(Letter to Bristol Legacy Commission after attending meeting 15th Feb 2010)


Dear Cherene,

Thanks for warm welcome at meeting on 15th February and it was good to meet you.

I attended because I am concerned with the feeble and apologetic pose BCC seems to adopt in relation to the city's past.
I was hoping to see a more positive approach to building a united community in the city. One that, perhaps, did not exhibit the guilt-ridden angst that has been promoted so much in the last few years, at least since the Macpherson Report of 1999, (I think).

I came with an open mind.

I'm afraid I left a very disappointed person.

When an organisation chooses such a laudable ambition as 'Community Cohesion' but conducts its activities in a way, it seems, directly opposed to the success of its objectives, it does cause dismay.

Community cohesion is such a wonderful phrase and something I hope all intelligent citizens would work towards. However, the obsession with BME issues is paradoxical given this aim. And even the BME focus seemed so predominantly Black and, perhaps, Caribean, in terms of activities supported that I fear we may be damaging rather than healing difficulties within our communities if the focus of the Legacy Commission is not to be changed radically.

For example, mention was made of the evil of people trafficking, something not unknown in current day Bristol, but then a curriculum development programme dealing with historic slavery was endorsed. Is there any fundamental difference between the evils of both slavery and people trafficking? And should not the current failures be of more concern than glorying in the past?

The discussion reinforced my view that Bristol concentrates too much on promoting the victim culture. Many of the observations made emphasised the importance of proportionality (eg: a White dominated football industry) but failed to concede that the captain of the England team and the proportion of players in the national and other top teams was more Black than would be under true proportionality. Not that I agree with proportionality which is arguing, at best, for a new apartheid. I was even told a few years ago by an officer in the Equalities department in an open meeting that only black councillors can truly represent black citizens. Is this still the view of the Council?

I hoped we had moved on from such an ill-informed and anti-democratic opinions. From what I saw on Monday, there seems to have been little if any progresss.

The paper on Education proudly highlighted where BME performance exceeded non-BME. There can be no clearer evidence of the racist competitiveness behind such assertions and it certainly did not sound to me like an argument leading towards cohesion.

Without knowing the full background behind the proposals for funding put to the meeting, and there seemed to be little encouragement from the Chair when members asked for clarification, it did seem to me that they were pet projects from members of the committee rather than issues of wider community concern. To a certain extent I accept that this is inevitable, but I did wonder what arrangements there are for members to gather wider concerns and feed them to the Commission. Again, if I have not done my homework, please accept my apologies. If there are opportunities to influence the content of the meeting, I would be grateful if you would let me know.

If it would be of any interest for me to expand on the points made, I would welcome an opportunity to do so.

If possible, I will attend the next meeting to see give a more balanced view of the proceedings than I gathered from just this one experience.

I have copied this email to the councillors who were present and my own councillor (Cllr S. Cook) and am happy for it to be used for wider circulation if you think it appropriate.

Please ignore if of no interest to you.

Yours sincerely

Roy Tallis