Not being from the UK, I'm not even sure what BME stands for. But from this
discussion, it appears that people who belong to the BME category would be
all lumped into one group, but the "white others" would be distinguishable?
Am I right or wrong about that? So would Estonians be differentiated from
Lithuanians, but Trinidadians and Jamaicans and Congolese and Angolans and
Black British be lumped together?
We struggle endlessly with these issues in the U.S., too, and the systems
here are poor at best. One of the main problems in the U.S. is that when the
census bureau added "native Americans" to the category choices, MILLLIONS
more people checked that box than they had for "American Indian" ten years
earlier. So the question becomes, is this a question of newfound pride in
their native roots, or are people who are born in the U.S. thinking they are
NATIVE BORN and not meaning "Indian" at all?
If one is going to consider Irish a subgroup, should one consider ethnic
enclaves or religious enclaves that may live even more distinctly, such
as--for instance--Hassidic Jews or Seventh Day Adventists--as separate
groups? What are we trying to describe, really, a group's history, its
language, the fact that it has different customs/needs? So many good minds
working on these issues, and yet I believe we are--as academics and
practitioners--radically far behind the reality of the world's people. And
we have not even begun to address biracial or bi-ethnic or multiethnic
peoples.
Lisa Fontes, Ph.D.
Union Institute & University
-----Original Message-----
From: Health of minority ethnic communities in the UK
[mailto:[log in to unmask]] On Behalf Of Sarah Corlett
Sent: Monday, February 26, 2007 7:09 AM
To: [log in to unmask]
Subject: Categorisation of BME communities
Reva
Strictly speaking everything other than White British would count as
part of the BME populations. Where the option for "other" exists across
all the categories White, Black etc or simply "other" there should
always be space for the person to enter what other they wish to declare
themselves. The CRE template on their website is helpful;
http://www.cre.gov.uk/gdpract/em_cat_ew.html#question
Then when analysing the info one can group people accordingly whether
they enter Lithuanian, Estonian, Australian, south African etc in white
other or other.
ONS also gives some guidance on their website about how to aggregate
what people in put into "other" into the headline categories which
might help;
http://www.statistics.gov.uk/about/ethnic_group_statistics/
I also see they have done a report
http://www.statistics.gov.uk/cci/article.asp?id=1291 on "WHat are the
'other' ethnic groups?". The work of ONS on ethnicity and culture is
summarised on
http://www.statistics.gov.uk/StatBase/Product.asp?vlnk=10991
You may also find the DH guide helpful
http://www.dh.gov.uk/PublicationsAndStatistics/Publications/PublicationsPoli
cyAndGuidance/PublicationsPolicyAndGuidanceArticle/fs/en?CONTENT_ID=4116839&
chk=xfG3pr
Hope this is of some use
Sarah
Sarah Corlett
Consultant in Public Health
Lambeth Primary Care Trust
1 Lower Marsh
London, SE1 7NT
Tel: 020 7716 7097
em: [log in to unmask]
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