by Thepolice

Created on: May 27, 2007

The freezing of the funding of the National Black Police Association, (NBPA), might be just what was required in this age of unreason within British race relation's and the random "tokenism" of the police service towards this subject.

It is not easy for Black colleagues to stand up to Forces that practice, and those colleagues that do challenge face severe marginalisation from within the service and indeed the NBPA movement. Challenging is a very personal choice.

Some Black individuals choose to keep their heads down; whilst others do not. The myth that still exists is that the service is actually dealing with this subject of "race." The reality is that our leaders are "white-washing" this subject.

Forces vehemently do not want to admit cases of racism for there is nothing but absolute collusion and denial inside caused by those in middle and Senior positions.
The ex president of the NBPA, Powell, suggested that there were two categories of BPA's, those that acquiesce and those that do not. Unfortunately it is the Marginalised Black community that has lost.

"We" in the service have placed certain people in charge of the NBPA. The discrepancies that exist relate not only to finance.

There is a bigger picture. In this period of questioning we must understand that irregularity relates to the whole structure of the NBPA and to the treatment of Black officer's by other Black officer's also.

Forces have been warned about these issues about maltreatment but nothing was done, choosing only to allow disputes to continue whilst the real work of race relations was undermined.

This is control, by those in power of the marginalised community. Just look around at some of the people involved in race relation's and one has to question the incompetence of those in power.

A complete modernisation of the NBPA movement is an absolute priority because Black people deserve better than this continued marginalisation.

ACPO must totally commit to the review of the experiences of Black officers in relation to race both post and pre Macpherson, but the research should not be used as a means for tribunal, rather as a tool to assist Forces understand what institutional racism is.

ACPO must also try and understand why, how and where Muslim youth are being radicalised. This is a fundamental question that society refuses to acknowledge.

There are of course other issues relating to Black on Black crime, knife crime, and the experiences of the Eastern European Communities that the NBPA must partake in. It is not unwise to presuppose that there will be conflict between these communities also.

Fundamentally these problems have been caused by a few, but the service cannot wash it's hands of these issues of incompetency and lay the blame solely at the hands of the NBPA.

If the support for those suffering racism from those inside is weak then the law in relation to race relations in this country and the politics of that law is not only weak but morally corrupt, (institutional racism).

The Home Office and ACPO must finally decide what type of BPA or NBPA they want; for a BPA is only as good as the understanding of those within it.

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