School rolls: 'fewer whites than ethnics in many London boroughs'.

[Stillhomewardbound]

Oh where would we be without the liberal tolerance of the Evening Standard and their report this evening on the make up of London's school classrooms ....

'fewer whites than ethnics in many London boroughs'.

If the paper wants to say to say 'fewer whites than blacks' then it ought to just do so. I mean, I wonder when an ethnic is not an ethnic?

Perhaps when he is the white-not-entirely-ethnic (ie. nottablakk) propietor of a newspaper such as the Evening Standard!!

CORRECTION TO ORIGINAL POST: THIS IS A HEADLINE ON A REPORT ON DEMOGRAPHICS OF SCHOOL ROLLS.

[Serial_Apologist]

Nontheless, the ES would certainly have incurred wrath if they had just stated "blacks", SHB, as I think you'll agree. I don't think it's just a question of pedantry.

[Lateralthinking1]

The terminology could be better. This from the Standard in May explains the position more clearly both in London and the UK:

http://www.thisislondon.co.uk/standard/article-23951216-uk-ethnic-population-has-risen-40-per-cent-in-the-last-eight-years.do

ie "Britain's ethnic minority population has risen by nearly 40 per cent in just eight years because of immigration and high birth rates......The biggest increase over the eight-year period, of 553,000 people, is among the "other white" group which includes Europeans, such as Poles, as well as citizens of countries such as Australia, New Zealand and South Africa".

People need to get real about this matter. The population is too high. Many of us are losing jobs, pensions, green spaces and effective public services partially as a consequence of it. The media and the population need to rid themselves of out-of-date perspectives which seek to draw connections between views on immigration and racism. It is a matter of protecting all of our current citizens. To quote the mantra the country uses when delivering bad news, "Sorry. Things have changed".

A well-respected think tank recently reported that the sustainable population in the UK now is 30 million. One of the most signed petitions on the e-petition site is entitled "No to 70 million". I have signed it. I don't want the population to increase. Ideally, I would like it to decrease. If 10 million emigrated and they all happened to be both white and British born, I would be quite happy with it. It isn't a question of colour. It is about being able to have jobs, countryside and adequate services.

[hackneyvi]

This quote is extraordinarily crude if it's accurate. I think it's time that racism was recognised as normal, like blindness and homosexuality. It's a common human characteristic and all races need to begin demonstrating awareness of their racial prejudices. As a white man, working in Lewisham in the last decade was instructive because I found myself being commonly treated by black people in Catford and Lewisham with wariness, suspicion and rudeness. I was treated differently by black shopkeepers from the black person standing next to me. This was instructive but disagreeable. Race and culture are geographical in origin but culture survives relocation and cultural antipathy and prejudice therefore survives relocation, too.

I left work in Catford and residence in Peckham last year because I ended up feeling utterly alienated. I had an appointment in Greenwich one morning and cycled down Lewisham High Street. There were, I guessed afterwards, about 200 people at the bus stops and - simply at that moment - there was not a single white face amongst them I could see. As someone who has lived for a while with black prejudice against me, I feel the multi-racial aspect of racism is shamefully underaddressed. After 3 years in Peckham, I couldn't take any more and moved to what immediately seemed to be a more racially diverse environment. I moved to Hackney!

[Stillhomewardbound]

Apologies - please see correction to my original post:

[Serial_Apologist]

I think it's time that racism was recognised as normal, like blindness and homosexuality.

This post is a wind-up, right? Racism is an attitude, not an attribute.

[hackneyvi]

This post is a wind-up, right? Racism is an attitude, not an attribute.

No, it's not a wind up, SA. I don't think intention goes too deep for most human beings and in their simple ability to identify difference, racism in some circumstances has biological origins. It geographical because culture is geographically original. It's normal. It may be undesirable for many reasons but it's normal and the human race needs to address it, not the white British. A part of the white racism is supposing, for example, that black people aren't routinely racist and that racism is victimising by white British. It's not a white British problem or a black British problem, it's a human problem.

[ahinton]

ition site is entitled "No to 70 million". I have signed it. I don't want the population to increase. Ideally, I would like it to decrease. If 10 million emigrated and they all happened to be both white and British born, I would be quite happy with it. It isn't a question of colour. It is about being able to have jobs, countryside and adequate services.

And to where would you advocate that those 30+ million people go? Presumably to areas where the attitude to population increase is different to yours. If the eurozone crisis is not resolved and continues to deepen over the next, say, three years, what makes you think that a population of as many as 30 million would be sustainable in terms of jobs and services? Do also bear in mind the figure to which the British population would increase were everyone who is entitled to live there but doesn't do so actually returned to that country...

[ahinton]

I think it's time that racism was recognised as normal, like blindness and homosexuality.

So I must be abnormal, then. Well, that's hardly headline news, I suppose.

Seriously, though - what an appalling prospect - racism being somehow compulsory! Might you perhaps advocate, for the benefit of abnormal people such as me, that government policy include the funding of classes in the subject?

[Lateralthinking1]

I think hackneyvi's posts are interesting because they go where others fear to tread. I tend to see in such honesty a strong indication of a lack of bigotry. Perhaps that is ironic given what he argues about himself. Nevertheless, racism that is deep in the personality tends to be obvious to all. And then there are others, perhaps particularly in politics and employment, who are so rigid in their stances on political correctness that one often suspects that there is something greyer lurking behind them. Incidentally, I am not including any forum contributors in that observation. Seeing that this is the thread that almost lures one into confession, I will try to rise to the challenge. As someone who would once have driven anyone who seemed less than forthright about racial equality out of the house, I can I think admit to some recent feelings of disappointment and on occasions even dismay.

First, about some of the very unscientific language that is used in this area by academics and others. I have just listened to an interview with the professor who has released the statistics on London schools. While referring frequently to the fact that nearly 70% of the pupils in some London schools are from ethnic backgrounds, he insisted on using the phrase "ethnic minorities" throughout. Now I guess that the word "minorities" does still apply when looking at the country as a whole. It also applies if one sub-divides the larger category in these schools according to nationality. However, when taken as a whole in such schools, these are now the "ethnic majority". The conclusion I draw is that the old concepts and sloppy terminology need to be reconsidered by all. The situation is far more complex now than it was even ten years ago and it helps nobody to pretend otherwise.

Secondly, there is an issue about how to ensure that white British pupils are treated equally in such situations. There is the issue of ensuring that those of British origin, of whatever ethnic background, are treated equally. And then there is the issue of ensuring that no one who speaks English fluently is held back by those who don't. What is clear is that those of us who supported racial equality for decades were somewhat naive. We didn't envisage these complexities. There are real pressures on teachers. They can be faced with an almost impossible task. Furthermore, it isn't at all easy for the children and that includes those who speak no English at all. Later on the same programme, a teacher explained how she spends 15 minutes of each lesson trying to stop a poor Polish boy from crying. He has no English. He feels alienated. He feels the pressure of having to learn a new language and adapt to an entirely different environment and learn maths and not to hold up the rest of his class. It is an awful situation for him to be in.

Thirdly, I walk up to my local shops. Students arrive at the local college. They seem to be decent enough teenagers. There are often a hundred and 95% of them are black. What I find ironic to the point of bizarre are the cultural differences. I reckon that I have more of an interest in, knowledge of, and appreciation of the music and culture of Africa and the Caribbean than any one of them. Their parents and I would find considerable commonality but they themselves are steeped in American black culture, just as are many of their white British mates. I have to say that I don't like that much. I don't see any British connection in it and when in the seventies and the eighties I argued strongly for multiculturalism, it wasn't so that it would lead to American colonisation.

Finally, it disappoints me when pride in being black becomes in some an excuse to be prejudicial against all whites. At times it is justified. When it isn't, it does feel like a slap in the face to a belief in people integrating with their own traditions and identities intact. I find this upsetting. I can't tolerate intolerance wherever it emerges. It is still true that trend based studies show that there are greater percentages of poverty and injustice among some if not all ethnic groups. However, equally, in many areas of employment there is no discrimination on the grounds of ethnicity. In fact, in parts of the public sector there are programmes of positive discrimination, including at the top. Certainly, professional confidence is now colour blind. Much depends on an individual's parents more than his or her ethnic background. Consequently, I would like to see there being a fundamental shift away from the emphasis on racial equality and towards equality of opportunity for all. A privileged middle class of ethnic origin is no more acceptable than a privileged white middle class. Unfortunately, that is what multiculturalism seems to have delivered. That's a pity.

[Mr Pee]

A well-respected think tank recently reported that the sustainable population in the UK now is 30 million. One of the most signed petitions on the e-petition site is entitled "No to 70 million". I have signed it. I don't want the population to increase. Ideally, I would like it to decrease. If 10 million emigrated and they all happened to be both white and British born, I would be quite happy with it. It isn't a question of colour. It is about being able to have jobs, countryside and adequate services.

Absolutely. I've come to this thread having just read this from the Telegraph:-

http://www.telegraph.co.uk/earth/hands-off-our-land/8894560/Hands-Off-Our-Land-Now-even-our-National-Parks-are-at-risk-from-developers.html

This overcrowding is not just a threat to our countryside and quality of life, it helps to breed intolerance and tensions. I think the point raised by hackneyvi is an important one- racism is an emotive term and probably best avoided, but I do believe there is a natural instinct that goes back millennia that binds certain groups together. Certainly when I drive around London and feel that I am in the ethnic minority, and that teachers are struggling to teach because for a majority of pupils English is a second language, I think that things have been allowed to go too far.

[jean]

racism...[is] not a white British problem or a black British problem, it's a human problem.

Well, you've just equated racism with blindness and homosexuality...but if homosexuality is a 'problem' it's largely because of the homophobia it encounters.

It's the homophobia that's more aking to racism, I suggest. And hopefully, neither of these needs to be accepted as inevitable, however 'natural' they may be.

[jean]

Later on the same programme, a teacher explained how she spends 15 minutes of each lesson trying to stop a poor Polish boy from crying. He has no English. He feels alienated. He feels the pressure of having to learn a new language and adapt to an entirely different environment and learn maths and not to hold up the rest of his class. It is an awful situation for him to be in.

Maybe his unhappiness has other sources?

When my sister's children first went to Welsh-medium school in Wales, they were each the only child in their class who didn't speak any Welsh. They had no special help. They just picked it up.

[John Skelton]

I do believe there is a natural instinct that goes back millennia that binds certain groups together.

But it doesn't bind groups together 'racially': it binds them together because humans are social and cooperative. And groups are very rarely static phenomena (except with very isolated peoples): people have always migrated, new groups form, people from different places and backgrounds interact and mutually influence one another. Of course it isn't always easy: it's also often nothing like as difficult as it is portrayed (as it happens I worked in Lambeth / Lewisham and Woolwich in the late 1990s early 2000s. And didn't experience the feelings hackneyvi reports. It wasn't Utopia, but it wasn't Dystopia either).

It's the homophobia that's more aking to racism, I suggest. And hopefully, neither of these needs to be accepted as inevitable, however 'natural' they may be.

Quite.

[amateur51]

A privileged middle class of ethnic origin is no more acceptable than a privileged white middle class. Unfortunately, that is what multiculturalism seems to have delivered. That's a pity.

Surely everyone has an 'ethnic origin'?

15 years or so ago I was at an older people's day centre in Northants one evening, setting my stall up, getting leaflets on chairs, etc and I noticed the day's menu on the cafeteria wall. The meal choices were divided into Meals and Ethnic Minority Meals, the latter comprising varieties of 'curry', veggies and rice, the former comprising roast dinners, toad-in-the-hole, etc. Nice choices!

Rather intrigued I asked one of the staff members about who used the centre and was told that about 3/4s were from Asian ethnic communities. 'So' I said' in fact it's the roast dinners and toad-in-the-hole that should come under Ethnic Minority Meals, isn't it?'

I was being Politically Correct I'm sure. But in fact I was trying to point out that it's generally about reality and politeness, extending the Accepting Hand (NOT the Tolerating Hand, I'm fed up with being tolerated!) to those who may not feel that they are equally entitled to a service of choice, respectfully delivered.