Blacks `expect racism to get worse' hy hy

Race relations: Pessimism among black Britons is growing in the shadow of the Stephen Lawrence murder inquiry

GEORGE McPHERSON is no stranger to racial abuse. After arriving in Britain 50 years ago in the first wave of Jamaican immigrants, he was fully exposed to the prejudice of the more ignorant sections of the native population.

But he does not regret his decision to board the SS Windrush and make his life in the "mother country". Settled in Birmingham and married for 47 years to an English wife, he believes his proud Jamaican identity helped to protect him from the bigots. "We knew where we came from. Whatever happened to us, whatever was said to us, we could think back in our hearts to our homes and our families. We knew who we were and we were proud of that knowledge," he said. "We were prepared to shrug off prejudice. We took a lot of hassle. Today's kids won't take that."

The level of discontent among second and third generation Afro-Caribbeans was underlined yesterday by a new study, which found that 79 per cent of young blacks felt race relations in Britain would get worse in the next five years.

That is in stark contrast with the white community, which appears to be overcoming the concerns of a generation ago and accepting the idea of a multi-racial society.

Researchers from the University of Warwick found 41 per cent of whites thought race relations would improve over the next five years, and only 12 per cent thought they would deteriorate. The gulf of opinion between black and white comes against the background of an inquiry into the death of Stephen Lawrence, the black teenager who was stabbed in a racial attack in 1993.

The inquiry has shone a spotlight on racial attitudes within the police service and exposed evidence of discrimination. Jack Straw, the Home Secretary, has said he was shocked to find that black people are up to eight times more likely to be stopped and searched by police than whites.

A report by Statewatch, a police research group, found that blacks were stopped at a rate of 155 per 1,000 compared with 34 for whites and 47 for Asians. In Merseyside, the number of black people stopped was 189 per 1,000. The greatest racial difference was in Surrey, where blacks were eight times more likely to be targeted. Mr Straw said the findings were "a matter of concern".

Despite a series of initiatives by the Home Office to combat racial crime, there has been no impact on the number of race attacks during the past decade.

In the past three years there have been 866 serious racial assaults, 482 arsons, five attempted murders and nine murders. At the same time, job opportunities for black workers - which improved between 1984 and 1990 - worsened again.

Yet Chris Myant of the Commission for Racial Equality said there was increasing harmony among younger people. He said: "Younger people are at home with a multi-racial society. Their music, sport and cultural life is all multi-racial."

The Trinidad-born broadcaster Darcus Howe said: "We feel much more at ease in this country. My younger children, now 12 and 13, are much more self-assured than their bigger brothers and sisters were at that age."

But Mr Howe said the future of race relations depended much on economic factors. He criticised findings based on the questioning of individuals as "vulgar speculation".

Case Studies:

It's a case of us and them

CHERYL JONES, 19, is studying law at Downing College, Cambridge. She is optimistic about her own professional prospects, but said there was a noticeable difference in the way black and Asian people were perceived in the two areas in which she moved - and a noticeable difference in the prospects for improvements in race relations.

"I think my perception is that there is a difference between the ordinary person in the street and in academic and business circles," she said yesterday.

"Where I am at Cambridge in the academic and business circles, I definitely think it is getting better, racism is definitely going down. But for the ordinary person in the street the situation is not changing.

"I come from a reasonably poor area of Birmingham and the situation is still pretty much the same among white counterparts in the area that I live in. They are still quite racist."

Miss Jones believes the difference is down to class and education. "I would say it's an educational thing. But I think the boundaries are drawn much clearer in working-class districts. It tends to be very much an `us- and-them" situation," she said.

"Whereas, when you get to the middle and upper classes the opinions formed tend to be based more on what your academic ability is, what your business ability is, and race starts to matter a lot less."

While her white colleagues and lecturers were more articulate in describing and coming to terms with the problem of racism, she said she felt it was only surface treatment, a veneer that needed to go deeper before the underlying problems were addressed.

Despite the apparent softening in establishment racist attitudes Miss Jones was concerned by the lack of representation of black, Asian and Chinese faces in the upper echelons of her chosen profession.

"It is noticeable that you don't see many, isn't it?" she said.

Colour can be a help to me

ESTHER LISK-CAREW, reading law with French at Liverpool University, says she is unconvinced by rhetoric that tells her black and white candidates have equal chances, despite her own bright future.

"In legal circles I have found conflicting messages," Ms Lisk-Carew, from Birmingham, said. "I found a lot of stereotyping when I went to do my work experience. I heard a lot of stories about black and Asian lawyers and how it is a lot harder for them to get work."

She acknowledged that there were attempts to overcome any potential discrimination. "I have been encouraged to join schemes set up to help Asian and African lawyers to get ahead and get advanced in areas like business," Ms Lisk-Carew, 19, said. Groups such as the Society of Asian Lawyers, a networking club, worked hard to place and promote Asians in the legal profession.

"I did take some encouragement from the Foreign and Commonwealth Office, where I would like to work. They saw it as a positive aspect that I was a woman and that I was black."

Miss Lisk-Carew, whose family is from Sierra Leone, said: "I feel that as a young black person it is a lot more difficult to get away from the barriers, primarily because you tend to be in `a black community' where these barriers do raise their head more readily. People tend to stereotype groups and so membership of that group raises its own particular problems. As a group, young black people are not necessarily being helped at all. In the Stephen Lawrence inquiry, it became evident that he was seen typically as a young black man who could possibly be threatening, which is not the point because he was the one who was the victim of crime.

"Mostly the racism that occurs is something that I can ignore but there are a lot of people I know who suffer it on a daily basis."