Race Apart

Race Apart’ is a regional programme shown in the North West on Tuesday 7th December. Lemn Sissay looks at multicultural Britain 50 years on from the Race Relations Act of 1965, and asks if the lives of black and other ethnic minority groups have improved.
It includes an interview with Levi Tafari in Liverpool who speaks about the importance of remembering the city’s legacy of slavery: “The remnants of it are still here. Everywhere you turn, and everywhere you look, there’s a memory. It’s always there as a reminder. People have fought over the years for equality and justice and the Race Relations act was supposed to support that, but for me you can make as many laws as you want. The important thing is people’s mindset”.
On the 1981 riots: “I would say Liverpool wasn’t really a race riot because there was white people being oppressed as well within our community, because unemployment was high in Liverpool. But the police in particular did target the black community and that’s what sparked it, and black people and white people came together at that point to fight against oppression and injustice in the form of the police. In Toxteth we see it as an uprising, that we were rising up against oppression and injustice.” The programme is available on iPlayer for four weeks.