BLAM UK is a Black-led educational, advocacy and wellbeing Non-Profit. Through our advocacy arm we work with the United Nations to support and protect the human rights of people of African Descent in the UK.
On the 6th April 2021, BLAM UK in response to the dubious, ill-written and dangerous Race Report sent communications to a UN Body requesting that they condemn the UK Government and remind them of their international human rights obligations, particularly those under the International Convention on the Elimination of Racial Discrimination ICERD. We also requested that they inform the UN Human Rights Council and other Human Rights Mechanism about this report.
We can now confirm that the UN has responded to our communications and we welcome this timely and sound intervention on this. UN Experts from the UN Working Group of People of African Descent note the following, “In 2021, it is stunning to read a report on race and ethnicity that repackages racist tropes and stereotypes into fact, twisting data and misapplying statistics and studies into conclusory findings and ad hominem attacks on people of African descent. The Report attacks the credibility of those working to mitigate and lessen institutional racism while denying the role of institutions, including educators and educational institutions, in the data on the expectations and aspirations of boys and girls of African descent. The Report cites dubious evidence to make claims that rationalize white supremacy by using the familiar arguments that have always justified racial hierarchy. This attempt to normalize white supremacy despite considerable research and evidence of institutional racism is an unfortunate sidestepping of the opportunity to acknowledge the atrocities of the past and the contributions of all in order to move forward. That this report comes only six years after the British taxpayer finished paying reparations to nineteenth-century enslavers, without any talk of reparations to those enslaved and exploited, is particularly telling.”
The UN Experts also call for “ The UK Commission on Race and Ethnic Disparities should be disbanded or reconstituted to prioritize an authentic and rigorous examination of race, rather than a politicized erasure of the racialized realities Black Britons navigate”
We welcome the UN Experts sound scholarship, findings and recommendations on the report and the next steps for the UK Government.
Please see further media reports on the response here- BBC, Guardian and Independent.
For Press Comments please email- Hello@blamcharity.co.uk
BLAM UK CIC 