Kmflett's Blog

We need to keep talking about racism & beer. & then act

The White Hart pub in Grays is in the news. I’ve never been to it but the police are investigating. The pub has a display of golliwogs which rate from insensitive to offensive for many (the pub apparently doesn’t think so) but also complaints of discriminatory service, all potentially illegal.

It’s not a new issue either. A quick Google will show that the matter was raised in 2018.

It’s not just an isolated case. The pub has been in the Good Beer Guide and a local CAMRA branches pub of the year through that five year period. CAMRA has rightly said that the pub will no longer feature in the GBG and pointed to long standing policy that any form of discrimination is not acceptable.

I’ve been a member of CAMRA since 1975 and any organisation of any size has a broad range of people and views. No doubt there are racists but that is far from the nature of CAMRA.

Even so in my view Britain is an institutionally racist country and the present Government is doing its best to stoke a range of discriminatory behaviours. Unfortunately Labour which should be standing out clearly against it is doing anything but- at the top level.

I’ve been a lifelong anti-racist and anti-fascist not just in principle but in practice, out challenging the National Front, the BNP, the EDL and whatever form fascists take.

However understanding and challenging racism in everyday situations requires deeper thought. For example English cricket remains under a cloud of racist practice and matters are far from being sorted. I’ve been going to cricket games since the 1960s. Did I know that there were racists in attendance? Yes, but I balanced it out by also knowing there were lots of people who were not racists as well.

Now I feel uneasy about going to cricket matches not least because I feel perhaps more should have been done down the years to challenge the racists who are still very much there.

When it comes to beer progress is being made. There are ethnic minority brewers making good beer and the rise of desi pubs is a really positive development. Yet the progress is too slow and not enough. There may be occasional exceptions but most beer events do not look anything like the population of Britain.

And finally back to the White Hart. CAMRA has taken action- what Keir Starmer calls ‘ruthless’. It needs now to do all it can to be sure that there are not other pubs which CAMRA branches are championing which discriminate. Hopefully there are not but that effort needs to be made and to be seen to be made. CAMRA is not responsible for racism in beer or pubs but it can and it must as a campaigning organisation show why it can never be acceptable.No other organisation is as well placed to do this and those concerned about racism in pubs and beer should support it, and join up.

Feeling uneasy however is nothing to those who find themselves on the front line of racist discrimination and attacks. That is why what is reportedly happening at the White Hart and a local CAMRA branches apparent lack of concern about it matters.