DIVERSITY 2.0
This publication is attached to the following conference: Diversity 2.0
Our report entitled DIVERSITY 2.0 hails a new phase in attitudes to identity. Following a day of frank discussion at Somerset House attended by future leaders, Ministers, community leaders and experts from both sides of the Channel the consensus was that the landscape had changed.
With their shared colonial histories, similar levels of ethnic minority populations and a growing white underclass, France and the UK have much to learn from each other. With France opting for a strong sense of the ‘French citizen' and the UK's ‘multiculturalism' each system has its own strengths and weaknesses - but on the ground young people in both countries are frustrated about being labeled.
As one young participant, a theatre director from France, said; ‘my identity is not so much related to my skin colour or to my beliefs than to the fact of having chosen to be a director'. Being black, Jewish, and female was not, for her, an issue at all: ‘My identity is tied up with my work'.
Shahid Malik, Parliamentary Undersecretary of State for the Department of Communities and Local Government took up this theme when he said ‘I don't want to be tolerated, I want to be accepted for who I am'. As the day progressed it became increasingly clear that the divisions in society are created more by issues of lack of opportunity than by race. Those with a stable and supportive family life, access to social networks, quality education, and sound advice and resources at the point where they enter employment are significantly advantaged regardless of their ethnicity.
Of course racism still exists. BBC presenter Clive Myrie pointed out that black people probably still have to work twice as hard to achieve their goals. In one moving testimony a young black French participant told how she was forced to tone down her ambitions by her teachers - and still failed to obtain an internship despite excellent qualifications. But the white working class are also a disadvantaged group who suffer discrimination. A young white British participant from Blackpool stated that ‘young people often don't see hard evidence of the benefits of government ‘talk' and ‘policy' directly as it impacts on their lives and their views are often ignored'.
Summing up the broadcaster and playwright Bonnie Greer announced: "Let's turn ourselves inside out - and live as we live inside of ourselves, and treat other people that way, and then we don't have to worry about ‘Diversity' . We don't have to worry about anything. We'll just be human beings"
Number of pages/format: 48
Published: May 2010
ISBN: 978-0-9565649-0-0