Welcome to our third installment of our Black Lives Matter series. We will be doing these

every month for the rest of 2020 because it's important and we should not just forget

about it because our Twitter feeds are clear. So we've got a UK one for you this time because

it does happen here too, contrary to popular belief. So some of you, if not all of you,

might have heard the anecdote evidence that you're much more likely to be arrested in the

UK if you are black. In fact, in metropolitan areas like London and Manchester that have

a high police presence, it's a bit of a running joke that you don't really need to worry

about the police unless you are black. And while these statements are sickening and tasteless,

it turns out that they're also true.

And if there's anything that our government love, it's to compile a report because it

takes up loads of time and by the time it's out, no one cares anymore. But multiple

reports published on this particular topic have proven the fact that black people are disproportionately

targeted by police. So let's consider a paper by the Ministry of Justice published in

2016 called Black Asian and Minority Ethnic Proportionality in the Criminal Justice System

in England and Wales. This report showed that black women and women of mixed ethnicity

were twice as likely to be arrested by the police in England and Wales. On top of this,

black and adult men were around three times more likely to be arrested compared to their

white counterparts.

Another report in 2017 commissioned by our former PM David Cameron and carried out by David

Lamy, a black MP and also my MP and I love him. This report found in the UK the colour of

your skin has a measurable impact on how you are treated at every single stage of our

justice system. And as here Afsal summed it up in an article that he wrote for the Guardian

...