Racism

[keith with the teef]

I’ve been coming to terms with Racism today as I have time to think about it.

The catalyst was IRAN.

I tell as you as kid Racism was pumped into us pretty hard and fast back in the day.

Of course the whole world suffers from it.

One good point I guess and at the time was how well educated the Irish are but how stupid they where at the time because of Racism.

But to sum up. I do think its vitally important that the UK has a strong immigration policy.

[Ed P]

It is not just racism, but sexism, and religious intolerance too. As a nation we have a lot of room for improvement, but we are by no means the worst in the world.

Immigration does however have to be controlled, not for racist views, but rather for allocation of resources. Talk to a cross section of second/third generation immigrants such as children/grandchildren of ‘Kenyan Asians’ from Enoch  Powell’s days and a large proportion will say that immigration needs to be controlled.

Cross Channel immigrants are not ‘Asylum Seekers’ and should never be labelled as such. The UN Charter states that Asylum should be sought in the first safe haven. They may however have genuine familial reasons, or other genuine reasons why France, Spain or Italy cannot settle them. For these people we need to improve our settlement systems within the EU. We should work hard at keeping people away from trying to make the costly and dangerous Channel crossing.

Although I try to be tolerant in my attitudes I do hate Political Correctness, it is just censorship, and infringing Free Speech by another name.

[Ed P]

I did not understand your comment on Iran. They are probably the most tolerant of Middle East countries, a statement I’m sure Richard would support.

If your comment is because of concerns about the imprisonment of British ‘spies’, blame Bojo for his clownish actions at the Foreign Office, our failure to pay billions we owe (thanks to US pressure) and Britain’s long history of involvement in Iran’s internal affairs. (see the wiki on Mossadegh).

[keith with the teef]

So IRAN. I was pretty much brought up in a nut shell that Arabs are a bunch of dirty arse stuffers etc.

Then I find out the whole world owes IRAN a great deal for giving us modern society and so on.

Blokes like Alf Garnet etc are responsible for seeding many young peoples minds with his bollocks or so called humor.

I does make me smile when I hear people say I’m not a racist. Like it then gives them a platform to go off on one.

But yeah, I think I am comfortable in saying I am not a racist. I guess like most things it depends on how much pressure we are under to start mouthing off on some type of ism or false science.

 

[Ed P]

If you want to start a fight, call an Iranian an Arab, or call an Arab a Persian. Culturally, ethnically  and to a great extent religiously they are two very different peoples!

https://www.persiansarenotarabs.com/

[Richard]

The root of most ism is xenophobia, a fear or suspicion of strangers or aliens. It grows from there. ED is right about several things. Iran is a mainly Shia area, further west it is mainly a Sunni area. Get it wrong at your peril. It can be said that it is Shia agony, on the Sunnis side of the street.

Flippancy over, the Gulf, what a mix of agonies, on one side it is the Arabian Gulf, on the other it was the Persian Gulf. However, Iran had many quite different races, sects and belief patterns. In general, the Iranians were traders and those that I met appeared ready to deal. Perhaps that causes them to appear more tolerant than others, who felt themselves to be above deal making as long as they collected a return. But the old sayings about my enemy and my enemy’s enemy is very true. I am not so sure about friends. Some Iranians were too sharp for their own good and fell foul of the need for a good deal.

The conflicted state of play between the various sects, racial types, tribes and whatever differentiation you can dream up and many that an outsider will never know is a constant issue. If you think racism is a European thing, think again. The lighter skinned Arabs and Iranians, (most of the latter are somewhat lighter skinned) drew sharp distinctions between different hues. Shortly after my arrival in an unnamed location, I heard that a wife had committed suicide, you do not need the details of how. I expressed my shock and sympathy, it was a shocking and upsetting story. I was cut short by someone whose skin tone was more burnt umber than many saying, “Oh, don’t worry, she was black”. Welcome to racism, Gulf style. The northern Gulf races severely looked down on those from Muscat and beyond with a range of colourful terms. Many families used to barter for pale skinned brides, often from Iran, to keep the family line lighter skinned.

I could discuss at greater, length, however, we had some bad news recently. My wife’s cancer treatment, has not secured the remission we sought, and hoped for, today she had a liver biopsy, so I must drop back out.

I earnestly believe that xenophobia covers the cause of racism, I also believe that Enoch possibly expressed his belief badly. Put bluntly, if too much change is forced too rapidly, there will be unpleasant, ‘ism’ reactions on all sides.

[JayCeeDee]

Unfortunately, some humans don’t need a reason for hate, intolerance and violence.

My son is gay and was up in Manchester a couple of weeks ago with his partner, having coffee outside a Costa which was in a park. A couple of young ( 17 ish ) coloured lads came over and started mouthing off at them and giving them grief. They ignored them to start off with but they continued. My son got up to leave and one of them got in his face again and made a grab for a £200 pair of sunglasses. At that point my son stopped taking it and grappled the mouthy one to a park bench and told him to stay put. That should have been enough discouragement for them, but unfortunately they were not alone, there was another half dozen of them, one waving a blade, and he got worked over, but never went down. His partner and other bystanders kept telling  them they had called the police and eventually they left. Police came after about half an hour and took statements from all.

After my initial anger at hearing about this, my words to my son were,  60 years ago it would have been a white gang beating up their Grandfathers, that was wrong then, it’s wrong now, so why do young coloured youths now feel that they have the moral high ground to attack and beat up another innocent minority.

My mind boggles at human nature, are the lessons of the past always forgotten and doomed to be re-enacted??

 

 

[Ed P]

“My mind boggles at human nature, are the lessons of the past always forgotten and doomed to be re-enacted??”

Unfortunately I think Richard was correct in his statements:

“I earnestly believe that xenophobia covers the cause of racism, I also believe that Enoch possibly expressed his belief badly. Put bluntly, if too much change is forced too rapidly, there will be unpleasant, ‘ism’ reactions on all sides.”

I think xenophobia is an in-built animal survival reaction. In order  to conserve resources for their own genes it triggers a response to attack anything that is different. e.g. crows attacking albino crows, apes attacking other tribes, ditto meerkats etc etc.

In New York I witnessed that some of the worst examples of racism were between Harlem Blacks and Koreans, friends tell me of similar tensions in Vancouver  between recent (quite rich) Chinese arrivals and relatively poor local Canadians and longer established Koreans. The root cause in both cases was as Richard stated too much change too quickly which triggered the innate response.

I’m sorry to say that sexist attacks and religious attacks may have similar roots and be triggered by too great a display of being different. e.g. Gay Pride, religious clothing etc etc. The road to greater acceptance is conformity to the mean.

Side-note to Richard, please accept my deepest sympathy for your wife’s condition, and its impacts on your family.

[keith with the teef]

Some really good points made in this thread. You know, knowledge is power/ enlightenment or something. So thanks for sharing

I will talk to the kids today about xenophobia. Clearly they need to know about it.

@ Richard: Sorry to here about the troubled times you are all in.

 

 

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