Windrush Day has been celebrated on June 22 in the United Kingdom since 2018, and is also a celebration of the U.K.’s Caribbean communities. The year 2023 marks the fifth Windrush Day, and the 75th anniversary of the arrival of Afro-Caribbean migrants to Great Britain’s shores on the Empire Windrush ship in 1948. Many official celebratory events are taking place there Thursday and throughout the year.
However, issues swirling around compensation and justice for members of the Windrush Generation and the status of Black Britons are unresolved—just as the fact that we now have a federal Juneteenth holiday here in the States doesn’t mark an end to the ongoing racism, white supremacy, and economic inequality that continues to oppress Black Americans.
RELATED STORY: Caribbean Matters: Five years later, the UK’s racist Windrush scandal continues
Caribbean Matters is a weekly series from Daily Kos. If you are unfamiliar with the region, check out Caribbean Matters: Getting to know the countries of the Caribbean.
I have written about Windrush in recent years and I suggest a review of some of that history:
Caribbean Matters: Five years later, the UK’s racist Windrush scandal continues
Caribbean Matters: Immigration has an impact on those left behind. Meet the ‘barrel children’
Caribbean Matters: Leaked Windrush report highlights U.K.’s long history of anti-Black racism
Racism in Great Britain: ‘Windrush generation’ got a day, but pain and suffering hasn’t gone away
To officially mark Windrush 75, King Charles III held a reception at Buckingham Palace, where Reuters reports that he “unveiled 10 portraits of ‘Windrush elders’ which he commissioned last year.”
The Royal Mail has also issued special commemorative stamps.
A special collection of stamps has been issued to mark the 75th anniversary of the arrival of the hundreds of passengers from the Caribbean to the UK on the Empire Windrush. Eight Royal Mail stamps featuring original artworks by Black British artists were commissioned to celebrate the occasion, which will be revealed at the Black Cultural Archives in Brixton on Thursday.
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The illustrations were designed by five Black British artists of Caribbean heritage, including Kareen Cox, Bokiba, Tomekah George, Alvin Kofi and Emma Prempeh. Cox, Bokiba and Prempeh designed two stamps each.
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Royal Mail also worked with Colin Grant, a British writer of Jamaican heritage, and Sonia Grant, an independent historian, writer, researcher and photographic exhibition curator. Winnie Annan-Forson, the head of diversity, equity and inclusion at Royal Mail, said: “As Britain marks the 75th anniversary of the 1948 arrival of the MV Empire Windrush, we are honoured to mark this key event with a set of special stamps, featuring vibrant illustrations from talented artists that celebrate the culture and contribution of the Windrush generation and those who followed.
“We are delighted to have brought their stories to life in this special way, passing their legacy on to future generations.”
The Royal Mint also made a commemorative contribution.
The design of the 50p coin, which is available to buy from the Royal Mint’s website, depicts two smartly-dressed people from the Windrush generation
The coin’s designer, artist Valda Jackson, was born in St Thomas, Jamaica, and moved to England in 1964. Her parents were among the generation of people invited to leave their homes in the Caribbean to work in Britain, and she later joined them at the age of five.
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Ms Jackson said of the coin design: “It’s more than a celebration of one moment – it is an acknowledgement of the real, lived experience of generations of ordinary working people, and, though we may have struggled, and we still struggle in so many ways, we and our descendants are, in fact, at home. “And this is what the image – these figures and the added Union Jack – represents.“ I am very happy to have my design selected for this coin, which honours our parents and their legacy, and which celebrates our presence, achievements, and contributions that continue to enrich our society.”
The Royal Mint said it had also worked closely with Dr Juanita Cox, a Caribbean Studies specialist at the University of London, throughout the whole process of introducing the commemorative coin.
See more of Jackson and the coin in this video from The Independent:
There are many more celebrations and commemorations today and throughout the year. However, there is a clear disconnect with current Tory right-wing politics.
MP Diane Abbott highlighted one “dreadful aspect of the Windrush scandal.”
Hundreds of long-term sick and mentally ill people from the Windrush generation were sent back to the Caribbean in what has been described as a “historic injustice”, the BBC has found.
Formerly classified documents reveal at least 411 people were sent back between the 1950s and the early 1970s, under a scheme that was meant to be voluntary. Families say they were ripped apart and some were never reunited.The UK government said it was committed to tackling the injustices of the era.
A spokesman said: “We recognise the campaigning of families seeking to address the historic injustice faced by their loved ones, and remain absolutely committed to righting the wrongs faced by those in the Windrush generation.”
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The revelations – which echo the Windrush scandal, in which hundreds of Commonwealth citizens, many from the Caribbean, were wrongly deported – have sparked calls for a public inquiry into the repatriation policy.
Amelia Gentleman, author of “The Windrush Betrayal, Exposing the Hostile Environment,” reported on the disbanding of the Home Office unit investigating the scandal for The Guardian.
Exclusive: Staff say ‘there’s a lot still to do’ and worry decision signals ‘rolling back’ on promises of change
In the five years since the government first apologised for misclassifying thousands of Commonwealth-born people living legally in the UK as illegal immigrants, successive home secretaries have promised to oversee “comprehensive reform” of Home Office to ensure a similar scandal could never be repeated.
Over the past six months, [UK Home Secretary Suella] Braverman has been forced to acknowledge that she had dropped key commitments, which would have increased independent scrutiny of immigration policies. But the decision to disband the transformation directorate marks a more decisive move away from the post-Windrush reform agenda.
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Some staff who were in the call expressed concern about the possible reputational damage to the Home Office of winding down this work.“They asked what advice had been given to ministers, and to stakeholders, and how it left our commitments to implementing the Windrush recommendations,” a source said, adding that the staff had not received a clear response. “The staff in those teams feel that the commitment is being watered down. People who work in the Windrush engagement team are unhappy about this.”
Things that make you go “hmmm.”
Nadine White, race correspondent for The Independent, has also weighed in, citing concerns raised by Patrick Vernon, OBE, who lead the campaign to establish Windrush Day.
Patrick Vernon repeated calls to make the scheme independent, saying it is not appropriate to have the ‘perpetrators’ of the scandal run the scheme.
Patrick Vernon, convenor of the Windrush 75 network, said he fears this is a pattern of behaviour from the Government and a narrative that is “gaslighting” those whose lives have been devastated by what he said is “not the Windrush scandal, it’s a Home Office scandal”.
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A spokesperson for the department said: “The Government is honouring its Windrush commitments and providing support to those affected every day. “Over £72 million compensation has been paid or offered already and the scheme will stay open as long as needed. We will continue to keep our partners up to date.”
Mr Vernon repeated calls to make the scheme independent of the Home Office, saying it is not appropriate to have the “perpetrators” of the scandal running the compensation scheme. He said he is concerned the Government will end the scheme after reaching a certain limit, but he accused them of not having provided enough support for people to navigate the process. He told the PA news agency: “What they’ve not done is made the effort, they’ve not provided proper legal aid support or systems helping people to complete the forms. A lot of people haven’t come forward yet. Therefore they (the Home Office) are creating this narrative which is gaslighting further the Windrush generation.”
Critics of the Tory government’s dealings around Windrush raised a commotion back in April. Dr. Wanda Wyporska, chief executive of the Black Equity Organisation, wrote an opinion piece for The Guardian at the time.
A new report says the UK’s compensation scheme is ‘hostile’. When will ministers live up to their responsibilities?
Consider this week’s report from Human Rights Watch into the administration of the scheme. It confirms the worst fears of the Windrush scandal victims and survivors, many of whom predicted that the institutional prejudice, ignorance, carelessness and inhumanity that drove the scandal would resurface if the Home Office were allowed to manage the compensation scheme.
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It is indignity heaped on indignity. The review into the Windrush scandal, led by HM Inspector of Constabulary and Fire & Rescue Services, Wendy Williams, made 30 recommendations for change and improvement. She said: “While I am unable to make a definitive finding of institutional racism within the department, I have serious concerns that these failings demonstrate an institutional ignorance and thoughtlessness towards the issue of race and the history of the Windrush generation … consistent with some elements of the definition of institutional racism.”
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The Black Equity Organisation has launched legal proceedings against the home secretary for reneging on the promise to implement all the Windrush review recommendations, and will be working with survivors, community groups and the public to hold Suella Braverman and the Home Office to account. We need to believe that when a government minister makes a promise, it will be kept. The Windrush pioneers need to know that if ministers who profess to care won’t fight for them, the community will.
To gain a clearer picture of the current status of Black people in the U.K., Minority Rights International offers this overview and summary, titled “Black British.”
Black British people make significant contributions to all walks of life in the UK but continue to face very considerable levels of discrimination. There are highly placed black politicians, but the black population is generally under-represented in politics. Many black people – particularly in the inner cities – remain trapped in a cycle of poverty and discrimination in employment and housing. The gap in income is stark: UK-born black people earn on average 7.7 per cent less than white people. That figure rises to 15.3 per cent for those born outside the UK. This is not about educational attainment; in fact, the earnings differential rises dramatically for black people after pursuing higher education. Black people with university degrees earn on average 23 per cent less than white people with similar qualifications. A further challenge is educational inequalities: though in primary and secondary education the gaps between black and white students have narrowed, with comparable levels of attainment at GCSE level, the disparities are sharp at higher education. A variety of barriers, including continued discrimination, mean that black students are on average 1.5 times more likely to drop out of university than their white counterparts.
Unemployment levels are also relatively high. Black people faced unemployment rates at 9.0 per cent compared with 3.1 per cent for white people during the year ending in the first quarter of 202. Black people are more likely to live in poverty than whites: around 46 per cent compared with 19 per cent respectively. This affects health outcomes: in England and Wales, mortality rates for Black African and Black Caribbean infants were respectively 7 and 5.8 per 1,000 compared with 3.2 for white British infants in 2017 (using Office for National Statistics sources and categories). Black women are four times more likely than white women to die in pregnancy or childbirth.
An especially contentious issue is the disproportionate targeting of black individuals, particularly youth, by the justice system. In England and Wales, black men are more than three times more likely to be arrested than white men, with the disparities even sharper among black youth: young black people, aged between 10 and 17, appear to be nine times more likely to end up incarcerated in offender institutions than their white peers. This is illustrated by the disparity in the controversial practice of stop-and-search: data shows that the rate per 1,000 black people was 52.6 were stopped and searched during the year ending March 2021 compared with a rate of 7.5 for white people. The rate for black people not identifying as of either African or Caribbean backgrounds was even higher: 158 per 1,000 people were stopped and searched during the same period. The inequalities are even more evident with the use of Section 60, a discretionary power that allows police to stop and search in a particular area for a limited period of time without the normal requirements of reasonable suspicion. Ethnic minority and black people were respectively 6.2 and 14 times more likely to undergo a Section 60 search in 2020-2021 than white people.
These data mirror much of what we know to be true for Black people here in the U.S. However, despite all of the inequities, Afro-Caribbean Brits will be celebrating not only Thursday, but throughout the year.
The “We Are Here” Twitter account highlights faces of the Windrush Generation.
RELATED STORY: Caribbean Matters: Leaked Windrush report highlights U.K.’s long history of anti-Black racism
Join me in the comments for more Windrush Day reports, and for the weekly Caribbean News Roundup.
