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Line of people of diverse heritage with their back to the camera, with the words 'Manifesto for an anti-racist Scotland' above them.

Black History Month 2025: CRER's manifesto for an anti-racist Scotland

22 Oct 2025 | Lucien Staddon Foster (CRER)

Following on from our previous Black History Month blogs, looking at Black Public Health history and inequalities faced by Black communities in Scotland, this guest blog from Lucien Staddon Foster (Research and Policy Officer at the Coalition for Racial Equality and Rights (CRER)) offers tangible actions we can take as public health professionals and policy-makers to combat racialised health inequalities for Black, and other, racially minoritised communities.

NB: The language on race and ethnicity in this blog reflects the language used by CRER in their publications and communications.

For over 25 years, the Coalition for Racial Equality and Rights (CRER) has been working to eliminate racial discrimination and promote racial justice in Scotland through research, campaigning and strategic policy advocacy.

Every October, CRER coordinates the collaborative programme for Black History Month Scotland to commemorate the struggles and successes of African, Caribbean and Asian communities, ensuring that Black History is recognised as Scotland’s History. We invite people, organisations and communities to reflect on these histories through a variety of events, including exhibitions, walking tours, lectures, film screenings, creative workshops and more.

But Black History Month isn’t just a time to look back and reflect; it’s a time to recognise whose shoulders we stand on, look ahead, and strive for a better future.

So, what does a fairer, more equal, and explicitly anti-racist future look like in Scotland?

Towards an anti-racist Scotland

In preparation for the upcoming Scottish Parliamentary election, CRER launched its Manifesto for an Anti-Racist Scotland. This highlights eight well-evidenced, realistic steps that can be taken to advance racial equality in Scotland, drawn from our extensive research and strategic policy work across Scottish Government, local authorities and other public bodies.

CRER anti-racist Scotland manifesto image

CRER’s manifesto recognises that racism in Scotland is systemic. It is embedded in our policies, processes, systems and institutions, resulting in the unequal distribution of power, resources, privilege and safety. This creates poorer experiences and outcomes for Black and minority ethnic communities compared to their white counterparts.

By recognising how racism shapes people’s lives and their experiences of poverty, poor housing, insecure employment and inadequate access to healthcare, we can understand it as a public health issue.

Our manifesto and public health

To achieve a healthier, more equitable society, we must tackle the drivers of racial inequality. CRER’s manifesto includes a range of actions that can help improve the health and wellbeing of Scotland’s Black and minority ethnic communities.

Targeted anti-poverty action for families from minority ethnic backgrounds
Children from minority ethnic backgrounds in Scotland are more than twice as likely to live in poverty as their white Scottish/British counterparts. Despite minority ethnic families being identified as a priority group by Scottish Government, anti-child poverty strategies have lacked targeted action to address the specific inequalities and barriers that minority groups face. As a result, minority ethnic families are being left behind, with the gap between them and the rest of the population widening over time.

CRER is calling for targeted national and local approaches to tackling racialised poverty, centring the needs of minority ethnic families.

Tackling housing inequality
The housing emergency is having a disproportionate impact on minority ethnic groups, who are more likely to reside in Scotland’s increasingly unaffordable private-rented sector and the struggling social-housing sector. As a result, larger numbers of minority ethnic households are having to compromise on the size, safety and conditions of their housing, making them more likely to live in overcrowded homes, homes without central heating and homes with insecure tenancies.

CRER is calling for more investment in social housing to alleviate these issues, as well as targeted action to ensure that minority ethnic households have equal access to affordable social homes.

Close up of social housing flats, with a bike on one of the balconies.

Improving mental health services
Scotland’s mental health services have not been designed with the needs and experiences of minority ethnic communities in mind, creating barriers and additional forms of stigma that make it harder for people to access mental healthcare. As a result, people from minority ethnic backgrounds living with severe mental illness often experience worse symptoms when they first come into contact with mental health services. Appropriate early intervention would allow people with mental health problems to be treated at the right time, with care and dignity.

CRER is calling for targeted early intervention work, designed for and with minority ethnic people with experience of mental illness.

Improving the availability of ethnicity-disaggregated health data
What can be measured can be changed. However, in Scotland, the quality, availability, and coherence of health data by ethnicity are consistently poor. This contributes to significant evidence gaps and ineffective responses to public health crises, as highlighted by the COVID-19 pandemic and Scotland’s delayed identification of disparate rates of infection and death. Having access to this data allows the health and social care sector to identify and monitor racialised health inequalities and design targeted initiatives to address them.

CRER is calling for a new system to track ethnicity through the healthcare system by linking ethnicity data to Community Health Index numbers.

What would change look like? 

By taking an explicitly anti-racist approach to designing, delivering and evaluating public policy and services, we can protect and enhance the rights of people from Black and minority ethnic backgrounds in Scotland.

We can achieve a future where:

  • The social determinants of poor physical and mental health within minority ethnic communities are actively tackled – reducing the poverty gap and ensuring that safe, high-quality housing is affordable.
  • Trauma-informed approaches fully recognise the impacts of racism on minority ethnic communities, and these principles are embedded throughout public policy.
  • Minority ethnic groups can access high-quality and person-centred forms of healthcare that recognise and account for their needs and experiences, improving their health outcomes.

But reaching this destination requires us to think differently. We can’t challenge racism with the same tools that have created, perpetuated and entrenched racial inequalities across our society.

Beyond the commitments in our manifesto, we’re calling for public health practitioners and organisations to centre racial justice in their work and recognise the roles they can play in building an anti-racist Scotland where everyone thrives.

During this time for reflection and action, we encourage you to share the Black History Month Scotland 2025 Programme and our Manifesto for an Anti-Racist Scotland with your community and any groups, networks or organisations that you work with.

Racism is a public health issue, and we believe that the roadmap to a healthier and fairer Scotland is an anti-racist one.

Lucien Staddon Foster is a race equality researcher specialising in using equalities data to investigate structural and institutional racism in Scotland and its impacts on Black and minority ethnic communities. Lucien works with the Coalition for Racial Equality and Rights (CRER), a strategic anti-racism charity based in Glasgow, which uses research, campaigning and policy advocacy to promote racial justice in Scotland.

This blog was informed by CRER’s extensive expertise in minority ethnic health and wellbeing in Scotland. Further information and evidence can be found in CRER publications on each respective topic here.

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