Cultural Diversity and Racism: An Historical Perspective

Abstract

Cultural diversity is not something new in the United Kingdom (UK) – after all there have been waves of immigration over the centuries. What was new during the 1960s and 1970s, was that diversity became more visible because of the settlement of large numbers of people within the UK, whose cultural roots were from Asia, Africa and the Caribbean, rather than Europe – people who looked different mainly because of the colour of their skins. With society being composed of people who were different in `race', attitudes, which until then had largely been kept safely in the colonies and other foreign parts, were suddenly evident in the UK. Chickens had come home to roost. It is in this context that a variety of problems in the mental health field – sometimes called `ethnic issues' have emerged during the past 25 or 20 years. What we see, then, is that Black and Minority Ethnic (BME) people are more often diagnosed as schizophrenic; compulsorily detained under Mental Health Act; admitted as `offender patients'; held by police under Section 136 of Mental Health Act; transferred to locked wards from open wards and not referred for psychotherapy.