Giving Compass' Take:

• According to Feargus O'Sullivan, at CityLab, Britain's minority ethnic people, many of whom have asserted themselves as service heroes, maintain concern over how they'll be treated again after the pandemic.

• How can we make sure minority ethnic people in communities across the planet receive equitable treatment after the crisis? What are we learning about the self-interested, conveniently minded platforms of majority ethnic people?

• Discover why you should increase your giving to support vulnerable communities today.


Please don’t forget what we do for you when the pandemic is over. Such is the message of a video released in the U.K. last week that features essential health workers from migration backgrounds on the front lines of the fight against Covid-19. The video, trending on social media with the hashtag #YouClapForMeNow, begins by borrowing anti-immigrant rhetoric to make a point about the virus: “Something’s come from overseas, and taken your jobs, made it unsafe to walk the streets.”

The video is a nod to the higher proportion of black, Asian and minority ethnic people, known as BAME in Britain, in medical and other service roles. They are understandably wary of the conflict between their status as national heroes, and the reality of their wider treatment as a minority by the U.K. government. In recent years, immigrant deportation policies have pushed thousands of people out of the U.K., health-care workers among them. Now, with the coronavirus overwhelming hospitals, the U.K. is asking people from the same groups whose lives have been made difficult by the policies to return and help.

People now congregate nightly on their doorsteps to clap for the NHS workers under the banner #ClapForCarers, but the celebration has been bittersweet for BAME care staff whose faces were mostly left out of the initial #ClapForCarers videos and pictures used to highlight the nightly applause sessions.

To date, at least 91 health-care staff in Britain have died from coronavirus, and BAME workers are being hit disproportionately hard. When this is the effect on a community — often invited to Britain specifically to work in public services — it is hard for anyone to feel acknowledged or accepted.

Read the full article about why Britain's marginalized people by Feargus O'Sullivan at CityLab.