Solat Chaudhry, Should we use the term BAME?

There’s been quite a lot of controversy about the term BAME over recent weeks and it seems that every individual from a BAME background has an opinion on it. Often opinions vary. This leaves equality practitioners in a state of real confusion.

Over the decades lots of terms have been used. When I was growing up on the 1980’s the use of the word ‘coloured’ was acceptable – I liked it. It was far better than being described using a plethora of crude racist descriptions used about Black and Asian people back then.

Then suddenly it all changed – “Coloured” was outlawed after the circulation of a poem by Agra Gra which went like this:

When I was born I was black
When I was sad I was black
When I was hot I was black
When I was sick I was black
When I was scared I was black

When you was born you was pink
When you was sad you was blue
When you was hot you was red
When you was sick you was green
When you was scared you was yellow

And you call me colored.

In the early 1990’s we started using the catch all political term of Black which incorporated Black (African and Caribbean), Asian descent (Indian, Pakistani, Bangladeshi, Sri Lankan etc) and then we had people from the far East – e.g. from China. I liked this to as it created a sense of unity and inclusivity.

Then we had BME which was ok too then BAME which I didn’t particularly warm to at first but now I have come to like it.

Now people from the US have started to use ‘People of colour’. I ask myself how is that different to being coloured especially if you apply the  Agra Gra test

The phraseology seems to be going round in circles and if we are not careful it will wrap us up in knots. There is a debate raging about whether or not  we should use the full acronym BAME, or just parts of it like ‘B’ ‘A’ and even ME where B stands for Black (referring to people of African and Caribbean descent) and would be separate and distinct from Asian and Minority Ethnic which is the ‘A’ part of it. 

This still leaves us with the issue that people of African backgrounds as opposed to Caribbean backgrounds can have a completely different cultural outlook on education, work, jobs, parenting, accents, religion. Somalis have far different cultural background, for instance to Jamaicans.

If you want to achieve meaningful data and insights it is important to drill down into  the components parts that make up being Black because different people who might identify with the term Black are likely to have different life experiences because of the heritage passed down to them by parents or grandparents.

African and Caribbean descent can be drilled down into British-born Caribbean and Caribbean-born Caribbean, British-born African and so on. The attitude’s, beliefs  and cultural norms of second generation people of African and Caribbean descent are often radically different to their parents.

Africa is a huge continent in itself with many regional and national  differences, which means the culture in places such as West Africa will be totally different from South Africa or North Africa with countries like Algeria, Morocco and Tunisia. The cultural norms  in the different Caribbean islands can also vary widely.

I understand  why people say that  lumping everyone together under one heading of BAME is a very difficult concept and I get it. 

So I can understand why people want this differentiation and don’t want to use BAME. 

However, we have to use something. We are getting to a position where people are asking us what to use? People are nervous about what to use and at the moment people aren’t really using anything with any great confidence. So what we should be doing?

Our advice is clear – continue to use BAME but Drill down into the component parts of BAME ie Black, Asian, Minority Ethnic and collect data. It’s not as hard as it seems. Schools and Colleges have been doing it for decades. It is important to use the monitoring data to understand where the gaps are and then use positive action to close any gaps.

The NCFD position is that it’s OK to use BAME.  I’ve spoken to many colleagues, some from an African, Caribbean, Asian and Minority Ethnic descent. The consensus between us all is that we have to call it something and BAME fits a purpose in terms of the catch-all phrase.

However, when organisations take an approach they need to disaggregate the BAME, so you have a differentiated approach which schools and colleges have successfully been doing for some time.

It is helpful and organisations should adopt that approach. The good news is that NCFD has had the ability to do this since 2009 via our diagnostic too. A positive thing If organisations want to know what to do and how to do it why not give us a call and we can advise accordingly.

So our position is that BAME is OK in the UK.  6million people will have 6 million different views and that is what we are getting and as the most authoritative body on these issues we are drawing a  line in the sand and saying BAME is OK.