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

[Lateralthinking1]

Yes, I think I agree with Calum. I would oppose the use of the word "normal" to describe discrimination. I also don't subscribe to the idea of culture being geographical in the western world of mass media. One roams where one wants. As Nick Hornby pointed out in "Fever Pitch", suburban whites envied others for having a culture and attempted identification with the Irish, the Jamaicans, and so on. I saw myself in that outlook. Where I do agree with hackneyvi is that discrimination isn't just a white thing. There is no way that I am going to join that particular post-Empire guilt trip. I had absolutely no say in what happened before the 1960s.

My parents were somewhat neutral in the 1960s and 1970s. They were genuinely friendly and helpful to those they knew of different backgrounds and perhaps more cautious in terms of broader immigration policy. As for me, I felt for four decades that I had no sense of discrimination in my personal DNA. My entire philosophy on race relations was informed by three people. All were middle aged women. A Jamaican teacher - the only black person in my junior school - who showed me an especial kindness. Two Sri Lankan sisters who were neighbours and did the same. It probably has to be said that they were all very middle class. My teacher was actually married to a High Commissioner. Anyhow, I had an unusual relationship with them all. They were more like relatives than a teacher and two neighbours. It led on to race relations courses, Womad, and so on.

Greyer areas in my outlook arrived in the Blair and Brown eras. While it was the positive influence of black and Asian people
that created the conditions for a non-discriminatory perspective, it has largely been the stupidity and recklessness of the Labour Governments, overwhelmingly white, which have cast a shadow. Losing my job under this Government hasn't helped matters. Along with this, one becomes weary of some Muslims being against some Hindus, some Jews being against some Asians, extreme Muslims being against gay people and women, some West Indians being against some Africans, some West Indians and Africans acting out a fantasy of American ghettos, British West Indians being against other British West Indians, and some intolerance from people in almost every group towards the disabled. It was bad enough when it was just some whites against some black people.

I didn't want conflict. I didn't want to lose my employment while others were protected by legislation. I still treat people as people and enjoy diversity but my goodness hasn't been met with others' goodness. I largely blame white Governments for that change.

[hackneyvi]

Well I can only speak for myself, but as one who was brought "up" by virulently racist parents, (Dad: "If we hadn't built the Empire they would still be savages in Africa"; Mum: "I'm not having a black woman in MY house!" etc etc) I am quite sure that I had a lot in common with other young white people in the 1960s in needing to get real on the subject of race and confront my own INDOCTRINATED racism. And homophobia, btw. it was jazz, mainly, that came to my rescue.

What evidence are you drawing on for such a blithe statement? Then you go on in incongruous non-sequitur mode:

I know you've said it's normal - (why then, ahinton and I must be abnormal!); if what you say is true, I would need to be racist to justify my contempt for the top bankers screwing of the economy, since their culture is a darn sight more different from mine than the black and Asian people living in large numbers in my district of S London. I don't actually think much of the culture I supposedly belong to - by your logic it must be because I'm white!

Well, having nailed the issue of "normality" as ill-defined in the first place, as usual with the misuse of that term on numerous nefariously concocted occasions over the ages, let's use language with the care this issue cries out in desperation for, given the obvious (one hopes) dangers of such slapdash loose cannon thinking as "the human race needs to address it" (how, by the way, hackneyvi?) "not the white British".

Sorry? I didn't hear that last phrase?

I think my modest experience of racism as a white Briton led me to understand from experience that racism is multi-racial. If it's multi-racial, it's a human problem not a problem specific to individual races. The discussion on racism in this country is often racist itself because the word racism is impregnated with the perspective of white British racism towards others and others experience of white British racism towards them when the issue is one without any racial boundary.

I know that I am a bigot and an aspect of my bigotry is racism; I know this because I have reactions towards people in a range of circumstances which can be both positive and negative but which have to do with race and culture.

As a gay man who works with visually-impaired people, I am aware of bigotry from the subtle and well-intended to the violently emotional and physical. However, I regard homosexuality and blindness as normal, an ordinary part of the human spectrum. I have a prejudice in that regard. I feel that other bigotries are also normal - racism being an undesirable one, like homophobia and a thoughtless, ignorant sympathy for blind people which can really be construed as contempt.

A common current piety which has surplanted race as a topic which signals virtue in the speaker is bigotry against banks and bankers. The aggressive, unqualified language directed towards entire professions and institutions is bigotry; it chooses to forget humanity and condemn a section of people for a condition of their being; it scapegoats.

Normal varies with time and place but like blindness and homosexuality, I think racism is normal. It need not be universal any more than adulthood or cheerfulness but it's a common quality of the human being.

I must get back to work.

[gurnemanz]

I don't see how you can enjoy living in a world of free movement, cheap flights, instant communication with anywhere on earth via the internet, satellite TV and radio and so on and at the same time expect not to have to come to terms with living with the multicultural consequences.

I value and try to nurture our traditional English culture but also love the cultural mix around us. Most of the music I like is "foreign": German, Italian, French, Russian (classical), Afro-American (jazz, blues), Irish, Hungarian (folk) etc. Most of the food we eat in restaurants is of foreign origin and, indeed, at home - eg cooking with a Chinese wok several times a week. Going to London does not unnerve me but gives me the exhilarating feeling of being a citizen of the world. We are all ethnically mixed, stemming originally from dark-skinned African ancestors. None of us are exactly the same. We are made up of our own individual cultural and racial melange. This make for fascinating diversity. The Nazi ideology of a nation's racial and cultural purity was a grotesque delusion. My surname is Welsh but I don't have any Welsh relations or links with Wales. I lived in Germany for five years and married a German. My children, now adults, grew up bilingually in England. Many English people do not feel the need to master a foreign language even they go and live abroad.

I am very disheartened by the cultural insularity and racial stereotyping sometimes in evidence here in the UK. In its most extreme form it can lead to the kind of neurosis which impels someone like Anders Breivik to go on a shooting spree.

[aka Calum Da Jazbo]

well gurnemanz i can recommend a fortnight in Japan or Hong Kong as an exercise in experiencing discrimination for a 'white' 'European' 'male' ...

or bradford

[Lateralthinking1]

Can I suggest that it isn't normally individuals who trigger negative generic responses. It is the organisational stuff around them - the legislation, the religion, the media with which they are associated. As for other culture, we could probably all reach consensus on music and food. When you take all of that out, it gets back to common traits, good, bad and indifferent. You judge the person as a person. Arguably, all of the rest is unfortunate interference and largely detrimental.

I find the arguments hackneyvi in your last post a little complicated. I am not sure that the things you list equate but I guess I understand that bigotry can involve being something or for something rather than against something. That is how I read your statements.

As for the point from gurnemanz about Breivik, I don't think so. Much emphasis was conveniently placed on his race rants. Actually, he had an issue with liberalism which as I understand it was linked to a bed-hopping mother and her incurable venereal disease. As the family had close links with the party of Government, her position was seen as symptomatic of the Government's ills and hence a sick country.

While I utterly condemn his actions, dare I say that I can understand them more than the actions of the rioters in Britain.
It is clear from both episodes that people find it extraordinarily difficult to direct pent up violence towards Government representatives but logically it makes more sense. He got closer than those sticking a foot through the windows of sports shops but unfortunately it was mainly directed at innocents.

[hackneyvi]

I find the arguments hackneyvi in your last post a little complicated. I am not sure that the things you list equate ...

The main point is that common human qualities are diverse but many are not universal. SA isn't abnormal because he's not female but femaleness is normal. Equally, he may not be abnormal is he's not racist but racism is a common human quality, like feminity and cheerfulness, and I would categorise all those common human qualities as normal.

Racism - in part by the constricted way it's discussed - is treated as though it's something extraordinary. It's also normally (topically) racist.

I don't think it is extraordinary. It can be unpleasant - like a noise nuisance, like shit on your shoes or bicycles ridden on the pavement. It can be restrictive on one's choices in life - like cerebral palsy, like geographical remoteness, like a low income. But low incomes, cerebral palsy, shit on your shoes are common things in human life. They may be undesirable but they're usual. They're normal.

[ahinton]

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.

I think that the first grave danger here - albeit one that even you are trying to avoid by eschewing references to "racism" per se - is in the implied assumption that "overcrowding" in Britain, even if true, is somehow commensurate or even synonymous with - and/or has been partly responsible for having helped to bring about - the rise of "racism", irrespective of which races it manifests itself in. Firstly, I do not see any realistic or meaningful, let alone scientific, way in which to determine beyond argument that any particular figure could ever represent an ideal population for Britain (or anywhere else, for that matter) without due consideration of an entire raft of relevant considerations including demographics, employment levels, transport infrastructure, land available for housing, commercial premises, agriculture, etc., especially since all of these change daily! So, whilst the population that would result from everyone entitled to live in Britain actually doing so would arguably bring about overcrowding, this would raise the British populaton to a massive nine-figure number which is obviously on a scale way greater than in implied in arguments over whether the optimum British population might be 60m or 30m. Secondly, whilst it might more reasonably be argued that some parts of Britain may be over-populated, it is also surely the case that others are under-populated - or, at the very least, sparsely populated. Thirdly, those who believe that there nevertheless is an inevitable connection between population increases and the rise of racism should first give due consideration to the fact that so many millions of people are entitled to live in Britain today (whether or not they actually do so) as a direct consequence of past colonisation by Britain; if the Brits didn't want to take that kind of risk for the future of their little island, they should have thought about this before running around the world colonising to the extent that they did.

The second issue that you raise is that "overcrowding is not just a threat to our countryside and quality of life, it helps to breed intolerance and tensions". Even if Britain is overcrowded and that such overcrowding did indeed help to breed intolerance and tensions, the suspicion that your assertion arouses appeas to be that such intolerance and tension is more often than not racially motivated; would you disagree with this by being prepared to state that substantial increases in the British population other than through immigration would not help to breed either of these things? "Overcrowding" - even to those who believe that it is a curent problem in UK - clearly does not "threaten our coutryside" ("our"? - whose is it anyway?); one has only to look carefully at a map of UK to see that! Overcrowding would indeed affect our way of life in Britain if Britain was really overcrowded, which I do not believe that it is; overcrowding ns certain areas of Britain may risk doing this, but even this is not in any case about population statistics for individual towns and cities but a matter of the number of people per square metre of space.

You then write of a "a natural instinct that goes back millennia that binds certain groups together" and it is with this extrordinary remark that you really do stride out boldly onto the shifting sands. Even were you to have substituted "millennia" with "centuries", this still makes no sense; groups of people were "bound together" more by the fact that there was little alternative than by any other reason, since travel, population movement and communications technology on the scale that we now understand them simply did not feature in medieval times. More importantly, however, not only is this "belief" of yours, for all that you're entitled to it for whatever reason or none, by no means commonly shared, it is also rash to assume that what might have held good in the 15th century still held good in the 20th or indeed last week. On what basis is this "instinct" of which you write "natural"? - and how., for that matter, do you define "natural" in that context? On what grounds do you even assert that such an "instinct" exists? Above all, why would you even assume, let alone expect, that whatever might "bind certain groups together" at one time will somehow continue to do so forever, regardless of any other considerations including where members of such groups might move at any time?

I accept that there are problems, not least those of teachers struggling to teach because of language problems among their students, but then this is hardly either new or confined specifically to Britain, is it? - after all, did all those Brits (or, for that matter all those French, Purtuguese, Spanish, Dutch et al) who ran around the world colonising centuries ago train themselves to be fluent in the languages of all the countries that they colonised before setting sail to do so?(!)...

Finally, on the subject of "instinct" in this context, it occurs to me that the abnormality which has implicitly been ascribed to me earlier in this thread must include my attitude to what makes me relatively comfortable in the population environs wherein I might find myself at any time, to the extent that, were there no immigrants anywhere near me, I would find that most unwelcome and unconfortable. OK, you're writing here about feeling as though you're an ethnic minority person when you visit certain places and, whilst I understand what you mean by this, I fear that such a feeling probably stems at least in part from some kind of unduly proprietorial attitude towards the country in which you live of the kind that once gave rise to the absurdly unrealistic, unpalatable, implicitly patronsing and potentially combative notion of "splendid isolationism"; personally, I do not feel that Britain is "my" country" so much as the country in which I currently live and of which my passport declares me to be a citizen and, when I move to France, I will feel the same except to the extent that my passport will continue (at least for the foreseeable future) to declare me to be an EU citizen.

[Stillhomewardbound]

Msg #32

Very well expressed and rationalised, Hackneyvi. Tells it very much as it is.

I too have long argued that any race is as capable of being racist as the next and it is regrettably a fact of life down South East London way that as white person you will frequently experience disparaging looks and remarks.

As you suggest, it is as if, merely by virtue of being white, one is guilty of some kind of original sin. Condemned as racist irrespective of one's actions.

It is not as if I'm not a balanced person, having also experienced prejudice for being Irish and gay.

[Lateralthinking1]

This week hours of radio in London have been devoted to a Z list celebrity. He was mugged by two men. In the minutes that followed he tweeted to a long list of followers something along the following lines:

"I can't believe it. I've just been mugged by two black guys".

There has been a huge amount of vitriol in phone-ins from callers who have said they are disgusted. By using the word "black" he has shown himself to be a racist apparently.

It is this kind of nonsense that I find deeply offensive and frankly very worrying.

[Serial_Apologist]

I think that the first grave danger here - albeit one that even you are trying to avoid by eschewing references to "racism" per se - is in the implied assumption that "overcrowding" in Britain, even if true, is somehow commensurate or even synonymous with - and/or has been partly responsible for having helped to bring about - the rise of "racism", irrespective of which races it manifests itself in. Firstly, I do not see any realistic or meaningful, let alone scientific, way in which to determine beyond argument that any particular figure could ever represent an ideal population for Britain (or anywhere else, for that matter) without due consideration of an entire raft of relevant considerations including demographics, employment levels, transport infrastructure, land available for housing, commercial premises, agriculture, etc., especially since all of these change daily! So, whilst the population that would result from everyone entitled to live in Britain actually doing so would arguably bring about overcrowding, this would raise the British populaton to a massive nine-figure number which is obviously on a scale way greater than in implied in arguments over whether the optimum British population might be 60m or 30m. Secondly, whilst it may more reasonably be argued that some parts of Britain may be over-populated, it is also surely the case that others are under-populated - or, at the very least, sparsely populated. Thirdly, those who believe that there nevertheless is an inevitable connection between population increases and the rise of racism should first give due consideration to the fact that so many millions of people are entitled to live in Britain today (whether or not they do so) as a direct consequence of past colonisation by Britain; if the Brits didn't want to take that kind of risk for the future, they should have thought about this before running around the world colonising.

The second issue that you raise is that "overcrowding is not just a threat to our countryside and quality of life, it helps to breed intolerance and tensions". Even if Britain is overcrowded and that such overcrowding did indeed help to breed intolerance and tensions, the suspicions that your assertion arouses is that such intolerance and tension is racially motivated; would you disagree with this by being prepared to state that substantial increases in the British population other than through immigration would not help to breed either of these things? "Overcrowding" - even to those who believe that it is a curent problem in UK - clearly does not "threaten our coutryside" ("our"? - whose is it anyway?); one has only to look carefully at a map of UK to see that! Overcrowding would indeed affect our way of life in Britain if Britain was really overcrowded, which I do not believe it is; overcrowding is certain areas of Britain may risk doing this, but even these are not in any case about the populations of individual towns and cities but a matter of the number of people per square metre of space.

You then write of a "a natural instinct that goes back millennia that binds certain groups together" and it is with this extrordinary remark that you walk boldly out onto the shifting sands. Even were you to have substituted "millennia" with "centuries", this still makes no sense; groups of people were "bound together" more by the fact that there was little alternative than by any other reason, since travel, population movement and communications technology on the scale that we now understand them simply did not feature in medieval times. More importantly, however, not only is this "belief" of yours, for all that you're entitled to it for whatever reason or none, is not commonly shared, it is also rash to assume that what might have held good in the 15th century still held good in the 20th or last week. On what basis is the "instinct" of which you write "natural"? On what grounds do you even assert that such an "instinct" exists? Above all, why would you assume, let aloneexpect, that whatever might "bind certain groups together" at one time continue to do so forever, regardless of where members of such groups might move?

I accept that there are problems, not least that of teachers struggling to teach because of language problems amoung their students, but then this is hardly new, is it? - after all, did all those Brits (or, for that matter French, Purtuguese, Spanish, Dutch) who ran around the world colonising centuries ago train themselves to be fluent in the languages of all the countries that they colonised before doing so?(!)...

Finally, on the subject of "instinct" in this context, it occurs to me that the abnormality which has implicitly been ascribed to me earlier in this thread must include my attitude to what makes me relatively comfortable in the population environs wherein I might find myself at any time, to the extent that, were there no immigrants anywhere near me, I would find that most unwelcome. OK, you're writing here about feeling as though you're an ethnic minority person when you visit certain places and, whilst I understand what you mean by this, I fear that such a feeling stems at least in part from some kind of unduly proprietorial attitude towards the country in which you live of the kind that once gave rise to the absurdly unrealistic and unpalatable notion of "splendid isolationism"; personally, I do not feel that Britain is "my" country" so much as the country in which I currently live and of which my passport decalres me to be a citizen and, when I move to France, I will feel the same except to the extent that my passport will contginue for the foreseeable future to decalre me to be an EU citizen.

Thanks, ahinton, for so clearly articulating what I signally failed to have the patience to articulate as well in my earlier postings. Especially in your last paragraph: as one who has "felt strange" on each of the occasions when I have made return visits to my last place of domicile, a town with an overwhelmingly white population, I am at one with you there.

Incidentally, I hope I am not alone in finding the findings which Calum refers to, claiming deep-set responses alleged to incline us negatively towards those of different ethnicity, unduly pessimistic. Differences are cultural - I believe anthropologists investigating tribespeople in Borneo in the late 19th century discovered an inability among said peoples to recognise images in photographs. We have to take care when speaking of ourselves as "evolved people". Doubtless If one had played them Tchaikovsky's "Pathetique" they would have been hard put to recognise that as music. As today many would not regard Birtwistle's music as music. Watching Aun Sungh Suu Qi (sp?) on telly this lunchtime struck me forcibly how much stronger I can identify with the culture that has made her the strong person she is, insofar as I am able to, given that I have never been to Burma, than with "my own", with its unresolved aggregation of collective ideological baggage, and individual resistance. It all comes down to what we mean by "civilised"; I for one questioned this notion as a result of viewing a marvellous series of programmes in which white westerners spent a protracted period of time, maybe a year, living among tribespeople living in, iirc, the Amazon rainforest. I wonder how many people remember/saw that programme series, and said to themselves, "Hmm, and we call ourselves civilised!"

Surely, rather than complaining about white people not being the only ones to have racism in their, er, makeup, as a basic precept our responsibilities lie in rooting it out among ourselves?

[Flosshilde]

I find it impossible to believe that having a class where the majority have English as a second language, or no English, makes progress easy.

Oh dear, there are so many questionable assumptions in you posts, Lat (& not only yours), that it's difficult to know where to begin. HOwever, I think that this is one of the more egregious. Just because a child is of African or Asian descent it doesn't mean that English is a second language - many, or most, of such children in a classroom will be born in the UK & wil have English as a first language. An important point is that they will also be likely to be able to speak another language; & from my experience many of those children for whom English is a 'second' language will in fact be able to speak more than one other language already (English will in fact be their third or fourth language), & as we know, the ability to speak several languages increases the agility of the brain & improves learning in other fields.

[Bryn]

The nearest I have come to being successfully mugged was by a group of around five white male youths. I wonder if that makes me a racist for mentioning the colour of their skin, and ageist for mentioning their youthfulness?

The guy doing the tweeting has rightly stated that the skin colour of his assailants was entirely relevant in terms of clues to their identities.

[Flosshilde]

I was listening to the teacher on the radio this morning. She wasn't complaining and seemed reasonably happy with her lot. She nevertheless pointed out that a young Polish boy had no English and was frequently upset in that environment. A quarter of an hour of each lesson was devoted to reassuring him. I don't know what age he is but let us say six. I don't think it is fair on him, on her or on the others. It is another one of these ridiculous situations that has arisen because of international economics. Sure, he will adapt. He has no choice. It seems very plausible to me that the situation is replicated in every state school in our major cities.

I'm sure many primary school teachers have to spend time reassuring tearful children - not becuase they don't speak English, but because they are in a completely alien environment, having spent the previous five or six years at home.

(Incidentally, I've noticed how the children of those in the armed forces attend "English schools" when abroad. Funny that - you'd think that they might benefit more from being in a tiny minority in those countries' schools and taught in a different language!!!)

I think it's more to do with the fact that troops can be moved on to a new posting after a short time - attending a special school can help with continuity of education.

[jean]

The nearest I have come to being successfully mugged was by a group of around five white male youths. I wonder if that makes me a racist for mentioning the colour of their skin, and ageist for mentioning their youthfulness?

The guy doing the tweeting has rightly stated that the skin colour of his assailants was entirely relevant in terms of clues to their identities.

It depends on the context in which he said it, surely?

If he's telling the police who are investigating what's happened, it's relevant to establishing their identities. If he's tweeting to all and sundry, it presumably isn't.

There was a time not so long ago when newspapers routinely mentioned a criminal's colour of only if they were black. This rendered white criminals invisible, and gave the impression that all criminals were black.

Now it's more usual to mention colour/race in all cases.

[Flosshilde]

It depends on the context in which he said it, surely?

If he's telling the police who are investigating what's happened, it's relevant to establishing their identities. If he's tweeting to all and sundry, it presumably isn't.

Quite. The important fact, as far as his 'followers' are concerned, is that he was mugged. The ethnicity of his muggers is irrelevant; it doesn't make the assault, his possible injuries, or any theft, worse if his muggers were black or white.