Saturday, August 20, 2011

Government Equalities minister Lynne Featherstone sent a message of support to UK Black Pride, which is taking place in London today.

Lynne said that "Equality sits firmly at the heart of this Government."

Lynne Featherstone: "While we celebrate that real progress has been made towards equality in recent years, we must not be complacent and we are working hard to achieve more. We must celebrate the diverse nature of Britain – our race, our sexual orientation, our gender and we must celebrate that we are all these things and many more."

One way to help "achieve more" would be to cease the ongoing discrimination on BBC children's TV. It would be nice, at least once in a while, to see Newsround report from a Pride event, or perhaps cover LGBT support from celebs like Alexandra Burke, Lady Gaga, Daniel Radcliffe and Miley Cyrus.

Ore Oduba has explained to Newsround viewers what is was like to be black under apartheid in South Africa. In the circumstances it's quite unfortunate that MOTD Kickabout hasn't mentioned the footballing career of Justin Fashanu, and the discrimination he encountered. Even the programme on Saturday 19th February (International Football v Homophobia Day) which, this year, would have been Justin's 50th birthday.

Perhaps Ore could make amends with a report from UK Black Pride.

Because, as Lynne Featherstone says, "We have seen real progress over the last 20 years when it comes to tackling racism in sport and I firmly believe we should work to remove all forms of discrimination from all sport, including homophobia and transphobia."


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