Political commentator Calvin Robinson told the BBC that the UK has made an incredible amount of progress on some race issues but also stressed there is a lot of work to do in certain areas in Britain. However, Kehinde Andrews, a professor at the Birmingham City University labelled Mr Robinson’s claim as complete nonsense.
Mr Robinson said: “I think we have made an incredible amount of progress when I consider that my grandparents moved over here from Jamaica during the Windrush generation and they were proud to come over here as Commonwealth citizens to become fully British.
“But they experienced quite a lot of racism, my dad didn’t experience as much racism and I have experienced even less.
“We have made a lot of progress, there is still a lot of work to do, but we have made a lot of progress in that time.
“As an educator and a former Assistant Principal, I know that black-African kids are excelling all the way through Primary and Secondary.
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“They are far outperforming white-British kids, who are at the bottom of the ladder.
“In fact, black-African kids are twice as likely to go to university than white-British kids so to suggest that our education system is racist is bonkers to me.”
Mr Andrews replied: “
This is complete nonsense, I looked at the school data recently, black-African kids are not massively out-performing, that is not true.
“If you look at the university sector where black students are actually overrepresented but overrepresented at the lower end of the sector.
The BBC’s Big Questions host Nicky Campbell said: “Disadvantaged white-working class boys are 40 percent less likely to go into higher education than disadvantaged black boys.”
Some viewers took to social media to share their thoughts on the clash.
Political commentator Darren Grimes tweeted: “Watching @calvinrobinson tear apart the arguments of those seeking to divide us — who tell us that the progress Britain has made isn’t worth a damn, who want to convince entire groups that they’re life’s perpetual victims — was the highlight of my morning!”
Former Brexit MEP Belinda de Lucy wrote: “Brilliant from @calvinrobinson this morning.”
