ABSTRACT
The sets of official statistics show that in the five years from 2004–2009 there has been a 70% increase in the numbers of Black and Asians stopped and searched on the streets of Great Britain. At the same time public, private, and voluntary bodies publish “Race Equality Schemes” and make proud public pronouncements in Equal Opportunity statements that they subscribe to the values of inclusivity, non-discriminatory practice, and so forth. There is quite a gap between what institutions say they are doing and what is actually happening. This chapter argues that the difficulties with certain strands of the Equalities agenda lie at a fundamental level; not just with the solutions they have proposed, but in the way in which the problems have been conceptualized in the first place. It looks at some of the thinking emanating from the equality movements, as well as the assumptive frames that this thinking is based on.
