Inside the mission to make Cumbria the first anti-racist county in the UK
The Big Issue meets the people who believe that Cumbria – which has a population which is 95% white – could be the first truly anti-racist county in the UK
Anti Racist Cumbria wants to spread hope that a county can become truly anti-racist. Image: Anti Racist Cumbria
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Could Cumbria be the first anti-racist county in the UK? Activists are on a mission to make this happen.
Anti Racist Cumbria was established five years ago after the murder of George Floyd sent shockwaves across the world and sparked action and a Black Lives Matter movement – including in rural Cumbria in north west England, a county where around 95% of the population is white.
It started as a small social media group for like-minded individuals. It was deep in the throes of the pandemic, so naturally they hosted Zoom events to initiate conversations, led by founder Janett Walker. From there, the organisation grew and it became a fully registered charity in 2021.
“The goal came from challenging the stereotype that racism isn’t a problem in majority white areas or rural areas and that it only exists in cities,” says Kelle Pearce, operations director at Anti Racist Cumbria.
“Actually, for anyone Black or Brown in the majority of these spaces, it is an everyday problem. And as we’ve seen in the current climate, it’s getting worse.”
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Far-right riots spread across the UK last year, and the country has continued to see racist violence in recent months, with asylum hotels particularly targeted. Cumbria avoided full-blown riots last year but has seen repercussions, including racist protests staged outside an Islamic centre in Dalton this summer.
In this context, the anti-racist mission is “more challenging” than the team ever imagined it would be, but it is also “more important than ever”.
Anti Racist Cumbria hosts events where people can have conversations about how to tackle deep-rooted racism in the county and across the country. Image: Anti Racist Cumbria
Pearce says Anti Racist Cumbria is carrying out “groundbreaking” work by going into community hubs in towns such as Maryport, Barrow-in-Furness and Carlisle, which have been targeted by far-right groups. They go weekly and fortnightly to have conversations with members, the majority of whom are white.
“People are turning up again and again and happy to dig in and have difficult conversations. The fact that they’re turning up and it’s becoming a regular slot in their diary are good indicators that the appetite is there. You just have to be in those spaces and come at it from all different angles to be able to reach people,” Pearce says.
She adds that it is important to consider “how you engage with people who are overtly racist without reverting into insults or mudslinging in those spaces”.
Anti Racism goes right into the heart of communities, taking a grassroots approach – including helping young people create their their own anti-racist campaigns. Image: Anti Racist Cumbria
Another key way Anti Racist Cumbria works is by collaborating closely with schools. Meg Guy, policy and engagement officer, explains: “A lot of schools get in touch and they want us to do an assembly and work with the kids, but that’s not the approach we take. We’re looking more at the institution itself.
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“We work with staff to embed anti-racism practices. Often the focus is on the curriculum, but that’s not always in their control. We look to make sure that they have racism named in their school policies. They’ll often have a bullying policy but nothing that mentions racist incidents. When a teacher is having to deal with a racist incident, it’s a bit hit and miss, because they’re basically having to make it up.
“For the Black and Brown children who are experiencing that, the racial trauma gets compounded by how the school deals with it. By helping them have a policy in place, it means the teacher can rely on that policy. They can say: ‘I’m just following the policy.’ It means there’s a more consistent approach across the board.”
Anti Racist Cumbria also works with businesses and in leadership spaces and has encouraged organisations to begin their anti-racist journeys. Image: Anti Racist Cumbria
Their work has caught national attention – they recently worked with Hackney Council and would be keen to share their strategies further, including in other rural areas where people might not expect anti-racist organisations to exist.
Pearce explains that in Cumbria, racism often appears “thinly veiled”. “In tourism spaces or chocolate box places where people don’t expect to see Black and Brown people, there’s surprise, or there’s looks, or there’s different treatment in shops.
“These are little things that add up. There are micro-aggressions that happen daily, that people pretend to be just ‘woke nonsense’, but it compounds that racism and the racial trauma people are feeling.”
Anti Racist Cumbria is seen as the ‘go to’ organisation by county-wide media on racial and intersectional social justice issues. Image: Anti Racist Cumbria
Anti Racist Cumbria now has a tool where people can report racist incidents. There are cases where people do not feel comfortable with reporting it to the police, their employer or local authority or where it has not been dealt with adequately, and this tool means that the charity can better understand the extent of racism in Cumbria.
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The charity also seeks to celebrate people from ethnic minority groups, and it is hosting a summit on 17 October to celebrate Black joy and its five-year anniversary.
“We want it to be a real celebration of ARC and a celebration of Black joy, and we have lots of unexpected performances that people would have seen from our summits before. We wanted to focus on areas that people don’t expect to see,” Pearce says.
“We’ve got Muslim Girls Fence, a Black opera singer, a Black cellist. We’ve got a Black and Brown comedy night [headlined by Nish Kumar and Desiree Burch]. We’ve got a literary tent with authors. We’ve got racial trauma workshops.”
It has become more difficult to secure funding since they were first established, Guy and Pearce explain. It was a “fashionable” issue in 2020 and 2021, when people were posting black squares on social media, but funding has “fallen off a cliff”.
Anti Racist Cumbria has a team of staff and volunteers from Black and ethnic minority backgrounds, but they also feel that it is important to have white people on board, particularly in a county like Cumbria where the majority of the population is white. Image: Anti Racist Cumbria
But despite the difficult circumstances, they remain hopeful that Cumbria can become the first truly anti-racist county in the UK.
“I think I wouldn’t be doing my job if I didn’t say I was quite hopeful,” Pearce says. “Otherwise we wouldn’t be here. We wouldn’t be able to get out of bed. There are days you think: ‘Oh my goodness, this is such a big job.’ But we have hope. Hope is an active word. You can’t just have it in the background. You have to work at it.”
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Guy adds: “People can get quite defensive about racism. It’s a normal reaction that we come across a lot, and they sometimes think it’s like us having a dig at Cumbria, and we think it’s a really horrible racist place. Actually it’s the opposite.
“Everyone involved in ARC lives here, is from here, or has some connection to Cumbria in some way. We wouldn’t do this work if we didn’t actually believe that Cumbria could lead the way.”
