Twenty years after Stephen Lawrence's murder, what's changed?

25 Apr 2013


I found out about the murder from a friend, Ros Howells [now a Labour peer], who was very active in race relations in the Lewisham area and told me about it within days. It was one of a series of deaths of black men – deaths in custody, deaths where no one ever got to the bottom of what had happened.

I got to know Stephen Lawrence's father, Neville, quite well and in many ways they were symbolic of an ordinary black family who got caught up in the random cruelties of institutional racism. I made a speech about [the case] in the House of Commons in 1993 and it has been amazing to me how it has become such a mainstream cause. Because when Stephen died, initially, no one was interested. The family went to court and lost, and they asked the government for an inquiry and didn't get one. But you had a couple of things coming together. First of all there was Doreen Lawrence, who was incredibly persistent in asking for justice. Then, before the 1997 election, we took Doreen to see [then home secretary] Jack Straw. He started out being sceptical – the police had told him there was no case for an inquiry – but he was really impressed and he did deliver.

That's what made the case special – the inquiry that revealed what we all knew, that there was systemic institutional racism in the police force. Britain's black community had always known this, but it was often dismissed, or it was said that we were exaggerating.

But this inquiry caught the Met in the glare of the headlines. The Stephen Lawrence case was like a freeze frame, showing something a lot of people knew about, but which had not been taken seriously before.

I don't think it necessarily changed British society and I wouldn't say the Stephen Lawrence case made people go into politics. People had been campaigning for years on these issues, including racism in the police. The society we live in today is a result of at least three generations of campaigners. Nor did it make it easier to campaign against racism partly because there was an immediate backlash from the police, who complained, and continue to complain, that their hands are tied in dealing with black criminals. But it was a brief moment when the mainstream said: "Yes, we understand what you are talking about."

What's disturbing to me is how quickly people have slipped back into old ways. I went around Hackney in the days after the riots and people said it was about the way they were treated by the police. Sadly, in a recession, and with cutbacks and austerity, people look for a scapegoat and I think racism and anti-immigrant feeling has reared its ugly head again. Some of the narrative about immigration is very unnerving. Also the [reaction to the case] in some ways has reinforced a post-racist narrative, but that's not my experience or the experience of my friends and their children.

The Guardian feature is here: http://www.guardian.co.uk/uk/2013/apr/21/twenty-years-stephen-lawrence-murder-whats-changed


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