Some genuine efforts towards racial equality at work are going unnoticed and unheralded - the Prison Service being a surprising case in point. My jaw scraped the floor of TUC HQ when I attended an event it held there the other night. An entertaining dinner in the company of pretty cool human beings from just about every walk of life was not what the documentary series Porridge had led me to expect of Her Majesty's penal workers.
Sitting down to a plate of chicken curry, we listened to a short speech from Bill Duff, the service's London area manager. He pulled no punches in his criticism of the appalling record of high suicide rates, inmate abuse and even basic hygiene in many prisons. "We've had a hell of a time in the press," he said, "and quite right, too. Some of what's gone on has been an absolute disgrace."
The dark-haired woman next to me sucked air through her teeth, making a "hmm, not entirely sure" noise, when the governor of Brixton Prison was congratulated for improving conditions there. "Did you know that half a dozen Irishmen committed suicide in that jail because of racial abuse?" she asked.
It seems that, as ever, demands on money and the limited attention of ministers mean that even among victims of racism and malpractice, there is a hierarchy of need. In the same way that BNP voters in grotty high-rise hell-holes feel that "bogus" asylum-seekers get help while they themselves get nothing but the bill, small minority groups can be envious when the larger minority groups seem to get the lion's share of the media and government attention.
Personally, I hate being forced by bureaucracy into any racial group. I've hated ticking those council boxes ever since Brent turned me down for a college grant. You know, the ones that are supposed to pinpoint whether you're Asian, White European, Swarthy, in between really, or other (ie, an alien species). My grant application was forced to appeal; and the mantra back in those days was: "You would have got one if you'd been black."
At our table at the TUC, we watched the bhangra band getting ready to perform. Gerry Gable, the publisher of Searchlight magazine, spoke of the horrors faced by refugees now that good old David Blunkett has taken to borrowing the far right's phrase "indigenous people".
Yvonne MacNamara of the BIAS Irish Travellers Project outlined her group's continuous difficulties. Until recently, this group wasn't even protected by the race relations acts, and has been the subject of continual harassment and persecution from individuals, entire villages of Nimbys and local government. I eventually had to agree with her that the most maligned and needy group in British society (and it's a competitive area) must be "the traveller".
So what's to be done? It's simple, really: just look at the good PR the Irish have been getting over the past few years. No longer terrorists or drunks, the Irish are now recognised internationally as good-looking, funny, able to sing and absolutely perfect for the advertising industry. There's barely an ad campaign running for "trendy" products that doesn't feature a tall, dark, heart-stoppingly sexy Celtic male or female, licking, eating or dancing to the item for sale.
Yvonne and I tried to figure out how the Irish changed their status so effectively. What was their pivotal moment?
"The Corrs!" she finally shouted. Of course, pop music is power. The more fashionable and sexy singers your "group" can get on the telly, in magazines and on the radio, the better for everyone. We immediately began to plan a way to create the perfect pop star from the travelling community.
