Thread by @RunnymedeTrust

We're about to begin the event for Runnymede's & @CLASSthinktank report, 'We Are Ghosts - Race, Class and Institutional Prejudice' with speakers @faizashaheen @omaromalleykhan, @johnharris1969 @SamiaBadani and Laurie Mompelat

We're live-tweeting using #RaceAndClass

.@faizashaheen opens the event talking about the stereotype of the working class, as the white and northern, leading to the erasure of long-standing BME working class groups.

It's created division, that we need to overcome and move the narrative forward

#RaceAndClass

Laurie Mompelat (@RunnymedeTrust and @CLASSthinktank) is presenting the report's findings

The research is a year-long case study of working class London, mainly North Kensington (#Grenfell)

There were 10 focus groups, with people from low income backgrounds
#RaceAndClass

Laurie Mompelat explains the 'We Are Ghosts' title, a quote from an interviewee, highlights the invisibility of working class, BME and migrant groups in public debates

#Grenfell and #Windrush are two moments that the invisible became visible

@CLASSthinktank

#RaceAndClass

Laurie Mompelat highlights shared experiences between groups, such as punitive culture in public services eg benefit sanctions, housing

The way in which public debates around working class, BME and migrant groups, is framed has informed policy.

@CLASSthinktank #RaceAndClass

Laurie Mompelat explains the report outlines the way in which debates have led to institutional prejudice with devastating impact on people's lives - such as the Hostile Environment.

@CLASSthinktank #RaceAndClass

Laurie Mompelat explains the report is an opportunity to find solidarity between groups and fight prejudice and injustices that impact people's lives on a daily basis.

Have we been divided and conquered?

@CLASSthinktank #RaceAndClass

.@omaromalleykhan (@RunnymedeTrust director) explains how politicians pathologise the white working class as racist.

However it's not the white working class that denies BME groups jobs

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.@omaromalleykhan (@RunnymedeTrust director) explains some of the main recommendations - public services need to treat people as human begins.

Dignity needs to be reintroduced to public services. And equality legislation needs to be held to a higher standard.

.@johnharris1969 (Guardian columnist) commends the report from having voices, it's ethnography.

Says the separation of the working class and race is divisive and a 'trick of the right' and politicians such as Nigel Farage

@CLASSthinktank #RaceAndClass

.@johnharris1969 talks about historical comparisons and his grandfather, a miner in South Wales, who's condition as a working class person was improved by themselves - miners' welfare (libraries, health provision), friendly societies, a welfare state @CLASSthinktank #RaceAndClass

.@johnharris1969 this experience was not one of precariousness and prejudice. He says there's been a 40 year war on the welfare state, and now public services (councils, benefit, NHS) can make working class people's lives more difficult.

@CLASSthinktank #RaceAndClass

.@johnharris1969 is talking #gentrification in St Paul's in Bristol, one of the UK's longest established African-Caribbean communities. He cites moves to rename the Malcolm X Centre because it's not welcoming to the newly gentrified St Paul's @CLASSthinktank #RaceAndClass

.@SamiaBadani talks about #Grenfell a national tragedy, that did not lead to a national response.

People who live in social housing are labelled and put in a box. It's prejudice.

@CLASSthinktank #RaceAndClass

.@SamiaBadani following #Grenfell communities came together - there was a power vacuum - and redefined relationships with the council, voluntary sector.

It's led to a change in mindset with residents associations forming and commissioning services

@CLASSthinktank #RaceAndClass

.@ppvernon (#Windrush campaigner and cultural historian) talks about narratives - working class histories seem to exclude BME working class narratives such as Caribbean and South Asian migration to the Midlands to work in factories in 1950s/1960s.

@CLASSthinktank #RaceAndClass

.@ppvernon says most post-war migration to Britain, was working class people migrating to Britain. It is working class, British history.

This is why #Windrush Day is important, to celebrate working class, BME histories and contributions

@CLASSthinktank #RaceAndClass

The panelists have wrapped up and we've moved onto questions from the floor.

@CLASSthinktank #RaceAndClass