News from The Equality Trust (May/June 2020)

Wanda spoke at The Mint event Split: Class Divides Uncovered…. by Covid-19? Wanda spoke alongside Ben Tippet, you can re-watch the full event in the link above. In early May, Wanda spoke to students as part of the Learn Lounge speaker talks. Titled Plan, what plan? Wanda discussed her career journey and inequality with students of all ages.

Wanda has also appeared in podcasts for DSMNTL, FiLiA and Private School Policy Reform on a wide-ranging set of issues, connected by one thing: inequality. 

Listen to these podcasts below:

• DSMNTL podcast: Inequality Dismantled with Dr Wanda Wyporska.
• FiLiA podcast: FiLiA meets: Wanda Wyporska.
• Private School Policy Reform podcast: Coronavirus shutdown.

The video of the final 8 minutes and 46 seconds of George Floyd’s life is a traumatic reminder of the structural and institutional inequality faced by many Black, Minoritised Ethnic and Indigenous peoples across the world. This inequality is very real, impacts generations and, is often, extremely violent.

Wanda spoke about the fight for racial justice on Sky News and LBC Radio. We also added our voice of solidarity to those protesting for racial injustice. We have published a number of social media posts on the specific inequalities faced by Black, Asian and Minoritised people in the UK. We actively encourage you to share our statement below and join the campaign to #fightinequality in all its forms.

Racism is not just something that happens “over there”. Racism is deeply embedded within UK society too. It’s the rate of black people dying from #Covid19, it’s the pay discrimination faced by Black women, it’s the number of Black, Asian and Minoritised workers in low-paid and insecure work, it’s the lack of redress for victims of the #GrenfellTower fire, it’s gentrification, it’s the #WindrushScandal, it’s Black men being disproportionately targeted and brutalised by the Police, it’s the attainment gap for Black students in British universities, it’s the online abuse faced by Black female MPs – it’s everywhere.

Inequality is quite literally killing Black people in the UK. But inequality is a choice, and it doesn’t have to be this way.

#BlackLivesMatter #BlackLivesMatterUK

P.S. You can sign the petition calling on the Government to improve maternal mortality rates and health care for Black women in the UK and to introduce mandatory ethnicity pay gap reporting. You can also write to the Secretary of State for Education to ask for an introduction of Black British history to the curriculum (via The Black Curriculum).

On Friday 29th May, we joined a host of civil society organisations and trade unions online marking the 50th anniversary of the Equal Pay Act and amplifying the issue of gender pay inequality.

We launched our new report into pay discrimination in the FTSE 100, our analysis featured in The Guardian and Financial Times and the campaign was also covered by the Argus in Brighton and the Manchester Evening News. Our supporters sent more than 150 letters to their MPs, we launched our new online platform, 50 Women. 50 Years, and 110 people joined our interactive online conference to discuss what’s next. 

In case you missed it, or want to watch back, the full conference (with British Sign Language) can be found on our YouTube channel. We’ve also created a playlist containing separate videos of each speaker for easy sharing and playback.

It’s not too late to take action – use our campaign toolkit today!

My Fair London, The Equality Trust and Toynbee Hall have been working together to combat inequality in London. We were delighted to welcome Ann Pettifor for an evening for an interesting discussion on COVID-19 and the case for the Green New Deal. Ann is a political economist, author and public speaker known for her work on sovereign debt and the international financial architecture.

You can watch the webinar on our website.