The Big Issue requested this piece for their monthly column 'If I was King for a Day'

"There’s a lot of talk about race and racism.  It might be the BNP or Islamophobia or an offensive word uttered on Strictly… I wonder if all this talk misleads us into thinking society is as racist as it ever was.  Maybe in 2009 it’s the rarity of racial tensions and violence that make it shocking to us?

Growing up in the 1970s, I remember how everyday and acceptable racism was.  In my provincial comprehensive I was the nearest thing anyone had (because of my dark skin) to insult with “paki” – even a few of my teachers joined in.

But today its not just that life has improved for Britain’s ethnic minorities – there’s something else going on – something amazing.  My work takes me into a lot of primary schools and you can see it.  Almost 20% of British children under 16 belong to an ethnic minority.  Nearly 10% live in a family that has multiple, white, black or Asian heritage.  In other words the dubious concept of ‘race’ is falling apart at a gathering pace.  The extent to which playgrounds and classrooms have become crucibles for kids to transcend race and carry that forward is something to celebrate.  Its like a hot-air balloon set to rise up above all our adult centred race-talk.  

But there’s a problem. Since 2002, the government has  required schools to officially report anything perceived to be a “racist incident”.  The dragnet has accumulated tens of thousands of incidents so far.  Typical of the incidents submitted to local authorities are kids insulting each other with phrases like ‘chocolate bar’ – in east London its often Bangladeshi kids using the term Kalabander to insult other Bangladeshi kids (it means ‘black monkey’). 

The statistics are frequently used to conjur the idea that kids need educating about their racism and to learn respect for ‘racial identity’.

King for a day?  For a start, I’d allow schools the freedom to throw counter-productive anti-racism out of the basket and let the balloon rise.  In playgrounds, kids are doing anti-racism all by themselves." 

The Birmingham Mail commented on The Myth of Racist Kids on Nov 2nd 2009 with a headline that read "Rise in racist incidents in Birmingham schools is denied by senior education officer".   The muddle here is similar to Channels 4s report from 2007 whereby the rise in the reporting of incidents is conflated with a rise in racism itself.  Faced with my reports claim that the number of recorded racist incidents in schools had almost doubled since 2003 the Birmingham official could only assert that actual racism hadn't risen (although monitoring had "improved").