Is it finally time for Bristol to face its past?

In May, Bristol elected a mixed race mayor who promised a more inclusive city. Bristol24/7 looks at what unites and divides Bristol and some of the challenges the mayor faces.

Knives scrape across plates and glasses chink together amid the clatter and hum of some 60 diners as Kalpna Wolf taps the microphone in a bid to get everyone’s attention.

Her speech to all those who have paid £25 for a ticket at her “peace cafe” at The Station on Silver Street sets out her mission to unite Bristol and its 91 languages under her 91 Ways to Build a Global City umbrella.

“We believe that we can go from strength to strength and be an amazing template to say look how peacefully people live together, share together and connect with one another,” she concludes.

Since launching, 91 Ways and its goal to unite the city has garnered a lot attention, spurred on by one of the most significant moments in Bristol’s chequered history, the election of Marvin Rees as mayor.

The first mayor of Afro-Caribbean descent in Europe, Rees set out his stall early to make Bristol a more equal and, crucially, a more inclusive city for all its races, cultures and classes.

It’s an ambition which has already had a kick in the teeth in the form of a rise in hate crimes following the vote to leave Europe. This aside, it is a long-term aspiration which some see as a turning point and a chance for our city with its transatlantic slave trade roots to finally face its past.

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VIDEO: A journey through a divided Bristol

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Ruth Pitter, from the Bristol Manifesto for Race Equality, thinks the timing couldn’t be better.

“I think Bristol is known as one of the best places to live in the UK. And we have very diverse communities; 50 faiths, 90-odd languages.

“But we also know the city is divided, there’s extraordinary wealth and deprivation. It has its challenges, but it’s very good at facing up to challenges.

“We also have history here. The slave trade and the Bristol bus boycott. We have that history of activism too and ground-breaking social movements and I don’t think we should shy away from that.”

The manifesto, launched last year, brings together key institutions like the council, police and big business to work together to eradicate inequality.

And they do this mostly through the idea of “positive action”. “It’s legal,” she laughs, when asked to describe exactly what it is. It’s not to be confused with positive discrimination, of course, which is illegal.

Ruth aims to make the playing field more level through training, events and public education targeting specific groups and getting them to apply for certain jobs and careers where there is poor representation.

It’s something the council has been doing for a while, and the last local elections saw in increase in black and minority ethnic (BME) councillors from four per cent to 10 per cent. But this is still way short of the 22 per cent (and growing) of Bristol’s entire population which is BME.

But the council is just one institution which needs to up its game. The police force is another which has long been under fire for not being representative enough.

Norman Pascal, Avon and Somerset’s workforce representation lead and the chairman of Avon and Somerset Black Police Association, says that the police need to increase its 2.8 per cent BME workforce.

“The force needs to be representative of the community it serves, and you cannot get away from that,” he says, using stop and search as an example of where a familiar face can often help calm tensions.

He adds that a recent operation to round up just under 100 street level drug dealers in St Paul’s and Easton is another example where having more black officers becomes important to release the “us and them” mentality.

He says the force, like all other employers, needs to do its part to reach out to some of these youngsters before they are enticed by lucrative dealing and gang life.

Of course there is another form of crime which sits badly with the vision for a more integrated, diverse and inclusive city: hate crimes.

Discounting the recent rise in cases of people being told to “go home” and the like since the Brexit vote, Bristol has in fact seen a year-on-year rise in hate crimes, according to charity Sari.

Alex Raikes from Sari points out it was only three years ago that Iranian national Bijan Ebrahimi was beaten to death and set on fire after being wrongly branded a paedophile in Brislington.

“Hate crime is inclusivity gone wrong,” she says. “Hate crime is exactly what stops inclusivity from happening.

“Every single hate crime ripples out to stop residents and to stop communities from being included and feeling included and it’s inextricably linked.”

She puts the growth in hate crimes down to a lot of things, including more awareness about reporting and Islamaphobia. But she also believes Bristol’s big agencies are a long way off making the city the inclusive place it should be.

“Well, our local agencies are less diverse than they were when I arrived in this job 25 years ago. 25 years ago, I had black managers, Asian managers, we had a positive action programs ensuring that new people were being brought into those agencies and then given dedicated support to get them to rise through the ranks.

“We’ve taken our foot off the pedal. Sadly the only ones left in those ranks are really ones from those days. We’re not seeing new black managers and senior staff making their way up the ranks in our local public bodies, in our local police service.”

So what can a new mayor, promising to open the city and its policy-making up like never before, do about it?

“The Marvin factor? To be honest, it feels like change is afoot. It has set a change in motion because Marvin is being resolute, and we’re seeing more people thinking ‘I wanna do that too, I can do that, I wanna get involved’.

In a Stapleton Road cafe in the heart of Bristol’s growing Somali population, community activist Abdi Mohamed agrees that Bristol has a long way to go.

He sees it as the council’s and big business’ responsibility to change this by “promoting inclusivity” and “acknowledge that kids from working class areas are part of the solution not part of the problem”.

He says the council can start with easy changes to its basic services. “In terms of planning and commissioning, it needs to think broader. Just one example was there is no single Somali youth worker in the council. The system needs to change. If you include, then we’ll see a difference.”

Miles Chambers, the man Marvin Rees referred to as Bristol’s new poet laureate at his swearing-in ceremony, talks about a city of villages analogy.

“I remember being involved in a food stall in Clifton and a girl said to me ‘do you know where I can get plantain from?’ in a posh accent.

“I said just down the road in Easton, but she didn’t know anywhere but Clifton and I’m thinking I could do an import-export business from Easton to Clifton,” he jokes.

In a historical context he weighs significance on his friend Rees’ election, given the city’s past, but he adds: “Just having a black mayor does not appease the city’s conscience. His job isn’t just for black people and it’s symbolic whoever the mayor was.”

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He returns to the plantain: “I don’t know why she’s afraid to go to Easton or she just doesn’t know where it is, but if she did then her life would be richer and better. It’s not just eating about eating plantain, but please see the metaphor there.”

Back at 91 Ways, diners are well into their second courses and the chitter chatter echos up into the high ceilings of the former fire station.

Earlier Kalpna explained her mission more clearly: “Bristol is like any other city. Communities tend to live in their own communities and everybody’s really busy.

“So, you do get tied up with it. But there all of these communities living around you. Come and meet them, come and share food. I think this makes for a greater city. Any barriers people have get broken down and we create greater understanding between people.

“Bristol is a great city, it’s got so many things going for it, so why don’t we capitalise it and really celebrate it?”

Top picture from Harshil Shah

Watch: A journey through a divided city with Miles Chambers

Read more: Bristol: A divided city?