Why I'm No Longer Talking to White People About Race(45)

This information suggests that it’s not as simple or binary as choosing between race and class when thinking about structural inequalities. Not only does the three-tiered class hierarchy no longer really exist, but it looks like existing race inequalities are compounded rather than erased by class inequalities. In the wake of the 2015 summer budget, analysis from race equality think tank the Runnymede Trust found that 4 million black and minority ethnic people would be worse off as a result of it, that BME people were over-represented in areas hit by the budget, and that race inequality will worsen over time because of it. The reality is, if you are born not white in this country, you probably haven’t been born into wealth. Research from the Joseph Rowntree Foundation has shown that black and minority ethnic people are much more likely to live in income poverty than their white counterparts. At the time of their research, the foundation found that just 20 per cent of white Brits were living in income poverty, in drastic comparison to 30 per cent of black Caribbeans, 45 per cent of black Africans, 55 per cent of Pakistanis and 65 per cent of Bangladeshis. The report also found that a disturbing 50 per cent of black and minority ethnic children were living in poverty.3

But that Joseph Rowntree report was published in 2007. Looking at census data provides a more long-term analysis of race and poverty in Britain. Published in 2014, analysis from the 2011 census focused on race and the labour market found that black men aged between 16 to 64 have the highest unemployment rates in the country, and that black women are more likely to be unemployed than white women. When it comes to the type of work that people in Britain are doing, the evidence again correlates along race lines. Pakistani, black African and Bangladeshi men are the most likely to work in low-skilled (and low-paid) jobs. According to the census, low-skilled jobs include admin, care work, sales and customer service, and operating machines. Asian people are concentrated in sectors like accommodation, food and retail, whereas BME women are concentrated in health and social work (meaning that when these public services face government cuts, black women feel it especially hard). Pakistani and Indian men can be found in the wholesale, retail and mechanics sectors.4 These are not exactly middle-class jobs.

These are the objective figures. They suggest that many consider their class to be about their preferred culture and politics, rather than their relationship to assets and wealth. Unlike race and racism, it is generally accepted in Britain your class can either positively or negatively affect your lot in life. But race is rarely brought into the analysis. Instead, when we think about inequality, we are encouraged to think of both race and class as distinct and separate. They’re not.

None of this is to say that white people aren’t living in poverty in Britain. Rather, it’s to point out that the working-class people in this country are not all white. In the face of an assumption around class that seems to be hung up solely on the purity of British racial exclusivity, we should ask ourselves who exactly makes up the working class.

Never has the conversation about class and inequality felt more urgent than in the recent discussion about London’s housing crisis – on the lack of available social housing, on the barely regulated private rental sector, and the increasingly futile pursuit of home ownership. In the capital, the invasion of luxury flats built for people on extraordinarily high incomes appeared to start in the east and quickly began to spread north. Construction was alarmingly swift. I spent half of my childhood in Tottenham, north-east London. When I go back to visit friends and family, I see the area changing. Walking down one Tottenham street on an autumn evening, I noticed that what was once an area of demolition had sprung up into skeletal scaffolding. The grounds were surrounded with boarding, and the boarding was plastered with aspirational images. The words on the boarding were in equal parts sinister as they were inviting.

The reading really depended on who caught a glimpse of it at the time. ‘Enjoy a more urban side to living in the heart of north London,’ the lettering read. This was an invitation that was not aimed towards people already living in Tottenham, but to newcomers – perhaps first-time buyers desperate to get on the property ladder with help from the bank of Mum and Dad, or maybe buy-to-let landlords whose sole aim was to make money out of London’s housing crisis. The word ‘urban’ here was coded, a term that implied inner cities, poverty and dilapidation. Urban here, as it is so often used (in music particularly), was code language for ‘black people live here’. The 2011 census saw 65 per cent of Haringey residents report that they were not white British. I was suspicious of the sudden increase of Tottenham new-builds, worried that they might begin to usher in an era of gentrification – with huge implications for the class and racial make-up of the area.

My suspicions weren’t unfounded. In 2013, The Economist reported that in the neighbouring London borough of Hackney between the years 2001 and 2011, Stoke Newington’s white British population jumped by 15 per cent and Dalston’s by 26 per cent.5 Fuelled by gentrification, the change wasn’t just about race, but about wealth, affluence and mobility. It was also about class.

After noticing the first ‘urban living’ invitation, I saw similar new-build construction sites popping up all over Tottenham. In 2015, barriers around the freshly built Rivers Apartments on the Spurs end of Tottenham High Road promised passers-by a ‘major sport-led development for Tottenham’ – new homes, a new school and new jobs. Fascinated by the race and class implications of London’s housing boom, I decided to look into it – and began rifling through the council’s publicly available documents.