Maiden Speech to House of Lords: Gender Equality
13 September 2011
Baroness King of Bow: My Lords, I have often gazed down from the Public Gallery in some wonderment at this golden Chamber, and so it is with much humility, gratitude and a little surprise that I rise from these red Benches to speak. It is customary to thank the staff of the House and I genuinely want to do this, as in all the years that I have worked here they have always assisted me and, more remarkably still, never once arrested me. Long may their indulgence continue.
Does multiculturalism have a future?
When people ask if multiculturalism has a future, the short answer is yes. But the question of how we secure that future is more complex than anyone imagined during the passage of the Race Relations Act 1976. At one level, multiculturalism is merely a statement of fact: many cultures living side by side. But minority groups also view multiculturalism as a bulwark against assimilation, a rejection of the cultural blancmange that inevitably discards their heritage in favour of pearly kings and queens.
Multiculturalism asserts the rights of minority groups to celebrate and maintain their own cultures and, more importantly, to access resources from a state historically riddled by institutional racism. Minority groups should view with fear and trepidation the backlash against multiculturalism, and the move away from identity politics. Or should they? In fact, a move away from identity politics may actually help some minority groups escape the segregated backwaters – or inner city sink estates – that confound attempts to achieve meaningful integration.
