Tears shed for racism 65 years ago
Tears were shed during a service where a church minister publicly apologised to a member of the Windrush Generation who, 65 years ago, was told not to come back after attending a service at St Paul’s in Clapham, south London.
Pentecostal minister The Revd Carmel Jones, then a 17-year-old boy recently arrived from Jamaica, went to the local Anglican Church. At the end of the service on his third visit to the church, the minister thanked him for coming – but asked him not to return.
Culture watching
Racism, brutality and our need of redemption
We’ve had a Spring and Summer of few new film releases and re-runs on TV so, perhaps like you, my screen time has been largely filled with catching up on films I’d always meant to see but never quite round to. Roma is one of those, and I’m really, really glad that I did put it on.
Made in 2018, Roma is a beautiful, black-and-white film set in Mexico. The restrained aesthetic and the film’s simple focus, following the life of a maid to a middle-class family over 12 months in 1970-1, still allows for real charm and an overwhelming emotional impact. And, in many ways, the film speaks into our current conversations about race and privilege with a distinct voice. So, don’t let the subtitles and the lack of colour put you off. Roma may be an artistic film, but it isn’t an inaccessible ‘arty’ one. It tells a compelling, even epic, story.
Saudis tell UN that Muslim
prejudice is ‘racism’
Saudi Arabia has called the United Nations
to focus on ‘eliminating Islamophobia’ as
an outworking of tackling online racism
and xenophobia.
Meshaal Bin Ali Al Balawi, Saudi’s Head of
Human Rights at the United Nations Mission
in Geneva, addressed
the Human Rights
Council, flagging the internet as a ‘space for
practicing racism’ as he called for the UN to
work towards finding a ‘solution’. The Saudi
leader stated that the world needs to ‘prohibit
racial discrimination in all its forms’.
Responding to racism
“I’m not a racist.” My observation is that if this were in fact the case, such protest would be unnecessary. I have learned to brace for what inevitably and almost immediately follows.
Seldom however, are these the first words spoken. Various thoughts and reflections slowly simmer and are finally brought to the boil of whatever "controversial" words apparently require this disclaimer. Indeed, the door of the conversation often bears no resemblance to this hinge on which it opens, or the grim hallway beyond.