The aftershock of a racist riot

By Sharon Kimathi, Energy and ESG Editor, Reuters Digital

Hello,

This newsletter often highlights the aftermath of extreme weather events – hurtling hurricanes, blazing wildfires and fatal landslides – on the communities they leave behind. Today’s Sustainable Switch deals with another kind of aftershock – one left behind after a racist riot.

On Aug. 8, I wrote a deeply personal newsletter on the racist far-right riots in the United Kingdom and its effects on my mental health. From locking myself indoors due to fear of what awaited me outside to feelings of anxiety after watching countless clips of violence inflicted by far-right thugs on people of color up and down this country.

I received a wave of support from a lot of you and I sincerely appreciate those that reached out to check on me. There were also detractors that sent me vitriol, which only goes to highlight the issue of racism we face in this country and globally. 

But let’s not dwell on negativity. I wish to thank those people internally at Reuters who motivated me to follow up on this story and that’s exactly what I did.

I spoke to people on the ground, activists and historians on the effects these racist riots had on the Black British community.

Click here for the full article.

Also on my radar today:

Ngozi Fulani, CEO and founder of Sistah Space, poses for a portrait at their shop in London, Britain. REUTERS/Hollie Adams

Sarah Akinterinwa, an illustrator and writer from London shared messages she sent her friend during the riots on the week of Aug. 4.

“Please do not go out until this blows over,” Sarah Akinterinwa, messaged a friend on August 7.”I’m going into town tomorrow. Should be okay,” came the response. “Alone?” she asked.

Those messages were similar to ones I sent my own friends and family at the time.

Akinterinwa also said something that stuck with me which I shared on the Reuters podcast. Click here for a listen (it’s eight minutes in for those that are impatient).

 “As people of color in the UK, we all know we’re not 100% safe, but we can usually expect to have a relatively ordinary day,” she said.

“But it’s the fact that these people came out of the dark and were showing us we were never safe and that it could get worse – it’s disturbing. I don’t think things will ever be the same after this.”

Olivette Otele, Professor of the Legacies and Memory of Slavery at the School of Oriental and African Studies in London, said what stood out in the riots was that the mainly white instigators were very specific about who they were targeting.

“The kind of discourse was about wanting their country back, but people they were attacking were British, so it means that they have a certain outlook on what British looks like.”

Marginalized people are made to feel like we do not belong which brings up feelings of anxiety, isolation and fear.

I spoke to Ngozi Fulani, CEO and founder of Sistah Space, a London-based charity supporting Black British, African and Caribbean victims of domestic violence.

Sistah Space was fearful of what would happen to them, so they boarded up the windows of the African and Caribbean heritage charity shop they run in Dalston, East London, and sent staff home after supporters warned them that far-right rioters were headed in their direction.

“It feels like we’ve stepped back into the 1960s,” Fulani said.

Click here for a video with Ngozi Fulani, CEO and founder of Sistah Space and Kaushik Mistry, CEO of the Anthony Walker Foundation about the riots.

Professor Otele spoke about the difficult conversations about racist violence she had to have with her children. “Having to explain it to your child is one thing, but having to actually live it and see your child terrified is something that hasn’t been addressed.”

Kaushik Mistry, Chief Executive of the Liverpool-based Anthony Walker Foundation, created after the racist killing of the 18-year-old in 2005, told me about the surge in race related reports they’ve received since the riots.

Mistry said the Foundation would normally have up to 50 referrals a week, but more than 300 people affected by race and religious hate had approached them in the two weeks from Aug 4-16 and 20 organizations had sought support for their staff.

Where does that leave us now? The rubble has been swept away, smashed windows have been replaced and perpetrators were jailed. But is it over?

“There is another battle that’s taking place right now and it’s happening on social media as people are being more unapologetic and more blatant about their views,” said Professor Otele. 

Doctors shout slogans during a protest demanding justice following the rape and murder of a trainee medic at a hospital in Kolkata, in New Delhi, India. REUTERS/Adnan Abidi

Dr Clive Nwonka, Associate Professor of Film, Culture and Society at the University of London shares his thoughts on the aftermath of the UK’s racist riots:

“The racism we have seen is not new; all we have seen is a resurrecting of a dormant far right violence waiting to be inflicted upon racialized identities en masse.

“The response has to be a coalition.

“Yes, there is a specific anti-Blackness that we need to maintain strategies of self and collective self-care to attend to, but there are a range of racialized identities that have been targeted and made vulnerable under the anti-immigration/migrant invective and our strategies need to be responsive to that broader experience. 

“The sustaining of racism and the anti-immigration narratives that underpinned the riots have been propelled by a media inferentiality as argued by the late cultural theorist Stuart Hall; this being that the media have been complicit in the development of racist narratives and imagery that conditions the social and political terrain for the racist expression that they in-turn report on as a media spectacle. This has been a longstanding and historical pattern.”

Britain’s use of emergency measures to detain suspected criminals in police station cells following mass arrests related to the racist riots, highlights ESG issues around justice, human rights, social unrest and the need for prison reform. 

Prime Minister Keir Starmer’s government said the arrests of more than 1,100 suspects over the racist violence aimed at migrants and Muslims had worsened a prison capacity crisis, which has already forced ministers to say they will allow jails to release more prisoners early.

Kenyan taxi driver Judith Chepkwony sits inside her vehicle during a Reuters interview about reduced fares, in Nairobi, Kenya. REUTERS/Monicah Mwangi

Today’s spotlight continues the social ‘S’ in ESG focus of today’s newsletter as drivers in my home country Kenya are facing intense price competition among ride-hailing companies, raising concerns around fair labor practices and the economic sustainability of gig work.

A bruising price war between ride-hailing companies Uber Technologies, Estonia’s Bolt and local start-ups Little and Faras has driven fares down to a level that many drivers say is unsustainable, forcing them to set their own higher rates.

“Most of us have these cars on loan and the cost of living has risen,” Chepkwony told Reuters. “I try to convince the customers to agree to the higher rates. If they can’t pay, we cancel and let them find another driver.”

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