No Place for Racial Divisionin Hastings
ROD WEBB
The Hastings Is No Place for Hate event hosted by the Observer Building earlier this month was the second in a series of meetings to tackle issues connected with discrimination and hate crime in the local community. This followed the success of a similar event in March (See HIP Issue 248), looking at issues faced by the LGBTQ+ community.
Jay Mendis-Gunasekera, Sussex Police Head of Race Equality and Aaron Clarke, Deputy Director of Vandu Languages
Both events were organised by local activist and campaigner, James Thomas, with the help of a range of community partners, and it is this model that seems to be galvanising the community into action. “Today was about cross-community conversation and was one of many conversations that have already happened and should continue to happen,” says James. “It’s about having everybody in the room and talking honestly.”
And there certainly were many people and organisations in the room talking, listening, browsing the stalls – and apparently learning. The organisations backing the event included representatives from Sussex Police, Hastings Borough Council, East Sussex Council, Black Butterfly, Safer Hastings Partnership, Khalid’s Kitchen, the Refugee Buddy Project, Hastings Supports Refugees, One Hastings Many Voices and many more.
The event began at 9.30 with a wide variety of interesting talks and short filmed contributions, 11 in all, ranging from local MP Helena Dollimore to Michelle Salter Chair of Sickle Cell society; from Glen Haffenden, Deputy Leader of HBC, to Jerome Odibi of Mama Putt’s and secretary to The Progress Network; from Safer Hastings Partnership to the GMB Union.
Food from Mama Putt’s and Khalid’s Kitchen was then served, and the wide range of stalls continued to be manned until 4pm.
A key function of these events is to make sure that often-marginalised communities are also involved in the process. At this gathering, the majority of the organisations involved were either grass roots Black organisations or represented by a member of the Black community. Although such involvement should perhaps be obvious, it apparently isn’t. And that goes to the heart of the problem.
In relation to this town, Dawn Dublin, CEO of Black Butterfly, hosted the Q&A session and said that she found it “mind blowing” how things don’t seem to change, “year in, year out.” The reason she gave was that the Black community was excluded from meaningful discussions on how to fix the problem. She went on to say that despite the huge amount of work the Black community does for this town she feels that non-white-led organisations are ignored: organisations like the one she heads, Playing the Race Card, The Progress Network, Afri-Co-Lab and many others.
By example, she pointed out how the HBC website’s entry on BAME communities in Hastings has no mention of these, despite being asked to include them. Yunis Smith, the new Green Councillor for Baird Ward, was quick to champion continued engagement with established organisations like HBC in the belief that there is always room for change – particularly with a move away from two-part control of the council.
But as James says: “It’s all about action.” Questions that need answering are: How can we create an equality charter for the councils that focusses on anti-hate and equitable need? How do we reduce hate crime and encourage increased engagement from the police with ethnic community groups? How do we encourage more conversations on anti-racism across the town and educate young people?
The event was filmed “to make sure the opinions were captured” and will be presented to East Sussex County Council, Hastings Borough Council and Hastings Police. We look forward to the improved inter-organisation communication that follows and for better community relations throughout the town.
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