By Raj Patel, Diverse Thinking Ltd (rajpatel@diversthinking,net)

Thirty years ago, when I was the founding Chair of Ashram Housing, we did not talk about institutional racism but often reflected on how
organisations had institutionalised racism – based on the effect we saw on black people (in those days the political term ‘black’ was preferred to the current cultural term BAME). This included colleagues, customers, and governance.

The institutionalisation of racism and discrimination within systems simply has become more sophisticated.

Thankfully, we are giving a good deal of attention to institutional racism again and in the social housing sector too and again talking about it seriously again. Let me ask you a multiplechoice question, which incidentally is part of a questionnaire I have designed for bishops in the Church of England who have, just now, set up an new task Force to ensure action over racism:

Q. Which of the following best describes your understanding of institutional racism?

1. A form of racism that is embedded as normal practice within society or an organisation.
2. The systematic distribution of resources, power, and opportunity in our society to the benefit of people who are white and the exclusion of those who are not.
3. It covertly or overtly, resides in the policies, procedures, operations and culture of public or private institutions – reinforcing individual prejudices and being reinforced by them in turn.

You may feel all apply in some way or one answer is best. Admittedly, my reason for posing the question to the bishops was to ensure that they were given definitions of what institutional racism was rather than see if they even knew. One of these definition is by A. Sivanandan,
the then director of the Institute of Race Relations. You will find watching a video of him talking about institutional racism in 1982 both interesting and challenging.

I carried out a desk study on behalf of the National Housing Federation (NHF), and since have extended it. It sourced and examined insights into equality, diversity, and inclusion in relevant journals, thought pieces, and reports. The trends across the protected characteristic are interesting but a blatant finding is that although race has been solidly on the agenda for decades, it is the protected characteristic in which there has been least progress in the housing sector.

A September 2020 issue of Inside Housing again informs and campaigns for change in the ‘continuing racism’ after a recent survey. It states that ‘the most commonly reported issue was racism’ and ‘that respondents did not usually experience racism as one isolated incident, but as a series of interactions, comments and micro aggressions that have affected them throughout their career’.

This constant hum of racism is what causes the damage and piecemeal efforts only exacerbate and fuel it.

In 1999 in a piece but H. Williams titled ‘Tackling Racism: Lessons for Housing Associations from the Stephen Lawrence Inquiry’ in the National Housing Federation, Bulletin (July 1999, No 1), a commitment is made which, over 20 years on appears still to be at the starting blocks: ‘After the publication of the Macpherson Inquiry (1999) the NHF responded by identifying the lessons housing associations needed to take on board.

The NHF suggested that social landlords ask some fundamental questions:

• Do we understand the diverse needs of black and minority ethnic (BME) communities?
• Do our services meet the diverse needs and aspirations of BME communities?
• Do we provide ‘an appropriate and professional service’ to BME communities?
• Do we achieve equally high outcomes for all ethnic groups in all our various activities?’

The sector needs to bolster courage and seriously challenge itself and accept the challenge that is demanded to dismantle institutional discrimination. Let’s accept that there are racists in the system, unintentional and intentional, but what matters is what decisively are we doing about it and is there real difference demonstrated.

In the next blog I will reflect on the social housing sector and the difference and preference between being not racist or anti-racist (you may have heard something about this if you have read Kendi).