Can't believe I only just found out what 'institutional racism' as in the Stephen Lawrence enquiry actually means. I'd always assumed (and I'm sure this was the intention of the language) that it meant something like what people think of as racism, but rampant and normalised within an institution.
But in fact their idea of institutional racism is a mix of unprovable 'unconscious bias', insensitivity, and observations of things like black people being more likely to be stopped and searched. The actual deficiencies in the murder case are just generalised incompetence.
As they say: "In this Inquiry we have not heard evidence of overt racism or discrimination". What they're really talking about is: "Unwitting racism can arise because of lack of understanding, ignorance or mistaken beliefs. It can arise from well intentioned but patronising words or actions. It can arise from unfamiliarity with the behaviour or cultural traditions of people or families from minority ethnic communities. It can arise from racist stereotyping of black people as potential criminals or troublemakers."
This was the basis on which vast amounts of the British state was transformed.
Much of the evidence seems to be that the police didn't deal sensitively with family and friends, and didn't view is as solely a racist attack. Whatever the truth of this, it's not very relevant to actually solving the case.
The full evidence for institutional racism: inensitivity, stop and search, under reporting of racist incidents, and not giving race awareness training to officers.
The evidence relating to the actual Stephen Lawrence case is just generalised incompetence.
Was pointed to this by Ed West's article here edwest.co.uk/p/britain-is-i…
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