Stop Hate Now!

Over the period of the referendum, there has been an increasing tide of racism and unashamed refugee and immigrant blaming.  This would not have happened without the referendum. It’s been open season for any idiot to come out with the schrodinger’s refugee who both stole jobs and claimed benefits.

The BBC have run programmes focussing on how some migrants are working for lower than the minimum wage. When people have highlighted the illegality of the people employing them and their blatant flaunting of the law or the links with human trafficking. The torrent of abuse has been relentless. They include calls for my own deportation. Not sure where to, since I was born in the town I live in.

The local press have run stories of European migrants paying thousands of pounds for advice that they could have got for free, only to have a stream of comments from people saying that they should not be entitled anything and the should simply go back.

When I joined other local people to protest about chief xenophobe and hypocrite Nigel Farage coming to the town I live in, the town I was born and brought up in, I again faced abuse from those from the left, the right and people who badged themselves as coming from faith communities because this was challenging mainstream politics. Friends of mine have had their houses attacked for standing up for the their town not to be invaded by one more racist that wants to halt immigration but also wants the freedom to employ immigrants when he chooses to. Despite my taking this action on my own time, UKIP continue to want to bring my employers into this. That’s nothing new since they distributed leaflets to EVERY household in Kettering where they were standing citing the fact that the council gave money for a discrimination service (my employers) as a waste of council resources.

When talking about the level of racism in the country at the moment, a colleague said that the genie was out of the bottle and it wasn’t easy to put it back.

With the news of Jo Cox’s death, it’s time to say enough is enough and the hate must stop. Regardless of the actual motives of the perpetrator, she died because she stood up for what she believed in and the included challenging hate. The hate has to stop right here, right now.

Making a difference

The Northampton Borough Council International Day Against Homophobia (IDAHo) on Thursday was an uplifting experience. To see over the years the growth of the event can’t help but give a sense of optimism for the future.

One of the highlights of the event was hearing Ben Cohen’s personal video message for the event. It was the first time that I had heard him speak about his motivation emerging from the murder of his father and his drive to take action to achieve something positive about the experience.

Northampton Borough Council has come quite some way over the past couple of years. In 2010 I suggested that they look at Hate Crime as a piece of work for their scrutiny committee. Part of my reasoning for doing so was to draw attention to culture of the Borough Council in dealing with hate crime.

This culture was no more clearly demonstrated by the failure of the Borough Council to deals with hate incidents reported by residents who had the misfortune to live near Gavin Kerr, one of the individuals that was convicted of killing Peter Cohen, when he lived on Kings Heath up till two years ago. People were obviously unwilling to report the incidents and so the homophobia and the racism continued.  The Council at the time refused to deal with the issue and did not bring the case for discussion at multi-agency groups designed to review such cases.  Gavin has now moved and I’m not sure what he is doing now but for the black families and young gay men that had to endure his offense verbal diatribe on a regular basis, life is better.

Northampton Borough Council has bravely included taking more action on Hate crime as an equality objective that it commits to make progress on. It is indeed brave but it will have to be so much more than making noise. It will be getting to the bottom of hard issues and really making a difference rather than working hard and making noise.  

Truth, Justice, Racial Violence and Belief

Over the last five days I’ve had to give a redundancy notice to a pregnant women and had to hear the ultimate abuse of a Council Worker of twelve years who has been told that they don’t know what will be happening with their job or whether they will be made redundant or redeployed in the next few weeks.

That and writing off my car (again!) Thursday morning only to have another car collide into my courtesy vehicle on Friday makes it officially a danger zone. So in situations like this it is about the fundamentals. Those have to be words like truth and justice and making them more than words.

Work at the moment is hard ... harder than ever ...we always say that it is hard ... but the search for truth and justice seems harder than ever.

So in the context of this turmoil news comes of this. So is it better to feel that there is the potential of people in the then institutionally racist Met being brought to justice for the failure to properly investigate a murder that happened sixteen years ago or is it right to focus on the fact there has been sixteen years with no individual accepting or being apportioned blame.

Perhaps the most important thing is to belive that truth and justice will be brought to the front of our minds regardless of collusion of those who do not value these ideals for the world of today or the future.

The Community Prosecutor

The real heroine of today for me was Grace Ononiwu of the Crown Prosecution Service (however she always is ... just love her smart dressed lady look ... just wish that I was able to pull it off). Having been invited to the Northamptonshire CPS staff development day, it was a real eye opener to see the drive to embrace the role of community prosecutor. Despite my dislike of much that has come out of Louise Casey, this is a real revolutionary step forward in transforming the organisation responsible for ensuring that justice is delivered for victims into something that is a public service in the real sense of the word (focussed on communities, delivering to communities and being held to account by communities).

Over the last few months there has been a growth in hate incidents without identified victims. These include aggressive racially and religiously motivated graffiti in public places. All the evidence shows that the increase in this kind of offence increases offences of violence against people and property in addition to having a significant impact on relationships within communities.

The concept of the community prosecutor, encourages the gathering of a different kind of evidence ... evidence that relates to impact on the community. To date impact evidence has generally focused on impact on individuals and sometimes even that is not consistently presented. The concept of the community prosecutor will also provide opportunities for other criminal justice agencies to raise their game by putting the focus on the community. Can't be a bad thing.

Hate dealing with death

I have always honestly stated on several occasions that the worst part of my job at Northamptonshire Racial Equality Council is when I have to be involved in a murder that has been designated a racial incident. For the second time in my career this has happened. This has involved close communication with the family who have demonstrated the most impeccable degree of dignity and capability in this situation. To lose a family member is bad enough, but losing a family member to a violent situation that from the outset has been designated a racial incident is another level of being able to cope.
At a memorial service last night, literally hundreds of people ... friends, family (but all people who loved and respected Sachince Popat) were there together celebrating his life... his life as a person who wanted to make a difference in the world, through his work for charitable organisations, through his generosity and love for all in his family will live on beyond him.

There were flashbacks from when my parents died in 2006. Two weeks ago when taking my family to a wedding it did strike me that my children had seen more funerals than weddings. Perhaps I need to be more positive.