AUDIO CONTENT WARNING: description of extreme racist violence
In 1993, Black British teenager Stephen Lawrence was murdered in a racist attack that sparked a long fight for justice and led the UK to ask questions of itself and its institutions. Three decades on – with The Runnymede Trust’s Shabna Begum, and Suresh Grover of The Monitoring Group – Karis Campion of the Stephen Lawrence Research Centre hosts this special episode to ask: who are we now? What happened to anti-racist solidarity and how can it progress?
Karis and guests reflect on the fragmentation of “political blackness”, “monitoring” as a radical act inspired by The Black Panther Party, and the importance of showing systemic racism while doing justice to individual lives. Plus: what does social media offer to anti-racism when the internet provides fertile ground for prejudice? And what are the costs of fighting for change in an unjust world?
A collaboration between the Stephen Lawrence Research Centre and The Sociological Review.
Guests: Suresh Grover, Shabna Begum
Host: Karis Campion
Executive Producer: Alice Bloch
Sound Engineer: David Crackles
Music: Joe Gardner
Artwork: Erin Aniker
Find more about Uncommon Sense at The Sociological Review.
Episode Resources
From Karis, Shabna and Suresh
Further reading
- “Abolition Geography” – Ruth Wilson Gilmore
- “Another Day in the Death of America” – Gary Younge
- “Here to Stay, Here to Fight” – Paul Field, et al. (eds)
- “I Write What I Like” – Steve Biko
- “Policing the Crisis” – Stuart Hall, et al.
- “Race and Resistance” – Ambalavaner Sivanandan
- “The Uses of Anger” – Audre Lorde
Online
Find out more about Quddus Ali and the cases of Michael Menson, Ricky Reel, Rolan Adams and Rohit Duggal, as well as the activist Claudia Jon
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