antiracistNHS

  Playing the race card is no more than dealing from the stacked deck we’re all playing with In response to a tweet about the nurses pay strike, and the disproportionate racial impact of that, I received a good amount of hostility online. I also got a lot of input from peers suggesting I should be careful about seeing a ‘race aspects to everything’ lest I be accused of ‘playing the race card’. The response from these strangers and colleagues all relate their instinct to dictate what is deemed to be racism and what is not. The problems with that analysis are multiple – but primary for me is that it implies that racism is a wild beast that is confined in certain corners of society. Whereas for me, and many black and ethnic minority people, racism is an uncaged virus that permeates society. What is the evidence that racism runs freely through our society? Here’s an incomplete list: ·        There is a racial bias in school exclusions , such that compared to white British children