The millennium objective: give our minority communities a good deal by eliminating white yardsticks and institutional racism

Abstract

Efforts to tackle racial inequalities and institutional racism can only bring limited results so long as white professionals are given the power of deciding how much change to take on board, and compromise will continue to be the order of the day regarding the thoroughness required in professional training and practice. In a number of key respects, the situation remains much the same, despite the sound guidelines produced by the ‘working party’ on racism (Circular AEP 76/87; Wolfendale, Lunt & Carroll, 1988). If educational psychology is to give an inclusive service in the new century, energy will have to be channelled away from rhetoric and blinkered perspectives to encompass more decisively and with greater trust the valuable experience and opinions of black professionals who have additional expertise in minority languages, cultural and religious knowledge, which give weight to their different perceptions/judgements. Fruitful anti-racist action may only follow from respecting those who speak from a ‘black perspective’, because they are the crucial links between the profession and the minority communities. Unless all white professionals are truly prepared to relinquish their insistence on ‘being always the best judges’ or ‘controlling which views to promote or censor’, they will hinder the development of a quality service, since valid assessment and interventions in a multicultural context must entail ‘bicultural-bilingual-biliteracy, assessment skills.