• Henry Louis Gates, Jr., "Black London" (The New Yorker 28 April 1997) or
• Yasmin Alibhai-Brown, "A Magic Carpet of Cultures in London" (New York Times 25 June 2000)

FYI/Recommended (...and on the other):

• Linton Kwesi Johnson, "Tings an Times"
• Diran Adebayo, "Young, Gifted, Black...and Very Confused" (London Observer, 25 November 2001)
• Kechi Nwajiaku, "To Be Or Not To Be Black British"

Further Reading

Ever since the publication (by The Runnymede Trust, a liberal thinktank on race and ethnicity) of the landmark 2000 "Parekh Report" of the Commission on the Future of Multi-Ethnic Britain--and particularly since the riots of 2001, the London Transport bombings of 2005, and the perceived rise of Islamist radicalism (and the attendant rise in Islamophobia)--the discourse on "race" in Britain has morphed into a debate over the alleged "failure" of multiculturalism as an idea, a social policy, and a basis for (re-)imagining British national identity. Here are a few of the many salient links (see also the "General Resources" page of this website):

• Sadly, the British Council took down the site devoted to its 1997 conference, "Re-Inventing Britain" (it featured transcripts and audio files of conference talks by Stuart Hall, Homi Bhabha, Catherine Ugwu, and others)--although some of the proceedings were published in Issue 29 of Wasafiri [available at HSU only via inter-library loan])
• Tariq Modood, "Multiculturalism, citizenship, and national identity" (Open Democracy, 2007)
• George Shire, "Introduction: Race in neo-liberal times." Soundings On Race, Identity & Belonging (London: Lawrence & Wishart, 2008)
  • Guy Aitchison reviews this book at OpenDemocracy.net

That said, old-fashioned racist oppression à la "Dread inna Inglan" and/or "Reality mugged Dele" is hardly a thing of the past.  Though there have been thousands of racially-motivated hate crimes and dozens of documented or suspected racist murders in Britain in the past three decades, one of the most egregious and consequential cases in living memory is that of Stephen Lawrence, a black teenager murdered by white racists while waiting for a bus in Deptford, Southeast London, in the Spring of 1993.  (A "docu-drama" of the Lawrence story made for British television aired on PBS's Masterpiece Theater in 2002.)  In 1999, a commission led by Sir William MacPherson, charged with studying the Metropolitan Police's bungled investigation of Lawrence's murder, issued a scathing report which condemned the force for its pervasive, intractable, and institutionalized racism.  Here are some relevant links:

• Sarah Lyall, "Black Anger at British Police Abuse Boils Over" (New York Times 2 February 1999)
• The Lawrence Inquiry (thorough history & background from the BBC, including audio & video clips)
• An exhaustive Stephen Lawrence website, with continuing updates on the decades-long aftermath of the MacPherson Report (The London Guardian)
• Reports by the Institute of Race Relations: "Racial Violence: The Buried Issue" (2010); "Racial Violence: Facing Reality" (2012); Investigated or Ignored? Race-Related Deaths Since the McPherson Report (2013)

Other notable stories of recent years:

• Maria Margaronis, "Europe's Unwelcome Guests" (The Nation 27 May 2002):  popular resentment and political backlash against immigrants and asylum-seekers in Britain and elsewhere. (Okay--that article is not so recent. Plenty of other, similar stories have appeared over the past 14 years, however--particularly in the last few.)

See also the Race Relations/Civil Rights section of the "General Internet Resources" page, particularly the London Guardian's 2002 Race in Britain web site..