News / Alex Beresford
Alex Beresford subjected to ‘relentless racism’ on social media
Alex Beresford has written candidly of his own experience of racism as he accused the recent government-commissioned report of doing a disservice to the country.
The Bristol-based Good Morning Britain presenter, who made headlines when he sensationally caused Piers Morgan to storm off the show, says the claims the UK is a ‘beacon’ for other countries offers false hope and give racists the comfort to “push further as they hide in plain sight”.
Writing in the Telegraph, Beresford revealed has been subjected to “relentless racism” after defending Meghan Markle on live TV and has had to step away from social media because of it.
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It comes just two weeks after Bristol’s deputy mayor Asher Craig spoke out about the “unprecedented torrent of racist abuse” directed at her and mayor Marvin Rees after the city passed a slavery reparations motion.
The report – commission by Boris Johnson in the wake of the Black Lives Matter protests last summer and published by the Commission on Race and Ethnic Disparities – said family structure, class and socio-economic background have a bigger impact than race on how people’s lives turned out.
It has been met with outrage from many amid accusations it is gaslighting and downplays institutional racism in Britain, with Bristol’s Commission on Race Equality (CORE) arguing it is an insult to the lives and livelihoods that have been lost as a result of policies that deny the historical implications and legacy of structural racism within the UK.
Beresford wrote: “The report gives a false sense of hope that our work is done and will simultaneously give social media racists the comfort to push a little bit further as they hide in plain sight. The harsh reality, though, is that social media is just a reflection of a bigger problem in society. These people are your co-workers, they are even a parent at the school gate.
“Not all racism is caught on camera. Not all racism is a black man lying on the ground with a knee on his neck. It comes in many forms. Between myself and friends, we have dozens of examples of where we have faced institutional racism throughout our lives: in some of their cases, losing out in the workplace and restricted opportunities.”
The ITV presenter wrote about his own childhood, growing up as a mixed-race person from a council house in St Werburgh’s, and how his white British mum and Gyanese dad tried to both protect he and his broth from and help equip them for the realities of the world.
Beresford concluded: “I see hope in younger people, who in general feel much more comfortable talking about issues of racism, whereas older generations are less accepting even though it was clearly more prevalent in their day. Perhaps if you’ve never experienced it you can’t see it, or addressing it would be like opening up a can of worms that can’t be put back in.”
In a statement responding to the Commission on Race and Ethnic Disparities, professor Olivette Otele, the chair of CORE, said: “This report implicitly denies the historical implications and legacy of structural racism within the UK. It also is an insult to the lives and livelihoods that have been lost as a result of policies that embody this dangerous discourse.
“It puts the responsibility of racism on to individuals and fails to recognise and account for the role of successive policies by the UK government in perpetuating racialised inequalities.
“The intentions of this report is supposedly to ‘change the narrative’ around racism in the country, however we were disappointed to see that the language in this report has dangerous and disempowering undertones – particularly around the transatlantic slave trade.”
Otele recognised the progress made and pledged to continue work with institutions, stakeholders, policy-makers and communities to ensure that we are working towards an anti-racist reality.#
Main photo from Good Morning Britain YouTube channel
Read more: Asher Craig: ‘Avalanche of race hate mail was a tipping point’
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