[Cambridge News]Cambridge experts explain why the ‘BAME’ acronym is ‘part of the problem’

BAME stands for Black, Asian and Minority Ethnic. It’s a term the media, governments and politicians have used for years in the UK to describe anyone who isn’t white British. But how do people who count as the B, A, and ME feel about this label, and is it actually helpful?

A lot of research uses the definition of BAME to try and understand population patterns. BAME are often identified by the data as disadvantaged because of social prejudice and systematic oppression, and underrepresented in all aspects of culture. 

Examples of this research include unemployment rates for BAME people being almost double that for white British adults. In UK prisons BAME people are overrepresented compared to their population average.

The most striking recent findings is that BAME communities are disproportionately dying from Covid-19. However it’s only when you look at the specific data of the different ethnicity groups, and subgroups within that, that you start to see any meaningful answers.

Black people make up 13 per cent of London’s population, but 16 per cent of deaths. However it is specifically Black British Africans and Caribbeans who are significantly suffering compared to their population average, not all black groups. 

British Pakistanis were also disproportionately dying of Covid-19, who would be part of the ‘Asian’ category in BAME. This pattern was evident in the Cambridgeshire data.

Reasons as to why its impacted certain black groups include suggestions like “black Brits are more likely to live in areas with high air pollution and consequently are more exposed to dangerous levels of nitrogen dioxide.” 

According to government figures Black people are overrepresented in public administration, education and healthcare, and Pakistani and Bangladeshi are in Transport and communication, therefore are more likely to be key workers who are put at risk.

Therefore when grouping people into a BAME category, it loses a lot of the nuance there in the data and indeed people’s lives and identities, despite being useful – to an extent.

This is part of the reason why many are now arguing that BAME is part of the race problem, rather than a label helping to solve it. Cambridgeshire Live spoke to five Cambridgeshire experts to learn more.

“People see me as black despite who I am”

Cambridge University’s professor on race, Dr Mónica Moreno Figueroa, defines herself as a black, mestiza, female, Mexican, migrant, lesbian. 

Mónica takes issue with what ‘race’ means in general. She is technically “mixed-race” as her complex heritage stems from the colonisation of Mexico with Indigenous, African and Spanish people and Cuba. But racism isn’t nuanced and doesn’t ask for explanations of heritage.

She said: “If you are Black African and Caribbean you aren’t seen as mixed race, you are just Black. In the UK it depends on what you pass as.”

But she argues that there is a crucial gap in the race conversation where mixed-race people should be, as the fastest-growing racial group in the country.

The England and Wales census reported an increase of children who ticked a mixed-race category from 116,000 in 2001 to 220,000 in 2011. The mixed-race categories in the survey however were only introduced in 2001.

However she’s against any type of demographic labelling: “I’m anti-identity, to be honest. I can’t place myself in one box or another- why should it matter where I locate myself? I’m only black because there is racism, I’m only lesbian because there’s homophobia. These identities have no nuance or complexity. Politically, I’m ok with being Black so I can do my work against racism, but the label is limiting.”

The bottom line for her is that “people see me as Black. I can’t have a conversation every single day explaining the complicated roots of my heritage. I have positioned myself as Black to bring awareness to the situation.”

“BAME conflates issues that are not the same”

Ọrẹ Ogunbiyi and Chelsea Kwakye, Cambridge graduates, have written a manifesto for diversity within academia called ‘Taking up Space: The Black Girl’s Manifesto to Change’, published in 2019. 

In the book there is a whole section devoted to the ‘B’ in BAME. Speaking to Cambridgeshire Live, Ọrẹ said:  “ The term is problematic. It conflates issues to do with race that are not the same. It allows people to get away with making things worse by putting us all into the same group. 

“There’s anti-black oppression within the BAME community as well. A statistic I came across recently was that 30 per cent of new doctors are BAME, however black people are a small percentage of that 30 per cent. 

“To conflate Black issues with Asian and Minority Ethic is lazy. It ignores the fact that black people face unique issues. It means some issues are just ignored because diversity programmes produce one solution for one of the problems within BAME, rather acknowledging them as distinct or a problem worthy of complex solutions.”

It’s not just a black issue

Shadab Ahmed worked on addressing this exact problem. He was the 2018/19 Access and Funding Officer for Cambridge University’s Student Union. He worked to improve the access opportunities for underrepresented groups in the university. 

One of the initiatives he founded, CamSpire, was specifically to fight against this ‘conflation’ of Asian identities. CamSpire therefore focused on targeting Bangladeshi, Pakistani and Arab students as a “forgotten group.”

He said when looking at the demographic data for new students, “the applicants’ ethnicity data is all aggregated as Asian, but there are disparities in attainment within this group. The only commonality in BAME is that we’re not white, however, the issues in these groups vary massively.

“Everyone needs a champion for their cause. There are programmes such as Target in Oxford specifically for Black students, but no one has addressed this minority. In 2016 only 9 Bangladeshi’s were admitted to Cambridge. The BAME umbrella term is a root of the issues.”

In 2018, 19 Bangladeshi students, 35 Pakistani and 6 Arab students were admitted as undergraduates to Cambridge University, compared with 1945 white students.

Just some of the issues that affected these groups accessing Cambridge education according to Shadab include “religious issues limiting access. For others, there’s a lack of role models in Cambridge staff. [For the CamSpire programme] one of the biggest problems were parents not wanting to go. It’s either too far away or there are religious implications around their daughters going.”

“Even within the black community were completely different”

Eddie Imhagwe is a coordinator of the Cambridge African Network. He says there has been a lot of tension within the community since the Black Lives Matter protests sparked off again in late May, and he agrees BAME is part of the issue:

“I don’t think it is a good name. It’s grouping non-white English people into one category, but it’s a lot of people were trying to put into one box. Chinese and Africans and Indians are very different. Even in the black community were completely different among ourselves.” 

His wife is white British, meaning their children are mixed race. When filling out a survey investigating the impact of Covid-19 on black communities, Eddie’s wife Becky found she couldn’t fill it in because there was no box which accurately described her children’s identity. She said: “They’re not ‘other’, They’re my children. Calling them ‘other’ is doing them a disservice.”