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The report recommends dispensing with the BAME category and replacing it with a new ‘data standard or charter’ and recording ethnicity categories ‘at the most detailed level’.
The IRR acknowledges that BAME / BME are far from perfect categories – and alternative terms are used by communities to express solidarity and explore common ground. https://twitter.com/kanlunganuk/status/1379764291792990209?s=20
But as a limited statistical research tool, BAME / BME has been used to identify and analyse common patterns of discrimination across ethnic groups in service delivery or discriminatory policing such as stop and search.
And as @BylineTimes report today, the removal of 'BAME' could serve as a proxy to create a new official orthodoxy about how race and racism are conceptualised, obstruct academic freedom - and disappear the matter of structural racism. https://bylinetimes.com/2021/04/09/race-report-moving-away-from-bame-could-make-research-into-structural-racism-impossible-experts-warn/
According to the @BylineTimes report, NHS staff have raised concerns after being told by NHS England’s communications office to observe Cabinet Office Guidelines that remove racialised categories in favour of “ethnic minority”. https://www.ethnicity-facts-figures.service.gov.uk/style-guide/writing-about-ethnicity
Some staff have argued that shifting from a focus on race in favour of ethnicity could prevent the NHS from communicating honestly and effectively about the concerns of black, Asian and ethnic minority workers and patients.
The CRED report also suggests that these new data standards could be applied to ‘all organisations in receipt of public money’.
IRR Director Liz Fekete argues that if publicly funded bodies are made to adopt a new set of ‘ethnic data categorisations’ it may become impossible for researchers to demonstrate patterns of discrimination found in policing and other service delivery. https://bylinetimes.com/2021/04/09/race-report-recommendations-will-insulate-government-from-any-potential-criticism-on-future-policy/
If a 'new data standard' is introduced, this could prevent universities and other publicly funded bodies from demonstrating racial discrimination in policing methods such as stop and search and insulate the government from criticism on policy.
Fekete warns that 'such disaggregated, ethnic-specific data could be used to create a kind of league table of good and bad, successful and failing groups. A variation of the ‘good migrant’, ‘bad migrant’ scenario. A kind of stigmatisation via comparison.' https://bylinetimes.com/2021/04/09/race-report-recommendations-will-insulate-government-from-any-potential-criticism-on-future-policy/
