A branch of the United Nations has strongly rejected the recent race report commissioned by the UK government.
Last month, the government-backed review came under fire after it suggested the UK should be a model for white-majority countries, and also said most of the social disparities which exist in the UK “do not have their origins in racism”.
Now experts from the UN Human Rights Council have condemned the report for “ignoring racial disparities” and for “shifting the blame for the impacts of racism to the people most impacted by it”.
“In 2021, it is stunning to read a report on race and ethnicity that repackages racist tropes and stereotypes into fact, twisting data and misapplying statistics and studies,” the experts said.
“The reality is that People of African descent continue to experience poor economic, social, and health outcomes at vastly disproportionate rates in the UK.”
It adds: “The Report attacks the credibility of those working to mitigate and lessen institutional racism while denying the role of institutions, including educators and educational institutions, in the data on the expectations and aspirations of boys and girls of African descent.”
The experts also urge the government to reject the findings of the report, and also call for the the commission to be scrapped.
“The UK Commission on Race and Ethnic Disparities should be disbanded or reconstituted to prioritize an authentic and rigorous examination of race, rather than a politicized erasure of the racialized realities Black Britons navigate,” the statement reads.
“The distortion and falsification of these historic facts may license further racism, the promotion of negative racial stereotypes, and racial discrimination.”