A Live Position Paper by #CharitySoWhite
Now more than ever, the charity sector must put marginalised communities at the heart of their work. As we get to grips with the full impact COVID-19 will have on our society, we are already seeing the effects this pandemic is set to have on Black, Asian, and Minority Ethnic (BAME) communities.
From the identified list of people 'vulnerable' to COVID-19, BAME communities are likely to be overrepresented amongst the groups at-risk of facing serious complications if they contract the virus. To truly reach those most at-risk, not just today but looking ahead to the lifelong impact of this new normal, we as a sector must immediately commit to an intersectional approach to tackling the crisis.
The world can’t be simplified into ‘BAME’ issues and pandemic issues. We must look past the headlines and drill down to the detail. It is easy in a crisis to revert to familiar ways of working, but in doing so we risk not only reinforcing existing structures of racial inequality, but further imbedding them. We ask civil society to urgently mobilise and take the lead in centring racial inequalities as they support communities most hard hit by this public health crisis.
It’s unlikely that we will ever return to ‘normal’. The choices made by us today will have a lasting impact for generations to come. We need to work together, openly acknowledging the power and racial imbalances inherent in our sector and seize the opportunity to set a new precedent for the future.
We are #CharitySoWhite - a group of volunteers from BAME backgrounds, all working in the charity sector. We want the charity sector to take the lead in rooting out racism from within the sector and in our society.
We have developed a set of guiding principles to support civil society’s response efforts. We have also identified a number of key issues we believe will disproportionately impact on BAME communities during this outbreak and have made recommendations to help mitigate against these.
We released this paper on the 5th April 2020 to highlight the risks that the COVID-19 pandemic posed for BAME communities. Over a period of 8 weeks we maintained this as a live paper collecting and collating evidence, data, and case studies on the ways that the pandemic was disproportionately impacting BAME communities. As of the 14th June 2020 we have stopped updating this paper. We know the effects that the pandemic is having on BAME people, now is the time to do the work to help our communities recover and tackle the systemic racism and oppression that have caused these disproportionate impacts.
Our work does not sit in a vacuum. We stand on the shoulders of the many individuals, organisations and movements who have come before us and we work today in solidarity with a number of anti-racist groups across the UK and all those who fight oppression in our society. This is why we are part of the BAME COVID-19 Emergency Planning group and have co-signed this urgent call to action to central government.
We encourage readers to continue to read papers on the issues that we have raised. Throughout this document we have highlighted reports from others and urge everyone to read them. You can find a summary of some of the brilliant work happening in response to COVID-19 at our website www.charitysowhite.org.
OUR APPROACH AND OUR USE OF LANGUAGE
Challenging the traditional hierarchies of knowledge and research: We are doing an open callout for evidence for the paper, including accounts and evidence informed by lived experience. We do this to challenge traditional hierarchies of knowledge and research processes that dismiss lived experience and are rooted in methods that are structurally violent, often furthering injustice for BAME communities. We endeavour, through the development of this paper, to begin to explore and practice models for research that challenge these structurally racist models and envision a better future. Go to our ‘On Our Radar’ section to find out more about how you can contribute.
Accessibility: We are working to make our campaigning work and this paper as accessible as possible. Along with the online paper we provide a downloaded word version of the report here. To keep up with developments the online paper will be updated weekly. If you have any concerns or suggestions for how we can make the paper more accessible please let us know on charitysowhite@gmail.com.
Use of the term “BAME”: The language we have to hand is not perfect. Throughout this report we have chosen to use the term ‘BAME’ as this allows us to make best use of existing research and we feel best captures the range of groups that are affected by structural racism in the UK. We aim to tackle some of the shortcomings of this term and prevent lazy generalisations/assumptions we often see associated with it by breaking it down wherever possible to drill down to evidence and impacts on specific groups.
Use of the term “vulnerable”: Where we use the term ‘vulnerable’ in this paper it is in line with public health guidance, referring to groups who are more at risk of contracting and deteriorating due to underlying health conditions. We are aware of the problematic and paternalistic use of this term and endeavour to be careful in our language and framing of the issues. You can read more about this issue in a recent blog by the Frameworks institute.
Our definition of the term racism: You can read about the definition of racism we use here.
Use of the word “power”: When we speak about power and people who hold it we are speaking about decision makers in the Third Sectors organisations e.g., Regulatory bodies, Boards of Trustees, CEOs, Senior Management. It is also important to note that a decision maker in a larger older institution like Oxfam will have more power than one in a smaller BAME led or community organisation.
ENSURE COVID19 RECOVERY PLANS CENTRE-BAME COMMUNITIES
1st June 2020: We have now wrapped up our live position paper Racial Injustice in the Covid-19 Response. We will now be shifting our focus towards tackling the systemic racism that led to this tragedy.
Over a period of 8 weeks we have collected and collated evidence, data, and case studies to showcase all the ways that the impacts of this pandemic were disproportionately impacting BAME communities. But it has become increasingly clear that the reason for lack of action on tackling these injustices and protecting our communities is not due to a lack of data, it is due to deep seated systemic racism across our institutions that denies the suffering and experiences of BAME people.
On 5th April 2020 we released the paper, which set out key principles to ensure that racial justice would be at the heart of the charity sector’s response to the pandemic. We also set out five key areas where BAME communities could be badly impacted by the pandemic. We updated it on a weekly basis for eight weeks to keep track of developments and impact of the pandemic on BAME communities. We have now brought it to a close.
Throughout the pandemic, narratives have emerged within the charity sector calling for evidence of the impacts of Covid-19 on BAME communities, seeking to ‘understand’ why this is happening. This has not led us any closer to finding answers or to protecting our communities. It is not because of a lack of data or a lack of understanding, but the systemic racism across our institution and wider society that has led to the reluctance for action that we are seeing. It is because the sector is not ready or willing to face up to and uproot these systems of oppression.
You can read our full rationale behind closing our live position paper here.
Over the next few weeks, Charity So White will shift our focus to recovery, in line with a vision for a charity sector that is racially just and tackles systemic racism and unequal power structures. Keep an eye on our twitter account and website for updates.
This paper was last updated on 1st June 2020. It still holds relevance and the recommendations are vital for the sector going forward.
Help us reach more people and leaders in the charity sector. Share this paper and join the conversation on twitter by using #CharitySoWhite.
#CharitySoWhite are all volunteers and have published this paper for free to make it accessible to all. It has taken time and effort for our committee to bring this together. Make a donation when you have read this to recognise the value of our work and to be an ally to #CharitySoWhite.