British African-Caribbean Community - The Community

The Community

Further information: Politics of the United Kingdom and Education in the United Kingdom

In many parts of Britain, African-Caribbean people have been recognised as being part of a distinct community. In the 1950s and 1960s community centres and associations sprung up in some British towns and cities with an aim to serve African-Caribbean populations. One such example was the African Caribbean Self Help Organisation (ACSHO), formed in 1994 in the district of Handsworth in Birmingham. These centres have often addressed issues that rise within the community, including perceived problems of police harassment and concerns about the housing of Black people, which was viewed as discriminatory during the early decades of mass immigration.Community The centres also allowed African-Caribbean peoples to socialise without risking the potential racial discrimination and aggression of "unfriendly pubs". Many of these associations appointed a Community Relations Officer whose role was to liaise between the community and wider British society including the establishment. Other responsibilities included arranging social events, such as festivals, carnivals and coach trips, which helped bring the communities together. Typical of present-day centres is the Afro Caribbean Millennium Centre in Birmingham, which was established with National Lottery funding to support principally Caribbean people in areas such as employment, housing, education, immigration, and cultural issues.

Although the community does not face any official or informal restrictions on political participation, Britons of Caribbean origin are nonetheless under-represented in local and national politics. However there have been some successes with Diane Abbott being the first black person elected to Parliament under Labour and Linda C. Douglas being the first black person to be part of the Labour party National Executive Committee representing the now expelled Militant tendency. British African-West Indians have long asserted that they encounter discriminatory barriers to most middle- and higher-status occupations, as well as discrimination in hiring practices at all levels of employment. There is also considerable evidence that African-Caribbean people experience differential treatment at the hands of public officials, the British courts and penal system, and the police. Studies have proposed that the isolation of certain regional urban areas by financial institutions such as insurance brokers disproportionately affects the community to its detriment.

Britain's school system, despite efforts to address issues of discrimination, has often been accused of racism through undermining the self-confidence of all Black children and maligning the culture of their parents. Throughout the 1950s and 1960s, a disproportionate number of Caribbean migrant children were classified as "educationally subnormal" and placed in special schools and units. By the end of the 1980s, the chances of white school leavers finding employment were four times better than those of Black pupils. In 2000–01, Black pupils were three times more likely than white pupils and ten times more likely than Indian pupils to be officially excluded from school for disciplinary reasons. These chronic problems have contributed to the group being disproportionately at the lower end of the socio-economic spectrum and thus have continued to face challenging social problems into the 21st century.