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

[Pabmusic]

... 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.

How right you are. It's odd how we seem to be stuck in the 1950s/60s, inasmuch as we assume that people of non-northern European origin must be recent immigrants. It's very many years since the last immigration of a single 'race' en masse (Ugandan Asians? Vietnamese?), and most of those we know and see now are 2nd- and 3rd-generation British-born.

My wife, born and raised in the Philippines, had to move home more than once when she was young to areas that spoke a different language (as different - and as similar - as Welsh is from Cornish, or Irish Gaelic from Scots Gaelic) and she now puts me to shame, regularly holding conversations on Facebook in two or three languages simultaneously (and dealing with my interjections in English). My own experience of Filipinos is that they pick up languages readily because they understand the need to communicate. We have become lazy because of the ubiquity of English, but we sometimes take it further, feeling truly put out when others don't use English.

[Bryn]

[QUOTE=Flosshilde;100992]

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.QUOTE]

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.

No, but their skin colour was one of the distinctive features of their appearance which he noticed, and passed on. It is absurd to ascribe a racist motive to his mentioning that distinction. I recall an old friend and comrade of mine back in the early 80's who, on his way home from an anti-racist meeting, popped into a pub near the centre of Brixton, a regular haunt of his. It was rather quiet at the time and while the barman was changing a barrel my friend was mugged of the little money he had on him. In recounting his experience he described his assailants as two black guys, probably Grenadian by their accents, the irony of which was that a main topic of the meeting he had just come form was the US invasion of their assumed island of origin. He was describing then, not attributing their actions to their ethnic origins.

[Bryn]

How right you are. It's odd how we seem to be stuck in the 1950s/60s, inasmuch as we assume that people of non-northern European origin must be recent immigrants. It's very many years since the last immigration of a single 'race' en masse (Ugandan Asians? Vietnamese?), and most of those we know and see now are 2nd- and 3rd-generation British-born.

My wife, born and raised in the Philippines, had to move home more than once when she was young to areas that spoke a different language (as different - and as similar - as Welsh is from Cornish, or Irish Gaelic from Scots Gaelic) and she now puts me to shame, regularly holding conversations on Facebook in two or three languages simultaneously (and dealing with my interjections in English). My own experience of Filipinos is that they pick up languages readily because they understand the need to communicate. We have become lazy because of the ubiquity of English, but we sometimes take it further, feeling truly put out when others don't use English.

Indeed, and let's not forget, spurious claims re Abbott, Grant and Boateng notwithstanding, that England's first black MP was Shapurji Dorabji Saklatvala, son of the founder of the Tata empire, who served as MP for North Battersea in the 1920.

[ahinton]

Indeed, and let's not forget, spurious claims re Abbott, Grant and Boateng notwithstanding, that England's first black MP was Shapurji Dorabji Saklatvala, son of the founder of the Tata empire, who served as MP for North Battersea in the 1920.

Actually, subject (possibly) to how the word "black" may be interpreted in this context (not that what I'm about to write suggests any need to consider this, actually), that's not true; the first Asian to become an MP in Britain was another Parsi from India, Dadabhai Naoroji (1825-1917), who was elected Liberal MP for Finsbury Central almost threre decades earlier, in 1892 (see http://www.movinghere.org.uk/galleri...ai_naoroji.htm, in which his age at death is incorectly reported as 92 when it was actually 91) and the second was yet another, Sir Mancherjee Merwanjee Bhownagree, KCIE, (1851–1933), who was elected Conservative MP for Bethnal Green North East in 1895 (see http://en.wikisource.org/wiki/1922_E...rjee_Merwanjee and http://www.movinghere.org.uk/galleri...s/politics.htm) and was apparently the longest-serving British Asian MP until Keith Vaz (who was first elected in 1987). The history of Asian MPs in Britain therefore dates back before anyone living today was even born.

[Flosshilde]

[QUOTE=Bryn;100995]

No, but their skin colour was one of the distinctive features of their appearance which he noticed, and passed on.

Why was it relevant to pass on this specific feature? What other features did he pass on - height, weight, for example? As Jean said, it would be relevant to a police investigation, but not as gossip passed on to people who had no close connection with him apart from the spurious one of 'following' him on Twitter.

[Bryn]

[QUOTE=Flosshilde;101022]

Why was it relevant to pass on this specific feature? What other features did he pass on - height, weight, for example? As Jean said, it would be relevant to a police investigation, but not as gossip passed on to people who had no close connection with him apart from the spurious one of 'following' him on Twitter.

I doubt he had a handy pair of scales with him. He might have estimated their heights that would have taken rather more consideration then noticing the colour of their skin would. I doubt he was thinking that clearly about the niceties of what he was tweeting shortly after such an experience. I, for instance, can tell you that those who ran off when I raised the microphone stand I was carrying from my shoulder (I guess they did not realise that the base was of plastic, not the cast iron it appeared to be) were white, male and youthful. I did not assess their heights or weights. To this day I am not sure whether there were five or six of them.

[MrGongGong]

Returning briefly to schools

I've just spent the afternoon in a school where there were no white children in the class. By the definition that many use they were all "English as a second language" interestingly there were NO problems of understanding , in many ways these children (in a relatively poor part of East London) are at a considerable linguistic advantage, most have travelled to several countries , most speak at least 2 languages one being English , one girl I was chatting to in a break spoke Wolof (from Senagal) , Portuguese and English all fluently...........If only my own children had this fluency they would be at a considerable advantage.
Like I said before , there ARE problems in some places but the idea that having English as a second language is one is considerably over stated and often not a problem at all.

and as Pab said , for many of these children it was their Grandparents who were immigrants to London and for some their great Grandparents !
which makes them more English than Portillo (if that matters at all ?)


oh and the music was good as well

[Bryn]

Actually, subject (possibly) to how the word "black" may be interpreted in this context (not that what I'm about to write suggests any need to consider this, actually), that's not true; the first Asian to become an MP in Britain was another Parsi from India, Dadabhai Naoroji (1825-1917), who was elected Liberal MP for Finsbury Central almost threre decades earlier, in 1892 (see http://www.movinghere.org.uk/galleri...ai_naoroji.htm, in which his age at death is incorectly reported as 92 when it was actually 91) and the second was yet another, Sir Mancherjee Merwanjee Bhownagree, KCIE, (1851–1933), who was elected Conservative MP for Bethnal Green North East in 1895 (see http://en.wikisource.org/wiki/1922_E...rjee_Merwanjee and http://www.movinghere.org.uk/galleri...s/politics.htm) and was apparently the longest-serving British Asian MP until Keith Vaz (who was first elected in 1987). The history of Asian MPs in Britain therefore dates back before anyone living today was even born.

Thanks for that, AH, it more than emphasises the point I was aiming at. Shapurji Saklatvala was the one I knew about from my time of residence in Battersea, back in the mid-70s. He was the first 'black' Labour MP, I should have said (actually he was ILP, i.e. a Communist). He went to gaol for a fortnight in response to his support for the General Strike in 1926. Fine man.

[hackneyvi]

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?

I don't see where the compulsory element comes from. If racism arises from knowledge and ignorance, from identifying similarity to and identifying difference between, from competition with and preference for, is cultural as well as individual, geographical and institutional then it's inherited, given freely, learned and re-learned all the time.

[MrGongGong]

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.

Which maybe is code for , We don't want poor people in the National Parks upsetting our way of life (even if for some places it seems to involve severed heads in bags ?)

"Our" countryside belongs as much to the group of children I was with today as it does to you or me !

but teachers AREN'T struggling to teach because English is a second language
they might be struggling due to poor resources , mis-management or too many pupils in their class

and what on earth does "Things have been allowed to go too far mean " ?????

don't answer that because it's more than obvious what you mean !

[hackneyvi]

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.

I believe I've related racism to blindness and homosexuality by dint of their common place in human life. They're not extraordinary but are normal, like illiteracy and driving.

[Eine Alpensinfonie]

At the risk of sound as nausiating as Mel Gibson, I'd like to quote my late father: "There's only one race - the human race."

[Flosshilde]

I don't see where the compulsory element comes from. If racism arises from knowledge and ignorance, from identifying similarity to and identifying difference between, from competition with and preference for, is cultural as well as individual, geographical and institutional then it's inherited, given freely, learned and re-learned all the time.

I think racism arises from ignorance and fear, and lumping people together rather than thinking of them as individuals, as does any other hatred of 'the other'.

[amateur51]

I think racism arises from ignorance and fear, and lumping people together rather than thinking of them as individuals, as does any other hatred of 'the other'.

As Eddie Waters, the disillusioned Music Hall comedian/evening class tutor in Trevor Griffiths' Comedians says:

"The traitor distrusts the truth; the traitor distorts the truth; the traitor destroys the truth"

[Lateralthinking1]

It is interesting to see some of the points I heard on the radio about the tweet surfacing here.

The victim was of course in shock. It is a bit like me being on a live television programme with my leg hanging off. "Gosh" the presenters say, "what on earth has happened to you?". Still shaking, I reply "F**k, I've just been knocked down by a hit and run driver". The switchboard is immediately inundated with people complaining that I have sworn.

The problem is the complete lack of reasonableness in some. That appears to combine an extraordinary lack of compassion for others with a paranoid over-sensitivity towards themselves. There is no doubt in my mind that it is warped to the point of nasty. To put it another way, it is a bit like receiving a letter from a terminally ill person in hospital and discussing over the dinner table why he didn't put a comma in the right place. Very simply, the priorities are all wrong.

With respect, I don't need to be told that if 70% of pupils are Afro-Caribbean or Asian the majority of them will have English as their first language. Of course, they will. That is why in Croydon, where 62% of pupils at state primaries are non-white British, only 21% of pupils do not have English as their first language.

However, here are some percentages from the Guardian of pupils in state primary schools for whom English is not a first language - Wandsworth - 41%, Camden 46%, Islington 47%, Ealing 49%, Redbridge 52%, Hounslow 53%, Westminster 65%, Newham 66%, Tower Hamlets 70%. In most of these cases, there are 10 or 20 different first languages from Gujarati to Albanian and from Mandarin to Welsh.

If it were a drummers workshop at a festival, we could celebrate the diversity. Where there is a need to teach maths, geography and science, it gets more difficult. I would have really struggled to have learnt such subjects in German or Swahili and when it comes to "normal" I would mildly suggest that this qualifies.