Community cohesion will not solve the racism underpinning this summer’s riots

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In the aftermath of the worst racist violence in Britain in a generation, we are alarmed by proposals which focus on community cohesion as a response. A focus on community cohesion blames communities of colour for failing to ‘integrate’, framing the victims of the violence as the cause of it. 

Racism meant that it was Muslim people specifically, people seeking asylum and people of colour who were targeted by organised onslaughts of violence. Years of racist policymaking, which demonises migrants and people seeking asylum, and the increasing normalisation of Islamophobia across mainstream media and political platforms, have encouraged a fear and deep hatred of communities of colour. This racism cannot be overcome simply by creating opportunities for proximity between communities in local spaces. It needs to be addressed directly, at its root. 

Academic research confirms that community cohesion initiatives downplay, or ignore, the critical causes of this violence: racism, austerity and the role of broader racist political and media narratives that embolden the presence of far-right thugs on our streets. 

Austerity has stripped away the social infrastructures of communities and robbed them of the services that enable them to live decent lives. Community cohesion initiatives that aim to promote local connection through sport, for instance, cannot be serious if they are trying to knit together the bare bones of communities that have been decimated by decades of politically imposed poverty. Explanations for the racist riots focused on deprivation alone also fail, because they make the mistake of forgetting communities of colour have faced the disproportionate brunt of austerity over the last 14 years. Yet it wasn’t these communities out rioting or burning down hotels with people inside them. Deprivation alone cannot explain why communities of colour were targeted, but the tacit and active promotion of racism from the highest corners of British society, does.

Communities are no doubt at the heart of repairing the damage of this summer’s violence, but the problem of racism did not start, nor will it end, there. To suggest an approach focused on community cohesion alone underestimates the levels of structural racism which permeate every aspect of British life. 

To actually address the horrific violence we saw this summer, and prevent inevitable future instances, the government must put in place a long-term, cross-departmental anti-racist strategy that identifies and addresses deep-seated structural racism. It must invest in communities and provide the resources and infrastructures that enable them to thrive and prosper. 

And, crucially, the government and mainstream media must change tact from the racist scapegoating of Muslims, migrants and people seeking asylum – creating the conditions that enable disinformation and racism. Without a wholesale shift in our political culture, language and policies, further and more serious outbreaks of violence and hatred are inevitable.