MLK50; EQUALITY IN OUR LIFETIME MODEL MOTION

MLK50 CAMPAIGN  Please use the model motion below and adapt as required to endorse the campaign  through your unions and organisations.

Model Motion.

I/we condemn the continued and persistent existence of race discrimination in the UK some 50 years after Dr Martin Luther King’s March on Washington for Jobs and Freedom.

The Government’s lack of commitment to delivering race equality combined with the disastrous affects of public sector cuts is amplifying both racism and racial disadvantage in British society.

The effects of racism such as increased poverty, high unemployment, homelessness and ill health represent a tragic waste of human potential. Black and Muslim communities continue to endure human rights abuses with no affordable or accessible legal redress.

Black workers, particularly women in the public sector are disproportionately represented in public sector redundancies. Muslim and Black communities experience racial and religious profiling by the police and the criminal justice system. Asylum seekers and refugees continue to suffer the brutal racism and injustice of the state.

Extreme right wing groups seek to exploit the economic crisis by scapegoating Black and Muslim communities. As the economy declines we are seeing a rise in racism and its effects.

Government has abandoned the eradication of unfair racial disadvantage as a political priority. Attacks on the principle and concept of multiculturalism by politicians and sections of the media seeking to exploit people’s fears and are fanning the flames of racism.

We support the goal of achieving equality in our lifetime and express our support for BARAC UK’s call for the National March for Jobs and Justice to take place on August 28^th 2013 to bring to an end widespread racial discrimination in the UK and achieve race equality in our lifetime