Despite claims that we now live in a post-racial society, race continues to disadvantage those from Black and minority ethnic backgrounds.
In this episode, Richard Kemp speaks with Kalwant Bhopal, author of the second edition of White Privilege: The myth of a post-racial society, about why those from black and minority ethnic communities continue to be marginalised.
They discuss the backlash against the #BlackLivesMatter movement, the way conversations about race always get sidelined for other elements of the EDI umbrella, and why we must continue to have hope.
Listen to the podcast here, or on your favourite podcast platform:
Kalwant Bhopal is Professor of Education and Social Justice and Director of the Centre for Research on Race and Education at the University of Birmingham.
Scroll down for shownotes and transcript.
White Privilege by Kalwant Bhopal is available on Policy Press for £12.99 here.
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SHOWNOTES
Timestamps:
01:31 – Could you explain the hope that was sparked in 2020 and how it was lost?
08:13 – Is this diluting of the narrative conscious?
13:59 – What are the unearned assets that white privilege provides?
18:25 – What is the relationship between Prevent and racism in schools?
21:34 – Has EDI become a hollow buzzword, and how does it perpetuate white privilege?
26:31 – How did Donald Trump use his whiteness to achieve re-election?
31:59 – Why was the experience of COVID-19 so different for black and minority ethnic groups?
38:56 – What can we do to work towards genuine, positive change?
Transcript:
(Please note this transcript is autogenerated and may have minor inaccuracies.)
Richard Kemp: You’re listening to the Transforming Society podcast. I’m Richard Kemp, and on this episode I’m joined by Kalwant Bhopal, professor of Education and Social Justice and director of the Centre for Research and Race and Education at the University of Birmingham. Previously, Kalwant was also visiting professor at Harvard University’s Graduate School of Education and is currently visiting professor at King’s College London.
Kalwant’s new book, ‘White Privilege: The Myth of a Post-Racial Society’, published by Policy Press, now in its second edition, looks at how and why those from black and minority ethnic communities continue to be marginalised, especially when so many in power claim that race is no longer an issue. In this new and updated edition, Kalwant continues that line of investigation, picking up where the first edition left off.
Since original publication in 2018, we’ve seen a plethora of global changes: labor getting back into power, Donald Trump’s reelection, the Covid 19 pandemic, Black Lives Matter gaining worldwide support and then critical race theory becoming demonized, Russia’s invasion of Ukraine, the systematic slaughtering of the Palestinian people, through her deep and wide analysis Kalwant demonstrates how changing social, economic and political circumstances have all increased rather than decreased, racial discrimination in the UK and the US, and the urgency of addressing the root problems in changing this.
Kalwant Bhopal, welcome to the Transforming Society podcast.
Kalwant Bhopal: Hi Richard, thank you so much for having me.
RK: Thanks so much for coming on. I absolutely loved reading your book. The murder of George Floyd in 2020, it was a powder keg that lit the Black Lives Matter movement worldwide. Despite this pivotal period, you say that little has changed and racism experienced by black and minority ethnic groups has even worsened. Could you explain this, please, the hope that was sparked in 2020 and how we’ve arrived at where we are now?
KB: Yeah. So what happened in 2020 was that we had the tragic murder of George Floyd, a black man who was murdered by a white policeman. Now, this is nothing new. If you look at the statistics in the US, black men are disproportionately more likely to be shot by white policemen. They’re disproportionately more likely to be in prison, etcetera, etcetera.
So we had this pivotal moment. And what I argue in the book is that race is only addressed during significant historical moments, such as the murder of George Floyd, such as the murder of Stephen Lawrence back in the 80s. Stephen Lawrence was a young black boy who was murdered by white racists in Eltham. It’s a very famous or infamous case.
And when that happened, we had the amendment of the Race Relations Amendment Act, and that was considered to be a historical moment. And we all thought we’ve got a definition of institutional racism. Everything is going to change. But it didn’t. Things actually got back to normal. And then we had this other historical moment of George Floyd. And what was really significant about that particular moment was that it was global.
It was international. It wasn’t just in the UK. So we had these protest marches in the in the UK, in the US and in Europe, etc., etc.. So it was considered to be a significant moment. So suddenly we had lots of organisations thinking, okay, we have to do something about our EDI policies, we have to be more inclusive.
Let’s take the example of universities. Many universities were very quick to jump on the bandwagon and on their Twitter feeds, or their X feeds, they immediately wrote, ‘This is an institution that does not tolerate racism. We have a zero tolerance policy about racism’, but these were the same institutions where the BME attainment gap in terms of the numbers of students gaining a 2:1 or a first was the highest in the country, higher than the national average.
And these were the same universities that didn’t have one black or brown professor in many of their departments. So I argue that this is just a reaction to the moment. So suddenly we had all these different new policies and we’re doing this and we’re doing that. And I argue in the book that this was all performative. This was a dance.
It was a toing and a froing only for the universities to revert back to racism, which was business as usual. So nothing in effect changed and this was all window dressing, showcasing. And one of the reasons why universities did this was because they wanted to show that they had social justice at the heart of their agendas. So they had these, you know, very pretty websites and prospectuses of black and brown faces.
Okay, saying, look at us. We’re inclusive. But in the neoliberal marketisation of higher education that we live in, they were only interested in one thing, and that was students coming to their institution paying 9,250 pounds a year. Or double or triple that if they were international students. And only to revert back to racism being reported but not being dealt with only only to revert back where the structures and institutions continued to remain the same.
So on the face of it, on the surface we had these institutions who were talking the talk but not walking the walk saying, oh yeah, of course we talk, we really do care about racism. And that’s evident still in terms of the numbers. If we look at the attainment gap, if we look at the number of professors and we look at the structural institution and individual racism’s of individual people.
So I argue in the book what happens and what has happened since Black Lives Matter is individual academics, I mean, obviously I’ll relate it to higher education because that’s my expertise. So my colleagues, my neighbors down my corridor may be racist, may not be racist. But what that, what Black Lives Matter has enabled them to do is to say, oh, it’s not me, I’m not racist.
It’s the structures, it’s the institutions. So that narrative and discourse gives white groups a get out of jail free card, so they don’t have to take responsibility or accountability for their own individual actions. And there’s tons of research, my own included, which shows that individual people perpetuate white, their own white privilege by reinforcing racist stereotypes about black students, about Muslim students, about Pakistani students.
So we have this veneer of inclusion where EDI is used as an umbrella term, where in fact race always takes a backseat. Gender is always more important. Working class is always more important. Trans issues are more important. So race barely gets to look in. And that’s evidenced not just in the statistical evidence that we have, but it’s also evidenced in policymaking.
So policymaking for instance, Athena Swan, the main beneficiaries of Athena Swan are white women, okay, the main beneficiaries of higher education policymaking after white men are white women.
RK: Sorry Kalwant, do you mind explaining Athena Swan, please?
KB: Yeah, sorry. Athena Swan is a policy initiative that was introduced in universities about probably now 20 years ago, which was to advance the progression of women in STEM subjects because the numbers of women in STEM subjects were low. And then following from that, the Race Equality Charter mark was introduced in higher education, which works in a similar vein to the Athena Swan Charter, but focuses more on race.
So if we look at these policy initiatives, particularly Athena Swan, it’s white women that have benefited. But look, Richard, this is nothing new. Look at history, okay. If we look at feminism, feminism was not concerned with the experiences of my mother or my grandmother. Feminism was only concerned with the experiences of white women. Black and brown women were left behind.
And higher education policy making is exactly the same. Race always takes a backseat. There’s never enough money for race. There’s never enough time for race. Or, it’s not really racism. Are you sure it’s racism? So this discourse and narrative has actually perpetuated a system where racism is allowed to flourish, and that has significantly increased since Black Lives Matter.
RK: Yeah, I do remember, I was working elsewhere, I wasn’t working where I am now, Bristol University Press, at the time, I was working somewhere else, and I do remember new groups coming in, and they were always led by the employees, by the way. They weren’t they weren’t led by people higher up, higher up the food chain, the C-suite or anybody like that.
We had new groups that were in reaction to the focus on Black Lives Matter, and then very quickly that that extended to many other groups as well, to be placed into the EDI umbrella or under the EDI umbrella, excuse me. And I guess I, I saw that as a good thing. I’m glad this is this is happening off the back of Black Lives Matter.
And that all these other groups are also getting representation as well. That always just seemed like a good thing. But now you’ve got me really thinking that could things like that be conscious kind of diluting of the narrative? Is it an unconscious thing that’s kind of just existing, existing within, within people’s psychologies. And so we need to make sure, well, if one group is getting representation, we need to make sure everybody’s getting it without thinking about kind of how much representation one group really, really needs and has needed and justifiably has needed for a very long time.
KB: So I would argue that it’s a conscious thing because for once, why don’t we let race take priority? Okay, we had this global movement of the Black Lives Matter protests. For goodness sake, give us the space to say that racism is a thing, that racial injustice exists. But oh no, we have this crowded EDI agenda. When race is given prominence, it’s never allowed to take center stage.
There’s always something that’s more important. What about me? I’m a woman. What about me? I’m working class. What about me? I’m… whatever. Okay. So let race take that center stage, but it’s never allowed to. It’s always at the back of the queue. There’s always something that’s more important. And this is how white privilege and white supremacy works.
And it’s a conscious, deliberate act by individuals because they do not want to see their white privilege threatened or undermined, least not by black or brown people, because they are in positions of power. And again, you know, this is historical. This is nothing new. This has happened through imperialism, through colonialism, through slavery and persecution, oppression throughout the generations.
And I think that what was really stark about Black Lives Matter was that, as you rightly said, we had these other groups, of course, they are significant. But this was the moment when we thought things historically were going to change. And what we see is that there was this backlash against Black Lives Matter. So we had the hashtags white Lives matter, the hashtag all Lives matter.
But those were missing the point, right? Because the focus was on the fact that a black man was murdered yet again by a white person in power. And this backlash was it didn’t just… What’s really interesting, and I talk about this in the book, is how very quickly that backlash moved from the social to the political. So within the social, we had these hashtags on X and within social media, you know, all lives matter, white lives matter.
Why are we not saying that white lives matter? White lives have always mattered. Come on. You know you are in positions of power. And then very quickly, that social discourse moved into the political discourse. So, for example, we had Kemi Badenoch, who stood up in the house of Commons, who was then, incidentally, she was a minister for women and equalities.
And she said that we cannot teach about critical race theory. There’s no such thing as white privilege. Okay. And she was actually saying her being a black woman, she felt insulted that people were saying and using critical race theory to show that racism is a thing. And then we had the publication of the Sewell Report, which then Prime Minister Boris Johnson commissioned.
What was it called, the Commission for Racial and Ethnic Disparities. And they wrote this report, which was authored by Tony Sewell, and in that report, there was no evidence of institutional racism in society. And it was all about class and family background. So again, the discourse and narrative around exclusion, racial exclusion and inclusion moved from the social very quickly to the political.
And in the US, it was much worse in the sense that critical race theory has already we know, then was banned in 32 states. And I think now the number has gone higher, much, much higher, and EDI policies have been banned, etc., etc.. So what I’m saying here is that what happens is that when it’s about race and racism, people find that,
I would argue probably quite offensive because as a white person, their sense of entitlement was they feel they’re left out. They feel that though this their disadvantaged. And I remember at the time reading an article which said that white working class men are the most disadvantaged. They feel the most disadvantaged. And the class argument here is really important because when you talk about class, there’s an assumption that black and brown people don’t come from the working class.
So poor working class communities, Bangladeshi communities living in council estates in Tower Hamlets who have the same disadvantages as poor, white working class communities, also experience racism on a daily basis. So there’s these complexities and intersectionality around class that are ignored when it comes to black and brown people. So it’s always about the white working class. It’s always about women, and it’s always about another group.
Because we cannot allow black and brown experiences to take center stage. And that I would argue, as would Derrick Bell, the founder of Critical Race Theory, it’s not accidental. It’s intentional to maintain and perpetuate white supremacy.
RK: With all the talk about working classness that does kind of bring up for me, like conversations I’ve definitely had where there is a disconnect between like, well, I don’t have white privilege. Let me tell you about my background and let me tell you about all the stuff that I had to deal with when I was coming up and have and have since and where I lived, etc., etc..
And I just wanted to kind of then then talk about white privilege, because that comes up so much in these conversations. And in your book, you quote Peggy McIntosh on white privilege, who called it ‘an invisible package of unearned assets that I can count on cashing in each day, but about which I was ‘meant’ to remain oblivious’. What are these unearned assets and how do white people remain oblivious?
KB: That’s a really good question. So I draw on Peggy McIntosh’s book, it’s dated, but it’s really relevant in terms of how to understand what white privilege means. So it means that you, as a white person, has got this rucksack on your back, and it’s got things like access to banks, access, you know, cheque books, access to a passport, access to things that black or brown people don’t have.
So white privilege means that you can walk through customs without being stopped. White privilege means you’re less likely to be stopped and searched by the police. White privilege means you’re less likely to be followed by a security guard in a store. White privilege means you can use a restroom without being arrested. White privilege means you’re more likely to leave the courthouse a free man compared to a black or a brown man.
That’s what white privilege is. And at its most basic level, it is physical. It’s people take one look at you, have stereotypical assumptions, and automatically assume that you are X, Y, or Z, and consequently the way that somebody looks, their physical attributes contribute to how they are treated. So we- and the statistics support these things that I’ve just said to you. You know, if you are a black or brown man, you are more likely to be stopped and searched by the police.
If you are black or brown, you are more likely to be stopped at customs, etc., etc., etc.. So these assets, these privileges that you have, they’re unearned because they’re natural and they’re normal and you have them. Every time I walk outside my front door, people will make a judgment about me and I will, I experience racism, microaggressions every single day of my life.
I cannot say to you that there’s a day when I haven’t experienced a microaggression with individuals making particular assumptions about me. So that’s how white privilege works. It gives to you access. It gives you unearned advantages that somebody like me will never have.
RK: Bringing it to your working classness, or to your gender or something else you were saying earlier, like that is a way of clinging on to your backpack of white privileges.
KB: Yes. Exactly that. But at the same time, those intersectional identities are hugely important. So, for example, as a woman, as a brown woman, as a working class woman, I have I, I would argue, I experience many more disadvantages compared to a brown man. But, you know, obviously that’s that’s very simple, simplistically put. But it’s far more complex. But those intersectionalities, those intersectional nuances play a significant part.
And then you could argue that actually, Kalwant, you’re in a powerful position because you are a professor, you’re an academic, you have access, access to social and economic and cultural capital that other people do not have. So I think it’s complex and nuanced and forgive the pun, it’s not black or white, but there are different nuances within that. And those intersectional identities are really important when we try and understand racial inequalities in society and also how they work.
So how I am treated as a woman would be different to how how men are treated. And, and as a brown woman and as a working class woman and as a mature woman, etc. and all of those identities are very important. And so one could argue that whiteness and those intersectional identities are also complex. And so, for instance, a white woman or a white man who’s working class and who doesn’t have access to such cultural and economic capital, will also experience disadvantages.
But what I’m saying is overlaying that is the racial element which has a far stronger impact in individual experiences around society and inequality, particularly in relation to social justice.
RK: In the book, you talk about how in 2021, UK schools reported more than 60,000 racist incidents between 2015 and 2020. The UK government failed to address this problem by hiding the scale of it. Meanwhile, the government’s Prevent initiative, which is designed to stop people from becoming terrorists and supporting terrorism, Prevent, received 6287 referrals just in the year of 2020, and 31% of these referrals to Prevent came from education.
Why do so many Prevent referrals come from the education sector, and does this have any effect on the thousands of racist incidents happening in our schools?
KB: So that’s really interesting. So one of the reasons I think that they come from the education sector is because Prevent is an initiative that’s introduced mainly in schools and educational establishments. So school- so teachers are taught to look out for any signs of behavior that they can relate to being groomed, being radicalised by the far right or the far left, even nowadays, actually.
And it’s really interesting in terms of how does a teacher make that definition, that this is an example of a possible future terrorist activity. And that I find that very disturbing. And I don’t know if it’s in those statistics, but certainly for for the first edition, some of those individuals that were reported through Prevent in terms of risks of risk of terrorism were as young as six.
Now how can we make that judgment? That’s what’s really terrifying about these statistics. So Prevent itself as a policy is very dangerous. And it’s in and and it is in fact a racist policy because there are only certain types of ‘terrorism’, let’s put that in inverted commas. So is it also far right white nationalism or is it just terrorism on the other side?
So that’s really interesting in terms of what we define. And secondly, the figures that you’ve just quoted are absolutely correct. But I would argue that those are just the tip of the iceberg because many students are scared to report behaviour as racism. Number one. Number two, teachers, many teachers do not define that behaviour as racism. They will say, oh, are you sure it’s racism?
Was it really racism? So one of the pieces of research that I carried out with young people just after Black Lives Matter protests was that many young people in schools were very keen to write on their Instagram and Snapchat #BlackLivesMatter, but these were the same young students who felt that it was okay to use racial slurs in the classroom towards their black and brown peers, so there is a disconnect between that.
So overtly, we all want to show that we’re anti-racist, right? No one wants to say that they’re a racist. But really, if you look at the individual behaviour, the everyday behaviour of students in schools, racism is allowed to flourish. And I think that the problem there is that teachers will say, well, actually, it’s not it’s not racism, it’s bad behaviour.
So we don’t know the scale and extent of racism. And I would argue that those figures, they are huge, but they’re just the tip of the iceberg.
RK: You mentioned universities earlier and I’d like to get more, or talk about this a bit more if that’s okay with you. You you spoke to university lecturers and professors from black and minority ethnic backgrounds who who confirmed that universities embraced equality, diversity and inclusion, EDI or DEI following the 2020 focus on Black Lives Matter. However, many EDI and DEI initiatives have since veered towards perpetuating white privilege.
Has EDI become a hollow buzzword? And how does that how does EDI perpetuate white privilege?
KB: Yeah, absolutely that, it has become a bandwagonist term. It’s a ban- It’s become a buzzword. Everybody’s doing EDI or DEI and it is a bandwagonist term. And it’s because universities, as I said, want to show that they’re investing in EDI and DEI policies because they think it’s the right thing to do. But this, as I already said, is window dressing.
And one of the ways that EDI policy perpetuates white privilege and white supremacy is by specifically focusing on an issue that they think is important. Race is always at the back of the queue. Race is always secondary. There’s other inequalities that are far more important. So there’s never enough money for race, there’s never enough time to focus on race.
And what’s really interesting and I…I apologise, I don’t have the numbers in front of me, but I think they’re probably in the book, but we don’t need them now. So the Race Equality Charter, Mark, which I talked about earlier, which is a policy initiative where universities become members of the Race Equality Charter and once they become members, they can apply for the award, whether it’s bronze, silver or gold at the moment is a bronze, I think, or silver.
So what’s really interesting is that not every higher education institution is a member of the Race Equality Charter. Why is that? Because they don’t think it’s important because they don’t want to invest in it. Oh, we haven’t got enough money for that. But they’ve got enough money for the Athena Swan Charter, which focuses on STEM subjects and focuses on women in STEM subjects.
So again, there’s never enough money for race. There’s always enough money for other inequalities. So that umbrella of EDI is very crowded. So let’s take the inequality that we think is the most important. So it reminds me of a piece of research that I carried out about these initiatives. And it’s in the book anyway, and I remember speaking to one respondent who was involved in the initiatives, and she said to me, she said, oh, we don’t need to invest in the Race Equality Charter Mark, because we are a white university.
The majority of our students are white, the majority of our academics are white, and we’re in a majority white area. So why should we have to invest in race? It’s more important to invest in gender because women make up over 50% of the population. So there you have it.
RK: So rather than work towards a fair diversity within that university that represents that community, rather than doing that, that they they kind of just like focusing on their branding and like we’re known for being a white university that services 51% women, I think you said. So that’s where we’ll put our time.
KB: Exactly that, exactly that. So it becomes a self-fulfilling prophecy because, oh, we don’t need to do that. We don’t need to invest in that. And this is after Black Lives Matter, which was, as we’ve already said a global, almost transformative at the time – it felt certainly – transformative moment in history. But, you know, as I’ve said, race is only addressed during historical moments.
There’ll be another historical moment when we think about addressing race. And everything has a racial element, including war. So the genocide of the Palestinian people is considered less important than what’s going on in Ukraine. The UK government gave families 350 pounds a month to take in Ukrainian refugees because they were white, but we don’t care about the others because they’re brown.
And you know what kind of a world do we live in where racial inequality is in our faces? Racial injustice is there for us to see. It literally is in black and white.
RK: Do you think the, you said about in the future there could be another moment that brings race back to the fore again? Do you think if that were to happen that anything would be different next time around? Considering what we’ve what we’ve seen with Black Lives Matter and how much of a major moment it felt like, and we and we were convinced that finally, this is it.
And now look where we are. Like would so so if we had another one, well, what would happen then?
KB: I’m smiling because, I’m smiling not because it’s funny, but because in terms of disappointment, I don’t like to be a pessimist, but I, you know, I’m old enough and ugly enough to have been around a long time now, and I can kind of see that these historical moments come and they go, only for society to revert back to white supremacy and white privilege, in which racism becomes business as usual.
RK: You say that Donald Trump used his whiteness as his key identifier in campaigning. It enabled him to harness racism as a vehicle to promote his cause and gain reelection in November 2024. But Trump managed to gain votes from a whole spectrum of backgrounds, not just white backgrounds. How did he use his whiteness to achieve election and then later reelection?
KB: Yeah, that’s a really good question because yeah, it’s quite baffling, really, isn’t it? Because he did appeal to a wide range of individuals from different ethnic groups. The Hispanic community, and the black community, etc. He at the same time also used his whiteness because we know that immigration was a key fundamental aspect of why he won; building a wall, sending back illegal aliens, etc., which we’ve already spoken about.
But I think one of the ways that he was able to win the votes of people of color was by using those same arguments. And it’s interesting, isn’t it, where you and I’ve seen this in my own research, where you will have second or third generation immigrants, some of whom will then talk in negative ways about newer immigrants.
Okay. Saying for instance, and I’ve seen this in my own research saying, for instance, third generation Indian immigrants, for instance, saying, oh, all these Polish people, these East immigrant East European immigrants, they’re coming here and they’re taking our jobs. And you’re like, hold on a minute. You are the child of immigrants. So and I think that it’s possible that those same kind of arguments and that narrative and discourse was played out with these people of color that decided to vote for Trump.
And what’s interesting, and I haven’t, again, I haven’t got statistics in front of me, but there were quite significant numbers, weren’t there, of Hispanic and black and brown groups that did vote for Trump. But I think what’s really interesting now is if you look at what ICE is doing, which is the immigration authority in the US, where they’re invading houses and arresting illegal aliens, as they call them, is that most of those individuals that they’re arresting are from ethnic minority backgrounds.
You know, they’re they’re not white immigrants. They are black or brown immigrants. So I think that in itself is very interesting as well. So that it’s complex, he did use… but what I, what I think was really interesting about Trump was he used his whiteness, but he, despite the fact that he’s a billionaire, he also said that I understand the struggles of the working class.
I know what it’s like to not have enough money in your paycheck to pay for your gas. But equally, he was a millionaire, a billionaire, and most of his wealth was, I think all of his wealth, was inherited from his own father. So yeah, and one could argue, though, I, I mean, I’ve read this, I’ve heard other people say this, and I don’t agree with it, that he’s considered to be charismatic.
He’s considered to be interesting because because of the fact that he he doesn’t read from an autocue, he’s considered to have his own views because he doesn’t listen to his advisors. And, you know, many people find that really attractive because he’s not boring, so to speak. Dangerous nonetheless.
RK: Absolutely. He must be good for clickbait, headlines, sensationalism, even non-tabloid newspapers must must see an uptick in traffic when they’re when when he came back into power and since. Being able to talk about, oh, what’s he doing now. What what’s, what’s he saying now that must be a big a big thing for the media machine. And I suppose like, I’m just wondering with, with that kind of hand-in-glove kind of thing between the two, then Trump saying things and media being able to talk about those things, are they are they making it worse, I suppose is what I’m asking?
KB: Yes. I mean, one of the first things that his chief of staff, the press secretary, whose name I can’t remember, that woman, one of the things that they did was they gave a seat in the press room to individuals who they said are silenced. And all of those are right wing organisations. They are right wing podcasters.
They are right wing media outlets, and they perpetuate right wing views. And Trump has given them a seat in the press room, and they get to ask the first question to the press secretary.
RK: They get to ask the first question, and then that just like conducts, guides the narrative, even if you’re a, a left wing or centrist newspaper, you’re kind of dealing with what Trump says thanks to the right wing people who ask those questions.
KB: Exactly. And the other thing that I think we have to mention here is fake news. So what’s really interesting, I mean, it’s the 23rd of June today. And, you know, there’s lots of world events that have happened, he’s just attacked Iran. It’s basically what’s considered real and fake. So at the moment, I think that what you have in the States is that the political machine is able to say whatever they want to say without anyone fact checking what they’re actually saying.
So if you are broadcasting to individuals who accept what you’re doing and believe what you’re doing and are MAGA supporters, Make America Great Again, then they will not check whether what you’re saying is incorrect. And I think that is really, really dangerous in terms of the political machine and the discourses and narratives that finally are perpetuated within the social and economic and political climates.
RK: A major, a major global occurrence that happened between your first edition and now your second edition of this book, was the Covid 19 coronavirus pandemic. And during during that time, during the peak coronavirus pandemic, through lockdowns and furlough, etc., many white groups made made savings. You were either furloughed off work or you maybe you could get you got to work from home.
Not everybody got to do that, but lots of people did. Either way, you weren’t you weren’t going out. You weren’t spending. You were saving, etc. and everybody that you knew was also saving. Black and minority ethnic groups, however, were more likely to have to use their savings or borrow money even, to mitigate for the lost earnings and lost jobs.
Why was the experience so different for black and minority ethnic groups compared to white groups?
KB: So what was really interesting about the pandemic was that BME, black and minority ethnic groups were less likely to isolate during the pandemic. They were more likely to die from the pandemic. They were more likely to do jobs where they were exposed to the virus. They were more likely to be working in hospitals where they didn’t have access to PPE, and they were more likely to suffer financially.
And the reason why this, well obviously, not obviously, the reason why this happened was racism. And it was also because they have to step back. So if you look at the labor market statistics, BME groups, black and minority ethnic groups are more likely to be employed in the lower paying job market in the sector, so they’re more likely to be key workers.
They were, they’re more likely to live in housing, which is substandard. So many of the individuals in their own homes couldn’t isolate. And when we had lockdown, children were less likely to have access to computers, BME students, they were less likely to have rooms, or a physical space where they could work, and so on and so forth.
So it isn’t just one thing that explains it, explains the structural and institutional racism of the labor market, the structural and institutional racism of schools, of the housing market. So it’s everything coming together. And what happened was that everything came together during that time of the pandemic, where it was the same groups, the black and brown groups that continued to be disadvantaged.
But on on a much larger scale. And as you said, white groups, middle class, white groups mainly were the ones who were most likely to benefit from the pandemic. So it’s not just one answer. It’s actually in fact, I think the pandemic is a really, really good example of the manifestation and the ways in which racism itself bore out in the everyday realities and had a knock on effect in terms of what your way, the background that you were from.
You know, if you are from a poorer background, in substandard housing, your parents were key workers, you only had one computer between 3 kids, etc., etc. so it had a knock on effect in many different ways, though I think in terms of education, it’s still too early to tell what that effect will be.
RK: I remember hearing about how, like, during the pandemic, more black and minority ethnic people either being hospitalised or dying during that period and kind of hearing about, like, well, that’s that’s their background. When you look at race specifically, that’s that’s what that’s that’s the answer. You know, right. Rather than looking at, okay, let’s actually look at the situations these people live in.
Let’s look at the job markets that they’re contending in and what’s up against them. You said in your book, for example, about how people with nonwhite British names like John Smith, for example, and names like that, people who are going for jobs with names that aren’t in that category, being refused, over and over, and I believe in the book you’re saying because companies are like, oh, well, I don’t actually I can’t be sure about their immigration status.
So, you know what, we’ll just move on. But just like, but then also like, yeah, their living situations and communities in which they’re living and stuff. So like structures and systems are being piled up against black and minority ethnic people. And during that time, it wasn’t uncommon to hear like, oh, they’re dying because of race.
And I suppose just like that, that’s an example of whether conscious or unconscious was it’s an example of racism, right there, no? Just like kind of jumping to rather than like, let’s, let’s investigate a bit or think or read around the subject or whether it’s just like, oh, I can see, I can see the reason, I can see it with my eyes. That’s that’s the reason.
KB: Yeah. Exactly that. And again, that’s a stereotype and an assumption that individuals make. And I think what you said there is it’s a holistic issue. It’s not just one it’s not one reason why black and minority ethnic people were more likely to die disproportionately from the pandemic. It’s a whole load of reasons in terms of their position in the labor market, in terms of where they live, the kind of jobs that they do, and and the fact that they’re more likely to live in damp housing in areas where they’ve got they’re more likely to live in poverty, in areas where they don’t have access to jobs, etc., etc..
So it’s all those things that contribute to the fact that they were more likely to suffer during the pandemic. And I think that what’s also really interesting here is that we there’s a whole load of and it’s in the book, you know, being a person from a brown person, your experiences of the National Health Service or access to health care is is not very good. Quite frankly.
You know, you’re not listened to if you’re in pain, you know, are you sure it’s really pain. Do you need a painkiller? You have to complain so many times in terms of getting equal access. Compare that experience to a white, middle class, posh, well-spoken individual who goes into their doctor’s surgery and says, I’ve got a pain in my in my back, please can you give me medication?
You think they’re going to, do you think they’re going to be questioned whether they’ve got a pain? So it’s it’s racism. It’s absolutely, when we there’s lots of evidence to show there’s racism in the health sector and the criminal justice system and Covid 19 I think just brought all of that to the fore. And also the other thing, black and brown people were more likely to be fined during the pandemic as well.
Do you remember? And it’s in the book as well where you weren’t allowed to go. You’re only allowed to go out for an hour, and then black and brown people were more likely to be fined and stopped and searched during the pandemic compared to white groups. And I think there was some famous cases, wasn’t there, of some athletes who were stopped and stopped and searched.
So so it all of these different things, it’s not just one key element that we have to look at. And and sadly, I think that the pandemic really did, and I and I hope it’s clear in the chapter actually on the pandemic, really did reveal those stark inequalities around race even more than I think we we were aware of really.
RK: It absolutely did, kind of like, it felt like, yeah, you’re explaining all this like, wow, this is a microcosm of the macro problem that we’ve been living with forever or feels like forever. And this has brought it to the fore. Thinking, thinking of the of of that actually what everything was brought up there and, and the hope that came from Black Lives Matter in 2020 and then the disappointing policies that have resulted since, what can we do to work towards genuine, long lasting, positive change?
KB: That’s a really good question. It’s a really hard one, actually, for me. I think that one of the things that I think Derrick Bell, the founder of Critical Race Theory, would say is that- I personally don’t think that we can do that much, because if we couldn’t do it, during black lives, after Black Lives Matter, I don’t know when we’re going to be able to do it.
And the world is in a terrible state at the moment. So I don’t know whether there’s I have any hope left. But one thing that I think Derrick Bell would say, and I would say as well, that it’s really, really important and crucial to keep having these conversations about racism. Because if we talk, if we stop talking about it, there will be an assumption that it doesn’t exist.
There will be an assumption that we’ve moved on when you only have to speak to black and brown individuals for them to tell you about the racism that they experience in different elements of their lives. So I think it’s the issues around we keep having these conversations, we keep talking about them, and we have to keep understanding that we have to keep researching the topic and seeing how we can move forward in terms of policies.
And unfortunately, I don’t think the current government is interested in race. I think the current government, I think the Labor Party are actually racist, and I don’t think that they’re interested in race. I mean, that the case of Diane Abbott, who was called by that guy, Mr. Hester, you know, he said when I look at her, I want to kill or shoot all black women.
And Sir Kier Starmer did not say that it was racist or it took him quite a while. And if he doesn’t see that as racist, then I don’t know what he thinks racism is. So that’s hugely disappointing, someone who is a labor was a labor supporter. So I don’t think that the current government is interested in race at all.
But I do think that we have to have hope and we have to be optimistic and we have to keep having these conversations and we have to keep pushing forward for change. And I think that’s all we can do.
RK: Thanks Kalwant. It’s been an absolute pleasure talking to you about talking to you about your book today, talking to you today, I’ve absolutely loved this conversation. And thank you so much for coming on, coming on the podcast today. In a moment, I’m going to let people know, where they can find your book. But but first I was wondering, is there any where we can find you online?
KB: I’m on X but I’m not active for obvious reasons. But I’m on Bluesky and, yeah, so you can I don’t really, I don’t really, go on social media much as much as I used to, because I’ve had quite a lot of abuse on social media because, you know, people saying there’s no such thing as racism and white privilege doesn’t exist, blah, blah. So I’m kind of a bit sort of stepping back a little bit. But you can find me on Bluesky.
RK: ‘White Privilege: The Myth of a Post-Racial Society’ by Kalwant Bhopal, now in its second edition, is published by Policy Press. You can find out more about the book by visiting policy.bristoluniversitypress.co.uk and also transformingsociety.co.uk.