h2g2 The Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy: Earth Edition

And I'm also reminded of when that buffoon, Donal McIntyre, did that thing where he became the victim of black street crime. How handy that he chose to film in Brixton.







(Actually, he proved to me that Brixton is safe, provided you don't wander round on three succesive nights waving a mobile phone around, then accompany a dodgy geezer onto an estate in the middle of the night and make patroniosing racist comments about him)

"if I remember correctly, his was the only white family left in a large area"

Did you ever happen to wonder why there would be only one white family living in a "large area"? In the US, this phenomenon, which fortunately is dying out, was known as "white flight." One black family would move into a predominantly white neighborhood. So what would happen next, you might wonder? All the white neighbors would bake fresh bread and make hot porridge and take it as a welcomeing gesture to the newly arrived black family just as they'd do if another white family had moved in, right? Golly, no, wrong. Instead, the "For Sale" signs would begin popping up all over the neighborhood and the "KKK" spray paint would appear on the black family's house. (Oh, and never mind that the black man is a college professor and his wife a lawyer.) So would anyone care to guess what happens to property values in the neighborhood overnight? Right, they drop right through the floor. Now guess now who can afford to move there since the new, lower prices went into effect? Right, other, lower income blacks and other minorities. Before you know it, it's an all black/minority neighborhood. So will somebody please tell me who's "fault" this is? White flight is an operatonal self-fulfilliing, self-reinforcing phenomenon whose roots lie somewhere in the vicinity of racism and/or xenophobis. We reap what we sow.

On a lighter note...a Zimbabwean friend of mine was once trying to buy a house near Cambridge. Finding that the prices were too high, he hatched a plan. He'd knock on a few doors and say:
"Hi! I'm thinking of moving in around here. Is it a nice neighbourhood? What can you tell me?"
Everyone would go:
"Shit! There's a black guy moving in!"
Give it a week or two and the prices would have plummeted.

These days, British racists have a big problem:
"All these people coming over here with their white faces and bland food, fitting thermostatic valves to our radiators."
Somehow, it lacks force.

Edward, it really doesn't matter that in a TV programme some of the Christmas banning stories were found to be misunderstandings as it still means that some of them were true, just like the Red Cross stopping having Christmas decorations anymore, you may not find that irritating but many do. Just cause they stopped the council employee removing the word Christmas as it may upset some people, he still tried to do it.
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SWL has a point, I remember a few years ago a high ranking police officer saying on TV
they would
start with the premise that every attack on an ethnic minority person was racist.....implying that if you wasn't in an ethnic minority they wouldn't. Which since the number of racist attacks by Asians is rising, the number of racist attacks by black people is steady and the number of racist attacks by white people is falling, is a little strange.

Incidentally, some of my best next door neighbors were a wonderful black family from Ethiopia. I've never had the pleasure of living next door to a more wonderful family. The most fun I've had in a great while was when they invited me to their daughter's wedding reception. I provided many good laughs as an Anglo with two left feet trying to do Ethiopian dances!

Well I am sure your neighbour was perfectly wonderful, I could get into that and tell you of the person who was working here illegally and gave the address of a care home to get bank accounts illegally and clearly didn't give a poo about the effect on the care home that had to deal with the debt collects and letters from solicitors, etc.
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Well that is all sorted out then, anyone who has been living in the same house for 50 years and found all their friends have gone and all the shops they knew disappeared and might be upset at all this is a KKK member, well there you go, that's a way to stiffle debate, slur them all.

"that's a way to stiffle debate, slur them all."

I'd certainly never think of sluring them all, whoever 'them all' might be. It's just the racists and xenophobes that I'd fault for causing needless grief in the world.

You slurred the thin white line people, however part of the reason the people from abroad who moved into the city centers said they did so was to be with people from their own country, which is what the thin white line people are doing but in reverse, so if you acuse the thin white line people surely you should say the same thing about the people moving into the city centres.

Ed - I'm quite willing to stand corrected if statistics prove me wrong, but that doesn't change the perception does it? And, I am far from alone in having that perception. Incidentally, I understand a crime is considered racist if the victim believes it to be so according to Sir Ian Blair. Now, accepting we have had our fair share of racism in the past, there have been repeated poster and leaflet campaigns in multiple languages aimed at ethnic minorities encouraging them to report all racist crime. I find this ironic. Encouraging Muslims to complain

I'm sorry that what was intended as an anecdotal aside has diverted the discussion so.

If this is going to be a wider reaching debate though, do the posters here think Faith schools are a possible solution to fragmenting society?

I personally think school is no place for religion. Here in Scotland we have problems with sectarianism which I feel have been exacerbated by faith schools.

I think the Governments latest suggestion is quite clever. They are proposing that, in order to receive state funding, faith schools must accept 25% of pupils from different faiths. I cannot see this being a problem for any faith schools, except one of course.

"so if you acuse the thin white line people surely you should say the same thing about the people moving into the city centres."

I believe it's regrettable and counterproductive toward the greater good when the actions of anyone, regardless of their affiliation, are motivated primarily by racist and/or xenophobic thinking.

"do the posters here think Faith schools are a possible solution to fragmenting society?"

You're joking about faith schools being a "solution" to fragmenting society, right? If anything I think they can only exacerbate fragmentation. We have enough divisiveness already without needlessly introducing yet more ways in which to fragment and segregate society.

Ed - "We've never been a tolerant, multicultural heaven. We should be trying harder"

What further steps would you like to see taken Ed?

We've got rafts of legislation and initiatives, to the extent that shouting "racist" instantly demonises a point of view and silences debate. We've legislated for what people do and what they say, how can the government tackle the troublesome issue of legislating for what people think?

I agree that "white flight" is a white reaction and therefore partly a white problem, but if there is one thing an Englishman is absolutely paranoid about, it's house values.

I read recently about someone visiting a small village in the North of Scotland and finding the hotel owned by a woman from Kent. Striking up a conversation whilst checking in, the guest asked about the owner's background. The hotelier replied that she had left Kent due to the influx of foreigners. Quite.

Someone mentioned earlier that it may be Imams behind a lot of our current difficulties with Islam.

This is interesting:

"The Security Service has developed a special plan on strengthening the control over the Islamic clergy. This was told by a high-ranking source in the diplomatic department. According to his information, the plan contains a list of actions directed to activation of gathering of data on current activity and external contacts of the Islamic clerics.

The paramount attention in this document is paid to the following aspects of activity of the clergy:

- Content of appearances in mosques, in the lessons in religious educational institutions, and during informal meetings with the believers;
- Content of the religious literature, audio and video materials distributed by clerics;
- Structure of visitors of mosques, in particular their ethnic belonging and political views. Special interest is represented with possible contacts of clerics with the activists of the illegal Islamic fundamentalist organizations, especially of the Jihadist persuasion;
- Participation of clerics in private business, first of all, in partnership with foreign businessmen, in particular from the Arab countries, Pakistan, Iran, Turkey and Britain;
- Personality of the foreign sponsors allocating donations to concrete clerics;
- Foreign trips of clerics, both on religious and commercial motives."

http://www.axisglobe.com/article.asp?article=1049

Can you guess the country?






Kyrgzstan.

Note that they are particularly concerned about Muslims with links to Britain.

How others see us eh?

I think that all faith schools should be closed, and favour the French approach where religious symbols are not allowed in a school environment.

Edward -

Leaving aside your defamation of David Cameron by likening him to Tony Blair, what exactly do you perceive as being "Howard's racist campaign" ?

I'm not a fan of faith schools at all. But the French approach sounds quite nasty to me. I really can't understand it. I actually think that this is one of the things that Americans tend to do quite well.

http://www.religioustolerance.org/ps_pray.htm
http://www.religioustolerance.org/sch_clot.htm

TRiG.

Thanks, TRiG. I'm guardedly optimistic that we're at least headed in the right direction with regard to race relations in the states, but we've got a long way to go, too. Following is a useful link for anyone wanting practical ideas for improving inter-race relations: http://www.tolerance.org/teach/?source=redirect&url=teachingtolerance

Morning JCN,

Reading your posts about the xenophobic / racist actions of white Americans in leaving the cities to the black poulation - have you started a reverse trend in order to counterbalance this undesirable practice.? , after all the housing would be cheap.

A rhetorical question really........

Because here in the UK which is a very small place, much smaller than , (say) Texas, and containing around 65 million people already it is no surprise that your average indiginous white person wants to move to new pastures if the neighbourhood starts to blossom with ethnic groups of a totally differing culture.

It is easy enough to accept different colours and/or different races ( I have two diferent ethnic families in my street who are very pleasant and who fit in ) until the situation is reached where the entire
character of a neighbourhood beginss to change.

At that point why would the initial residents want to stay? The place is no longer as they new it, or wanted it. It isn't racist or xenophobic to want to preserve the way of life you were born into, and which contains personal associations and memories that make you what you are.

To that extent ghettoisation is inevitable if large numbers of immmigrants move into a specific area, no matter what the social or commercial forces that cause this are. Looked at in reverse that is why immigrants into the UK stick with their fellows. I don't know the solution, except to Refer to Edward's sojourn amongst a multi ethnic area, because I accept that if by circumstance or choice you move into an area which already has a wide cultural mix, it can me stimulating, and good for everyone, but it needs to be a choice.

Novo

Well, now...various things...

McKay:
>>what exactly do you perceive as being "Howard's racist campaign" ?

Howard was notoriously the third in the line of Tory leaders who started out trying to appear inclusive but who was pushed - partly due to his party's right-wingers (and I'd count him as one), partly out of expedience. into pushing the issues of immigration and assylum to the top of the agenda. The campaign that Cameron ran for him stank to high heaven. "Oh," people may bleat, "It's not necessarily racist to talk about immigration." Frankly, in practice it generally is.

SS:
>>Well that is all sorted out then, anyone who has been living in the same house for 50 years and found all their friends have gone and all the shops they knew disappeared and might be upset at all this is a KKK member, well there you go, that's a way to stiffle debate, slur them all.

Er...scuse me...I don't recall anyone accusing anyone of KKK membership. Neither do I recall any stifling of debate. You may not like it, but I (and others here) have different opinions to you. That's what debate is. As far as I can see, we have been prepared to back up our arguments with examples, and to counter the falsehoods that racist attitudes are built on.

It is wrong for Americans to try and compare the US experience with Britain today. For a start, the US was founded upon desperately needed mass immigration. Even then, immigrants were hardly welcomed with open arms into city conurbations.

New York as a major port of entry is a good example. Whole areas of New York became ethnic "ghettoes"*, ie the Battery, Little Italy, Greenwich Village etc. Ethnic communities would concentrate in areas before dispersing as children grew up and left. Some of these areas have seen various different ethnicities over time. This works because America has the one thing that the UK lacks, space. The ethnic ghettoes we have are not dispersing, they are growing larger and more distinct.

(* I hesitate to use the word ghetto here because of the negative connotations. I hope it is understood that I mean a concentrated area with a high population of immigrants)

This is exacerbated by the use of rented accomodation. New immigrants do not have the resources to buy a house. Many exist on state benefits. These people are forced to rent at the lowest possible price and to accept standards which the indigenous population would not. Landlords can cram as many people as possible into a house, charging each of them full rent, which the state pays. Large houses thus do not drop in value, they become highly desireable to landlords. Areas which have become run-down and populated by immigrants are not attractive to whites who have lived there all their lives, but they can sell their house to landlords at a good price. Can you blame them for taking the money & running?

I rent my home privately. Recently we considered a move and viewed a number of houses. All were fairly high rent for the area. Most of them were owned by Asians. All of the Asian properties were extremely problematic. They had damp, graffiti, "tired" decor and some fairly serious structural flaws, yet all were priced the same as houses let through Estate Agents. In some of them, the landlords were at pains to point out how many beds would fit in each room.

How do landlords set the rent? By paying attention to the maximum housing benefit available to tenants. If the DSS will pay £85 per person per week, landlords will set the rent for a single bedroom property at £380-£400 a month, meaning the tenant either has to find extra money or share the property. A 3 bed property in this area goes between £600-800 a month. For us as a working couple, that is a stretch. For 6 immigrants receiving benefits, it is no problem.

In this way, indigenous working tenants are driven out of the area because they cannot afford the rents which are maintained by tenants on benefit paying over the odds.