A Two-Tier Society? # 230. 11/06/2026

Welcome to a blog that is coming out earlier than I anticipated because of the controversy over the police handling of the killing of Henry Nowak, with further controversy over the stabbing and riots in Northen Ireland. Meanwhile the wise responses of both families to their respective tragedies should be honoured. The next blog will be on 23^rd June.

A Two-Tier Society?

Five years ago I posted a blog on ‘Ethnicity and Asymmetry’. I began by observing that there was no issue with James Brown singing ‘Say it loud, I am black and I’m proud’, but if Ed Sheeran had recorded ‘Say it loud, I’m white and proud’ he would have been cancelled into oblivion. Two tier music? I went on to comment how local authorities often part funded Turkish, Irish, West Indian and other ethnic community hubs, but never an English one. Two tier councils? Anglican churches were expected to welcome people of all ethnicities, but if African or Tamil churches focussed on people of their own ethnicity that was acceptable. Two tier ecclesiology?

I argued that absolute symmetry between white English and minority ethnic people – being ‘colour blind’ – was not desirable on three grounds: immigrants arriving in this country were vulnerable and needed support groups; all non-white minorities face racism and needed psychologically safe spaces; we do not have a level playing field between ethnic groups. In other words, treating people as though ethnic groups ‘are all the same’ is not desirable. We are not.

As regards ‘race’, there are two major areas of difference that it points to: internal and external factors. Internal refers to the multitude of cultural factors that shape different ethnic groups: attitudes to authority, family and parenting; work and leisure; commitment to a wider social group, and so on. External is how that group has been treated by others: with conquest and enslavement, superiority and inferiority, openness and exclusivity formative forces. Such differences are compounded by factors within each ethnic group, such as social class, education, access to power and resources and so on. The immigrants who have caused Britain to become a multi-racial society over the past eighty years are marked by these diversities, but an overwhelming factor is that they were comparatively disadvantaged, coming from societies that were poorer, had fewer resources and had often been negatively affected by British colonial rule. That is, the impact of external factors.

So the call to treat everyone the same raises the question as ‘the same as who?’ The answer tends to be ‘the same as myself’. A study of Birmingham churches in the 1980s revealed that when clergy said they treated everyone the same the outcome was difference, minorities simply didn’t get involved. Justice, in other words, may mean making allowance for difference, just as a marksman aims not for the target but to some degree to the side of it to allow for the effect of wind. In other words, he contextualises.

What then should be done about unequal outcomes in policing and law in Britain. There are some things that should not be done. The belief that statistically unequal outcomes automatically indicate systemic racism is a long-running folly in the national discussion of race: that is, only ‘external’ factors matter. Some ethnic groups may be over-represented in certain crimes simply because they are more criminal in that respect, whether that is for knife crime or tax avoidance. Feeling pressure to try and level out the statistics, as with not acting on reports of sexual abuse of white teenage girls or not incarcerating Valdo Calecane, ultimately brings the law into disrespect. If some ethnic groups come out badly, well then that’s the reality. Black boys do carry knives disproportionately.

But some things can be done. Because racism, and simply ignorance of other cultures is common in our society, then it is likely that without attempts at preventative measures racist attitudes in the police force will show up in the statistics. Following the tragic murder of Henry Nowak there have been criticisms of the police’s attempts to respond to the McPherson Report’s allegation of systemic racism. But the police’s failure to make a competent, professional response to the murder of Stephen Lawrence showed not only racist assumptions by some police officers but also a systemic failure by the organisation as a whole to pursue the case with the vigour it would most probably have brought to the murder of a middle-class white teenager. So rightly training has been provided to change police attitudes. But questions can be asked about the suitability and effectiveness of such training, particularly if it is based on the conviction that racism is so baked into our society that the approach is an adversarial attempt to force beliefs rather than to explore with the police how a change in their attitudes might lead to better outcomes and greater order. We may never know what caused the police to make a very inappropriate response to the stabbing of Henry Nowak but it may well reflect them responding to the incident by the ‘anti-racist book’ rather than trusting to their own intelligently trained instincts. (Yesterday I did a helpful diocesan safeguarding training course, where the emphasis was rightly on getting participants to ‘own’ the training, not simply to accept a given line.)

We all have a race and ethnicity so there is no ‘authorised version’ about what happens in any specific encounter, or as regards relationships between racial or ethnic groups in our society. As I wrote five years ago, we need to recognise that the playing field is not level and find ways to compensate for that, but how we respond needs flexibility, humility and repentance, and the readiness both to improvise and to recognise mistakes. Clearly with Henry Nowak the police made mistakes – which may reflect ‘systemic’ faults in how the training they receive now affects their work, or it may simply be an instance of bad policing.

What needs avoiding is to rush to dogmatic extremes; on the one hand to raise alarm about how Critical Race Theory has created unnecessary problems in a legal and policing system that had been heretofore unproblematic, or on the other hand to man the barriers and double down on the need for more anti-racist training. We are living in an ever-changing context. Over the past five years for many ethnic minorities the playing field has levelled up somewhat, especially in terms of jobs or public profile. On the other hand as a consequence of the 2008 financial crash, Covid, the war in Ukraine, and especially the boom in computer technology for many white people the playing field has got even less level. Five years ago I quoted Professor Eric Kaufmann’s concern over the taboo against ‘the proscription against expressing majority but not minority identities’ (see blogs # 169 & 170 for reviews of Kaufmann’s ‘Taboo’). White restlessness against that taboo has fuelled Unite the Kingdom and other populist expressions.

Changes in the contours of the playing field lie behind the increasing fractiousness we see. So one incident becomes the basis for a ludicrous claim by some that white people now occupy the lower tier in our society and that all attempts to counter racism further their victimisation. Overall, the disparities are the consequence of class rather than colour. But the horrendous events in Northern Ireland this week indicate that direct white-on-black racism is by no means finished.

We are a racially diverse society. That will always produce disparities and a sense of grievance from various sources. The way forward will always be warm hearts that are wanting to relate to those who are different, cool heads that are constantly seeking to discern the truth of what is going on, and a hopeful spirit that believes we can find godly ways to live together peacefully.

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Add On.

In The Times this week Matthew Parris raised the question of how Danny Kruger MP could publicly declare his Christian faith and yet not call out the flagrant dishonesty of his Reform colleague Robert Jenrick MP for deliberately and grossly distorting Kemi Badenoch’s statements about racial equality before the law. American evangelicals have brought the movement into worldwide disrepute through playing a major part in inflicting Donald Trump on the world. Christians with leading roles in Reform such as Danny Kruger and Professor James Orr (both of whom apparently came to faith through the HTB Alpha Course) have a responsibility to disassociate from Jenrick’s Trumpian disregard for truth so that they do not discredit evangelicalism in Britain.

Reflection from Scripture – 1 Kings 8, verses 41-43.

⁴¹ ‘Likewise when a foreigner, who is not of your people Israel, comes from a distant land because of your name ⁴² —for they shall hear of your great name, your mighty hand, and your outstretched arm—when a foreigner comes and prays towards this house, ⁴³ then hear in heaven your dwelling-place, and do according to all that the foreigner calls to you, so that all the peoples of the earth may know your name and fear you, as do your people Israel, and so that they may know that your name has been invoked on this house that I have built’.

Solomon’s prayer at the dedication of the Temple is a rich summary of all that Israel looked to God for. Awareness of and valuing the foreigner was an instinctive aspect of that faith, both in believing that God’s love extends also to them, and that they also can come and discover that faith for themselves.

This prayer does not set an immigration policy. It does set at the heart of faith and worship a mindset of welcome, concern and acceptance of those who are different.