Is it time to ditch the term ‘black, Asian and minority ethnic’ (BAME)?
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Version 0 of 1. This week, former chairman of the commission for racial equality Trevor Phillips gave a speech in which he suggested that phrases such as black and minority ethnic (BME) and black, Asian and minority ethnic (Bame) have become outdated, existing purely “to tidy away the messy jumble of real human beings who share only one characteristic – that they don’t have white skin”. He said the acronyms could be divisive, and actually served to mask the disadvantages suffered by specific ethnic and cultural groups. Instead, Phillips suggested, we could potentially adopt terms commonly used in the US, such as “visible minorities” or “people of colour”. Here, four writers discuss the issue. Lola Okolosie: ‘Focusing on labels is a distraction’ Trevor Phillips has a point, albeit one he himself undermines through championing alternative north American terms like “visible minority” or “people of colour” (POC). Quite how POC transcends the generalisation pitfalls dogging language in current use isn’t altogether clear. In any case, white is a colour - facetious, I know, but no less true. Can Gypsy, Roma and Traveller communities be labelled people of colour? If not, does their experience of being an ethnic minority not count? With life expectancy 12 years lower than the general population and infant mortality three times higher, is their whiteness all that matters? Though I may use BME/BAME, I don’t particularly like these terms. They are unwieldy and lack nuance. No one can deny that. My blackness is informed by whether or not I am Nigerian or Jamaican or half-white, poor or middle class. Blackness is no one thing, and it isn’t experienced as such. That said, these labels are a necessity. They exist because society recognises that discrimination is a fact which the law must acknowledge and seek to redress. Without these labels, Bame people become separated from our racial/cultural difference and the material disadvantages it makes real are rendered invisible. This is dangerous. For example, it is through keeping a count based on such categories that we know that certain people are far more likely to be stopped and searched on our streets or in our airports. But we are facing another five years of austerity. Rather than tussling over which words best describe minorities, I am more interested now in the racial implications of much of what the Tories have done and will continue to do. As people from ethnic minorities, we should be asking why unemployment for our young has risen by 50% since 2010. Why do two-fifths of us live in low-income households? Why do we have higher rates of in-work poverty? It is these questions that matter to the ordinary Bame person on the streets. Focusing on labels is just a distraction – a very perilous form of navel-gazing. • Lola Okolosie is an English teacher and writer Joseph Harker: ‘Our race terminology is struggling to keep up’ Here are four words I haven’t used in a long time: Trevor Phillips is right. Because, more and more, the differences between our minority communities are growing – including how they are affected by racism – and so it’s becoming increasingly unrealistic to package us all together. I remember when all minorities were called “black”. It was a hangover from the days of postwar migration, when the first people to arrive here en masse were Caribbeans of African origin. When, a decade or so later, Asians began arriving in numbers, it was natural for them to be tagged on to the black identity. And in those days, when most were migrants to Britain, facing the same sort of colour-based barriers, there was a natural strong solidarity between all of us. But over time the differences, such as religion and culture, became apparent and fed into the experiences these groups had in the UK. Black people integrated more into sport and entertainment, and faced regular harassment by the police; Asian people had stronger family units, set up more small businesses, but tended to settle in areas, including northern towns, where there was more racial separation. In the late 1980s Asians started calling for a distinct, non-black identity. And then east Asians, who’d set roots here well before the Windrush arrived, began raising their voices too. So what was once a simple black/white thing became multicoloured. And our race terminology has been struggling to keep up ever since. And it’s about more than just labels: because the issues our ethnic-minority populations face are changing too. It’s becoming clear, for example, that those of Indian or Chinese background are performing better in many areas than those originating from other parts of Asia; and that Africans are outperforming Caribbeans. Indeed west Africans have very different experiences to east Africans in Britain. And that’s before we even talk about those of dual or multiple racial backgrounds. But if we’re all treated as BAME then an organisation might fix a problem of Caribbean inequality, say, by appointing Indians. Diversity box ticked. But the problem is far from solved. The issue of young black unemployment, which hovers around 50%, won’t be fixed by equality schemes taking on East Asians. Similarly, Islamophobia is an issue which disproportionately affects Asians so, for example, hate crime figures that include all ethnic minorities won’t tell the real story. And this really matters. Because if discrimination against certain racial groups goes unnoticed, the social issues will grow and grow, and – as we saw following the killing of Mark Duggan, and at various other points over the past 30 years – will eventually explode. So the black, Asian and minority ethnic classification does have some use in grouping those who are on the receiving end of racism in the UK. But when it comes to addressing the problem, those who are trying to combat discrimination should understand that the term has severe limitations. • Joseph Harker is the Guardian’s assistant comment editor Leah Green: ‘I don’t feel multiple heritage – I feel mixed race’ The phrase “visible minority” is, to my mind, no better or worse than black and minority ethnic. Sure, let’s change it. Or let’s not. I really couldn’t care less. You see, this latest so-called issue really isn’t problematic at all. Terms such as BME are acronyms that exist solely in the world of job applications, surveys, and quotas. No one actually uses “black and minority ethnic” to describe the colour of their own skin or their heritage – it is a way of talking about a group in the abstract. Yes, it is simply code for “not white”, but sometimes – to measure representation, progression, or bias – we absolutely must lump all non-white people together. Whatever made-up, meaningless terms you want to use for that are fine by me. But BME and Bame are simply the latest politically correct terms to be cast aside as no longer good enough. In secondary school, I attended a half-day session for people with parents of different races. I learned two things: a) that someone like me (a mixed-race female being raised by a single mother) is in the group most likely to become a “dysfunctional adult”, and b) I am no longer to refer to myself as mixed race, because that has become racist. I am now Leah Green, multiple heritage. The thing is, presenting people with a new term with which to refer to themselves, or other individuals, does not inject meaning into that term. Personally, I don’t feel multiple heritage, I don’t feel like a visible minority, or of dual parenthood – I feel mixed race. It’s very hard to replace something that feels like your real identity with something that doesn’t, and why should I have to? Of course, language always changes and progresses as we become more politically aware, and that is a good thing. Terms like half-caste have always had racist connotations, so we are right to rid our language of them. But when we are worrying that a phrase which doesn’t really mean anything, that no one has ever used to talk about an actual human being, is racist, I think we need to chill out. • Leah Green works for the Guardian as a video producer Emma Dabiri: ‘I do not identify with others on the basis that neither of us is white’ I am in full agreement with Trevor Phillips: the acronyms BME and BAME are unsuitable. Phillips’s claim that they can “mask the real disadvantages suffered by some ethnic and cultural groups” would, alone, be significant enough to justify the abandonment of these terms. However, replacing these acronyms with “people of colour”, as he suggests, immediately sets alarm bells ringing. While this phrase is widely used in the US, and is gaining popularity on these shores, it is even more vague than BAME and I have many reservations about its usefulness. I understand its origins in the US, where it was first used to extend discussions about rights beyond black American feminists, to include Latino and indigenous women. However, it is applied to completely different populations here in the UK. Even more so than BME or BAME, it conflates the differences of radically diverse peoples, lumping them together by virtue of non-whiteness. I do not identify with others on the basis that neither of us is white. Identities should not be forged out of experiences of racism alone, but also through a sense of shared cultural references. “People of colour” erases huge cultural differences, manufacturing an alleged sense of “solidarity”, which I see little evidence of when it comes to concrete and practical gains for people of African descent. We need policies and strategies that directly address the needs of people of African descent. I understand the limitations of the word “black”, but when so many are being murdered in the streets by virtue of being black and black alone, it is not the time to be vague in our language. Furthermore, people of colour masks the virulent anti-blackness that exists in many so-called people of colour communities. It also obscures the racial hierarchy wherein whiteness is arguably placed at the top, while black remains firmly at the bottom. For other minority groups, located somewhere between the two, there can be very real gains in promoting and sustaining anti-blackness, as it distinguishes them from the bottom of the pile. If the language that we use conceals the differences between black and non-black minority groups, it paves the way for a continued silencing and suppression of the voices of people of African descent. • Emma Dabiri is a writer and a teaching fellow in the Africa department at Soas What do you think? Are the acronyms BME and Bame redundant? And if so, are “visible minorities” or “people of colour” a good replacement? |