Re: Casey Report finds the Met to be institutionally racist, misogynistic and homophobic
Posted: Thu Apr 20, 2023 1:09 pm
The police's response to the Casey report is not to has a moment of genuine reflection and contrition before promising to do better. No. Instead, it's response has been to try and start a semantic debate on the meaning of 'institutional bias'. We had Met Police Chief Sir Mark Rowley reject the term as being unnecessarily 'political' and now we have the Chief Constable of Greater Manchester Police, Stephen Watson, tell LBC that no police force in the UK is institutionally racist.
I thought to myself, hold on, the Macpherson report was the first (that I'm aware of) to make the claim that the Met is institutionally racist. I wonder if it defined the term. So I had a look. What I found makes me want to scream. It has also made me lose any lingering respect for the police I may have once had.
The Macpherson report has an early and detailed discussion into racism and the meaning of the term 'institutional racism'. It's in Chapter 6 which is simply titled 'Racism'. The report doesn't have page numbers, just paragraph numbers, but Chapter 6 begins on p41 of the PDF.
I started going through this forensically but I have decided that's not the best approach right now. I'm may do a deeper dive into the chapter later but for now I want to highlight two things:
1) Macpherson comprehensively addressed the difference between institutional and individual racism in 1999 and while there are academic debates about the nuances and specifics, the broad brush strokes are well known and have been for decades. Any senior officer who claims that institutional racism means that individual officers are presumed to be racist is spouting disingenuous bollocks.
2) The police are parroting the EXACT SAME LINES they did in anticipation of Macpherson's report, over 20 years ago.
The difference between institutional and individual racism is clear
Macpherson defined institutional racism thusly,
As an example of recognising that individuals don't need to be racist for an organisation to be, Chairman of the Black Police Association, Inspector Paul Wilson, told the Inquiry,
Police chiefs are repeating 20+ year old lines
Sir Paul Condon, Commissioner of the Met at the time of Stephen's murder, wrote to the Macpherson Inquiry saying,
There is absolutely no attempt from the Met to learn and grow from these Inquiries. They are in a decades-long bunker mentality that has resulted in a PR-based response that tries to spin and obfuscate the findings. They have been blaming 'bad apples' for over two decades now. Even if it was bad apples how long are we supposed to give them to find and remove them? There's been no good-faith attempts to genuinely tackle the issues raised in Macpherson or any of the subsequent investigations. I can't take any of their apologies or reassurances seriously. These aren't organisations that are taking responsibility for their actions and as such I think they have lost any moral authority to police us.
I thought to myself, hold on, the Macpherson report was the first (that I'm aware of) to make the claim that the Met is institutionally racist. I wonder if it defined the term. So I had a look. What I found makes me want to scream. It has also made me lose any lingering respect for the police I may have once had.
The Macpherson report has an early and detailed discussion into racism and the meaning of the term 'institutional racism'. It's in Chapter 6 which is simply titled 'Racism'. The report doesn't have page numbers, just paragraph numbers, but Chapter 6 begins on p41 of the PDF.
I started going through this forensically but I have decided that's not the best approach right now. I'm may do a deeper dive into the chapter later but for now I want to highlight two things:
1) Macpherson comprehensively addressed the difference between institutional and individual racism in 1999 and while there are academic debates about the nuances and specifics, the broad brush strokes are well known and have been for decades. Any senior officer who claims that institutional racism means that individual officers are presumed to be racist is spouting disingenuous bollocks.
2) The police are parroting the EXACT SAME LINES they did in anticipation of Macpherson's report, over 20 years ago.
The difference between institutional and individual racism is clear
Macpherson defined institutional racism thusly,
Macpherson goes through a history of the term, from its creation in 1967 by black activists Stokely Carmichael and Charles V Hamilton, through its use in a 1981 report on the Brixton Disorders by Lord Scarman (whose hair-splitting could, arguably, be blamed for the semantic nightmare we are currently facing) to the contemporary discussions of the terms by academics and relevant organisations.The collective failure of an organisation to provide an appropriate and professional service to people because of their colour, culture, or ethnic origin. It can be seen or detected in processes, attitudes and behaviour which amount to discrimination through unwitting prejudice, ignorance, thoughtlessness and racist stereotyping which disadvantage minority ethnic people.
It persists because of the failure of the organisation openly and adequately to recognise and address its existence and causes by policy, example and leadership. Without recognition and action to eliminate such racism it can prevail as part of the ethos or culture of the organisation. It is a corrosive disease. [6.34, my emphasis]
As an example of recognising that individuals don't need to be racist for an organisation to be, Chairman of the Black Police Association, Inspector Paul Wilson, told the Inquiry,
While Macpherson was trying to ensure that individuals did not receive undue blame for institutional biases, the Met kept wanting to push the line that any racism seen in the investigation of Stephen's murder was all the fault of individual officers,...there is no marked difference between black and white in the force essentially. We are all consumed by this occupational culture. Some of us may think we rise above it on some occasions, but, generally speaking, we tend to conform to the norms of this occupational culture, which we say is all powerful in shaping our views and perceptions of a particular community". [6.28]
It is now clear to me that the Met (and other police forces) are not just trying to scapegoat the 'few bad apples' to minimise the institutional culpability, but are trying to make it seem like there's widespread confusion over what the term 'institutional racism' even means. They are trying to sow confusion so that they can make it seem like they're trying to defend their officers when in fact they are trying to put the blame on them and thus remove it from themselves. It's an incredibly selfish and self-serving act.The evidence of the Commissioner of the Metropolitan Police in his opening statement placed too much emphasis upon individual racists and individual malpractice (Part 2, Day 3, page 282), and cautioned against the use of the term institutional racism "in new and different ways" (page 292). The Commissioner did not accept that unconscious or covert racism was evident in any area of the Stephen Lawrence investigation... ".... I am not challenging the areas of the behaviour you have described. ....... but by describing those challenges and those issues as institutional racism I think you then extrapolate to all police officers at all times this notion that they are walking around just waiting to do something that is going to be labelled institutional racism because of some collective failure." [6.51, formatting in original]
Police chiefs are repeating 20+ year old lines
Sir Paul Condon, Commissioner of the Met at the time of Stephen's murder, wrote to the Macpherson Inquiry saying,
Macpherson replied,"I recognise that individual officers can be, and are, overtly racist. I acknowledge that officers stereotype, and differential outcomes occur for Londoners. Racism in the police is much more than 'bad apples' . Racism, as you have pointed out, can occur through a lack of care and lack of understanding. The debate about defining this evil, promoted by the Inquiry, is cathartic in leading us to recognise that it can occur almost unknowingly, as a matter of neglect, in an institution. I acknowledge the danger of institutionalisation of racism. However, labels can cause more problems than they solve." [6.25, my emphasis]
Condon also said,We understand Sir Paul's anxiety about labels. But the fact is that the concept of institutional racism exists and is generally accepted, even if a long trawl through the work of academics and activists produces varied words and phrases in pursuit of a definition. [6.26]
Compare with what Watson said yesterday,"....... if this Inquiry labels my Service as institutionally racist the average police officer, the average member of the public will assume the normal meaning of those words. They will assume a finding of conscious, wilful or deliberate action or inaction to the detriment of ethnic minority Londoners. They will assume the majority of good men and women who come into policing ..... go about their daily lives with racism in their minds and in their endeavour. I actually think that use of those two words in a way that would take on a new meaning to most people in society would actually undermine many of the endeavours to identify and respond to the issues of racism which challenge all institutions and particularly the police because of their privileged and powerful position" (Part 2, Day 3, pp 290-291). [6.46]
It's the exact same sentiment and I have no doubt that Watson knows what he's doing."People do not differentiate between the nuanced, balanced interpretation that was set forth in Macpherson and the otherwise assertion that people will very often put to our people at 3 o'clock in the morning - 'you're institutionally xyz, your boss says you are these things, therefore you are these things'.
"I think it's universally recognised – we have people in our ranks who ought not to be there who conduct themselves in a racist, homophobic- on and on goes the list.
"I just think we draw the distinction between those who let the side down and the mass." [source]
There is absolutely no attempt from the Met to learn and grow from these Inquiries. They are in a decades-long bunker mentality that has resulted in a PR-based response that tries to spin and obfuscate the findings. They have been blaming 'bad apples' for over two decades now. Even if it was bad apples how long are we supposed to give them to find and remove them? There's been no good-faith attempts to genuinely tackle the issues raised in Macpherson or any of the subsequent investigations. I can't take any of their apologies or reassurances seriously. These aren't organisations that are taking responsibility for their actions and as such I think they have lost any moral authority to police us.