The reasons for being different

 

Subject: Reasons for being different.



Does racism describes an attitude, or a past grievances, a perceived indifference perhaps even intolerance and  why is speaking your mind, trying to explain,  even attempting to excuse these prejudice's so heinous.

Racism is about far more than skin colour. I would challenge anyone to say they don't have a prejudices or a dislike regarding some individual or group of individuals who project something you are not happy with.  Why is a certain types of prejudice off the scale whilst others merely acknowledge where you grew up and which local prejudice you imbibed, (being a Yorkshireman for instance).

The term "modern Britain" used these days is itself a qualification. By quoting 'modern' Britain it's implicit that there must have been a less modern Britain, a Britain populated by people with different ideas because the country they lived in was different. Using the term modern implies better as if anything modern is an improvement. The question then has to be asked, which was better, or more representative of the majority living here. Can we in fact differentiate the individual from the majority when in the 1950s the influx of people from countries with different ideological persuasions, different norms, different cultures changed the demographic landscape tremendously, especially in the cities and effectively forced upon us, much like an invasion. Those ideologies, norms, and cultures had to be assimilated into the existing ideologies, norms and culture to make society work and was this change agreed and condoned by the occupants of the housing estates in Bradford, Leeds or Manchester.  No. 

The wholesale importation of labour was an economic decision and when one mentions economics, inevitably there are winners and losers usually the the beneficiaries are not ordinary wage earning people but the established wealthy, the mill owners sitting behind in their high walled, gated properties secure from any ramifications of their actions. 

In those days there was apartheid, not of white on black but white on white, a class divide, which goes back much further than any racial divide. 

It's hard to imagine that people who lived here 'pre 1950' didn't resent the influx of largely black people from all over the world who were encouraged to come and bolster our low wage economy and poor conditions with even poorer wages and longer hours just so the inefficient, under invested mills could attempt to compete with highly modernised  firms in Taiwan. 

The indignation felt by people living here towards race was seeded in the economics of 1950, by the dislocation/relocation of local people who had their own established interpersonal relationships. There were no social platforms to air their unhappiness, in those days one was expected to count your blessings and get on with life, no matter what it threw at you. Imagine the sons and daughters of those people today, living now in a society where the children of those immigrants continually complain of there own social and economic condition. It's the other face of that economic/race card which was brought to these shores,  in innocence, by their parents, who themselves were impervious to the discomfort of the 'pre 1950' working class Brit'

Anger and hostility are not the natural ingredients of a balanced society, and for the 'pre 1950' British men  and women, the balance was broken then. The trust in our superiors, the Establishment, to support us was destroyed and we struggle, to this day to find any sense of empathy for the lot of the poor white man and women. There are no representative groups speaking out for them on the media like there are for BAM or LGBT, there is not much said compared to the daily outpouring for the disadvantaged and at risk female. The 'poor whites' are the forgotten part of the social jigsaw and whilst their problems remain unaddressed you will continue to have social unrest.

None of this is made any easier by the repeated demand for concessions by minority groups on matters not yet evaluated or understood. We are supposed to go along with change, some of it good, some of it bad, we see our way of life threatened by forces such as authoritative  religions and tribal affiliations, arranged marriages, sexual grooming, (specifically in the Muslim Pakistan  community) the subservience of women in a patriarchal society (just when we have been convinced of the need for female equality) and a religious observance which is so different to our own.  Historically we had thrown off the stifling hold of authoritarian Catholicism in favour of the Protestant Church and now we are being asked to confirm and accept amongst us a far more conservative and disciplinarian religion, a politically active religion which strongly condemns  us for our historical role overseas and what it sees as our moral degeneration at home which has created in a short space of time a strong ideological  hold over parts of our community here in the UK. This importation of tribal and religious exclusivity and a value system where people in a different caste have far less value goes against everything we thought Britain stood for. This is not a question of learning to get along with a family from Des Moines in Iowa who moved in next door and speak in American riddles or the Lithuanian couple across the road who appear to live on dumplings and potatoes,  no the society is changing under our feet, forcing us to understand the significance of the burka and the factional hatred between Sunni and Shia. It's reigniting the claims of Saladin over the Knights of the Round Table a step back into the conflicts of the  Middle Ages.  

Is it any wonder that white people gaze with disbelief at their television screens, seeing the sons and daughters of those immigrants rant and rave about the injustice they feel living here and asking, time and again for the majority to make more adjustments to accommodate an ever longer set of complaints. 

Inclusion and the acceptance of diversity seems these days a one way street with traffic flowing in one direction. In this 'Woke' society where commentary is guarded by social ideology and where another kind of bigotry is established, we see people falling on their sword for practicing free speech and 'non Woke' people repeatedly maligned  for disagreeing with fundamentalism, a fundamentalism which will allow no such criticism of its own practice.