Changing Racism in Britain - is it possible?

The Guardian

We'll change black Britain
Conservatives will tackle racial inequalities by giving people what they want: a start in business

David Cameron
The Guardian, Wednesday 17 March 2010

In Britain today, too many people are denied the chance to escape poverty and build a better life for themselves and their family. Sadly, this is especially true for people in Britain's black community. Black pupils are permanently excluded from school at more than twice the rate of white pupils. Some 9,500 black children leave primary school every year unable to read, write and add up properly. And of the 3,000 students who started at Oxford in 2008, only five are black Caribbean in origin. This inequality extends to the job market too, with recent research showing almost half of young black people are unemployed, well over twice the rate for young white people.

What's going wrong? To a large extent, Labour's failure to address racial inequality echoes their failure to tackle inequality generally. Since 1997, income inequality, education inequality and health inequality have all widened, hitting the black community disproportionately hard.

A new Conservative government must do better. I want to take down the barriers that prevent so many black people realising their potential. In part, we'll do this through our core reform agenda. By tackling the causes of poverty, like poor schooling, family breakdown, addiction and welfare dependency, we can succeed where Labour has failed...link to complete article