.
That isn't to downgrade historic racist treatment. We are all aware of what happened in the past and what we have done to try and fix those problems. I am aware that those negative experiences will have an effect that can last.
But this is so important for challenging the narrative that it is current practices around race that cause tensions, they may play a part, but clearly there is a far larger issue driving the dissatisfaction of the black Carribean community.
My guess is that it is learned bias. That if you are continually told that group A are (insert negative value) you will view every action through that lens and make it fit. Much like the way racists pass their views to their children in some of the Southern USA.
If you are constantly looking for that negative value, you will begin to see it everywhere, sometimes it will be, but often it isn't. It's why as Police we try and drill the ABCs into every one. Assume nothing, Believe no one, Check everything.
This also highlights the monstrosity that is the BAME label. Lumping incredibly different communities together just because they have a skin tone that isn't white ignores all the detail and covers over the challenges that some have whilst others don't.
How do we fix this? I don't know, but I feel for a start we should stop using BAME and break things down in detail so we can really see the problems and then somehow we need to change the narrative to a more accurate and positive one. If anyone has any ideas how, I'm listening.
