How Black People Lose Out in The Wealth Stakes

Not everyone can be a business person. If we didn't have people to clear the rubbish, for example, we would all be down with various illnesses within two weeks. However, no matter what the individual aspires to do, make no mistake about it, in any diverse society, there will be a majority group who has the power base and who dictates the standards, mores and identifiable culture already in existence. For the outsider to thrive in such an environment, regardless of their brain power or personal merit, and particularly within the administrative and political systems, they have to be given the access to do so by that majority.

People of African origin, the world over, gravitate towards the caring professions (45% of NHS staff is Black and Asian, yet they make up only 10% of this country) and in the USA, 68% of people serving that country in various administrative posts are African Americans. The trouble with those professions is that they might earn the gratitude of the public but they tend to trap their staff in low paid, low status professions, at the mercy of the government, which lack the opportunity for wealth creation, personal influence or genuine advancement.

With these professions tending to be more glory than substance, particularly when very few Black people make it to the top through persistent discrimination (the UK National Health Service being a classic case in point), and everyone unable to become a business person, the scene is set for gross inequality for those who choose this public service route.

Whatever is happening around us is not by accident. It is easy to blame laws and governments, but it is our individual actions from the lowest to the highest which perpetuate those inequalities. If we, as a nation, are happy to have one section of our community excluded from the opportunity and access which are essential for individual and national growth, primarily on the basis of colour, what is it really saying about us? Is it also any wonder that we remain culturally backward, economically second-rate and trapped in a time warp when so much talent is going to waste? Come to think of it, where is that 'British Empire' mentioned on all those regular gongs given out to the public?

No one likes to feel excluded, passed over, ignored and invisible, yet one section of this community is being treated in that manner, except for negative exposure when deemed appropriate, especially associated with crime. At such times, African Caribbeans in Britain are always over-represented. That is why, as I write this, 55% of all Black males in London, 18-24 years old, are out of work. If they were White, there would be a national outcry. But they are not, and every one of those youngsters idling their life away represents our future.

Racism succeeds not through the actual racists or bigots themselves, but because of the silent majority who do nothing about it, or prefer to ignore it, which sends the wrong message about its value and proliferates the very action they apparently abhor. That is why Hitler was able to harm so many minorities (Jews) until the majority decided to act - but only because, eventually, they too were being threatened by his aggressive, immoral actions. And that's the key to anything which is unjust. Allowed to covertly take root and spread (because it doesn't affect us all!), injustice inevitably corrupts and engulfs both the good and bad around it.

In the end, it depends on the world we want for ourselves and our children. Whether we want one in which everyone, regardless of gender, colour or creed, has the opportunity and access to thrive, or we prefer a community riddled with racism, bias and nepotism, which only favours the few. The choice is definitely ours, and every single one of our routine actions reinforces that unconscious choice in a consistently corrosive way, without us even realising it.