THE LIB Dem candidate for Mayor of London, Siobhan Benita, has criticised Cressida Dick for refusing to acknowledge that the Met Police could still have a problem with systemic racism.
Following the publication of the Macpherson report in 1999 the Met Police force was famously described as institutionally racist.
Twenty-one years later and the Black Lives Matter movement has sparked a fresh round of concern about the continuing disproportionate targeting of BAME communities by the police.
Apology
Speaking to the Home Affairs Committee last week Dick said that institutional racism is not a label she accepts and denied there is any collective failing or systemic problem.
She did however offer an apology to Team GB star Bianca Williams who was stopped and searched with her partner and baby son in a car.
Now Benita is calling on Mayor of London Sadiq Khan to investigate whether the Met Police remains institutionally racist.
She said: “In this period of heightened focus on the systemic racism that persists today, it is hugely disappointing to see the Commissioner of the Met Police refuse to acknowledge that our police force might be a part of the problem.
Impacted
“Stop and search disproportionately targets black Londoners. The case of Bianca Williams has rightly caught the public’s attention. Thousands more innocent black people are impacted in similar ways all year round.
She continued: “The Commissioner talks about progress, but we are now witnessing the biggest breakdown in trust between police and black communities in London in a generation. It’s been two decades since the Met Police were found to be institutionally racist. To rebuild trust, Sadiq Khan should investigate the Met again with the specific aim of finding out if the force still deserves that label.”
In a recent interview with The Voice Dick acknowledged some of the criticisms of the force by the black community which has accused it of discriminatory policing.
Questioning
When asked if the Met Police force, the country’s largest, is still institutionally racist as described by the Macpherson report of 1999 she said: “I fully recognize that there is further to go, and that some people will see us as a service which hasn’t changed as much as they would like. And we are, of course, working in a society that is going through an awful lot of questioning itself right now.
“We recognize, that racism has existed and does exist. We’ve done a huge amount against hate crime, and I’m proud of that. I have a long history, personally, of being anti-racist. I’m passionate about this. And I’ve been working very hard on it personally in the last two or three years as Commissioner. But we’ve got further to go. And it’s for others to judge where they see we now are.”
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Cressida Dick the Met Police Commissioner states “that (Police) racism has existed and does exist. We’ve done a huge amount against hate crime, and I’m proud of that. I have a long history, personally, of being anti-racist. I’m passionate about this. And I’ve been working very hard on it personally in the last two or three years as Commissioner. But we’ve got further to go. And it’s for others to judge where they see we now are.”
The Liberal Democrat Siobhan Benita, candidate for Mayor of London pushes their remedy of “diversity” and “inclusion” and “equality,” as the solution to end Police and the English Establishment’s racism and colour discrimination.
What these liberal Caucasian middle-class women fail to understand is that England’s African-skinned Subjects have asked and campaigned for colour-blind Justice by Employers: The Judiciary, Police, and the Establishment’s Institutions generally.
We know that “hate-crime” codes are not a solution for colour-blind Justice. We know the Liberal’s policy of “inclusion” and “diversity” and “equality” are not a solution for colour-blind Justice.
There is no substitute for the application of colour-blind Justice to end the racial disparity that England’s African-skinned Subjects still endure daily in 2020.
It is indisputable that the Met is a racist organisation. That Commissioner Dick is in denial means she is no longer fit for her post. Anyone in her position who denies police racism should be sacked. African and Caribbean communities have no faith in her leadership and have the lowest level of public confidence in policing of any ethnic group in London. The Mayor of London needs to be forced to sack her. Such are the tensions between police and our community that any incident could spark a backlash. For the sake of London she has to go