The question about how Newham Voices combat racism in all its forms and promote inclusion is a question that challenges many organisations as we know. My thinking is that Newham Voices consider a different approach, and see racism as one aspect of selfishness. All other forms of discrimination be that class, gender, sexuality, body image, disability, etc., are all just manifestations of selfishness.

Personally speaking, I feel the times we live now are far safer than when I grew up during the ‘60s and ‘70s as a young black London born male. Currently within the black community itself are issues of which racism is merely a contributory element. The root causes have as much to do with family, economic status, employment, upbringing, education, personal choice, mental health, the list can go on.

We know we cannot mandate people to like other people. Getting to know other people from a different ethnic background to oneself, if that experience has not been had before may not be easy for some. Ramming home messages to people to do this or that will always be met by an element of resistance from some, even the pandemic has shown that. However, the matter of racism will resonate in each of us in ways that may not be the same – because it’s personal.

I have friends of the same ethnic background as myself who, when the word ‘black’ is mentioned, almost bristle with tension as if readying to get into a verbal spat! During my pre-teen years the term ‘coloured’ was often used. I perceived it as an attempt to politely address people of ethnic backgrounds particularly from the West Indies and African countries.

I can clearly remember saying to a teacher at my junior school in a class exercise about people and race, that I didn’t see myself as being anything other than of brown skin and merely accepted black as a colloquialism, as I wasn’t coloured since I only had one colour. We truly are all just individuals.

May I use the crude example of a building being razed to the ground because of inappropriately selected materials used in its construction, materials that the building specification had forbidden. In this example, use of such material had contravened all manner of building codes and laws, so it would seem superfluous to making a new law that specifically addressed using materials that were not compliant with building specification, simply because the laws already exist to protect against that occurrence.

Surely the issue is truly implementing the existing laws, consistently and without bias. So, by being a voice of the community and holding up to scrutiny any instances of discrimination be it racism or any other, draws people in. Some will always be contrary, but we know one cannot please all the people all the time.

The action of: providing a genuine platform to be the voice of the community which it represents; implementing and continually refining its policies of engagement with the community, editorial team and reporter relation; the articles deemed not to be covered as well as those that it does; and allowing feedback from both the community and interviewees, and from Newham Voices personnel about the Newham Voices organisation would represent a worthy ideals for a community news organisation, standing it up to more established operators in similar arenas.

As an organisation that was created to ‘be the voice of the community’, maybe by demonstration of remaining true to a triumvirate of action, policy and feedback, the racism concern gets addressed. We can but try.

Newham Voices’ first readers forum on diversity matters got off to a great start on Saturday morning, November 28^th, bringing together readers and supporters to discuss how, as a newspaper and website, we can combat racism in all its forms and promote inclusion.

If you missed the chance to take part, you can still catch up by visiting the live screened recording on our Facebook page. It has already been seen by over 2500 people

The Newham Voices Board will meet on Monday December 7^th to discuss the wealth of suggestions and views expressed at the forum, so watch this space for developments -and the date of the next forum meeting.

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