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

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Like British ex-pats in Spain?

The OP made me cringe

Post 21 strikes me as incredibly intolerant and quite vile

Welcome to h2g2, peoples of the world, we are here, with open arms
and minds, is not the impression that I am getting from this thread.

Peanut, we have a yikes button for a reason. (you'd think I'd be fed up of pointing that out... guess what, I am)

I know where the yikes button is, I don't think it should be yikesed

feel free to close the thread though

Intolerant? Moi?

Are you suggesting that self-ghettoising communities don't exist?

Or... are you saying that I'm wrong, and that they in fact DO manage to preserve their culture so they're indistinguishable from "home"?

Or... are you saying that their insularity and rejectionism should be commended, rather than condemned?

In fairness, Hoo has a point in there somewhere about integration, whether it's ethnic minorities in the UK or expats in Spain or Middle Eastern countries. People should want to integrate.

Thing is, though, the majority has to want to integrate too. It needs to be open and welcoming, and to make it easy for people to do just that. It's got to be a two-way process. I think this is why the bits of London that I was familiar with worked well (at least when I lived there). In my first year secondary school class there were kids who were first or second generation immigrants from - Poland, Mauritius, India/Portugal, Greece, Spain, Ireland, the Caribbean, and various African countries. And who was considered 'exotic' and 'different'? The blond haired, blue eyed lad with the strong scouse accent.

It's difficult, though. People want to live near friends and family, and near their community. Where they can get the food they want, attend religious observances etc and so on. Should I ever take a job in a Middle Eastern country (very unlikely) you'll forgive me if I choose to live in ex-pat central rather than downtown.

>>Are you suggesting that self-ghettoising communities don't exist?

It's a tricky one, surely? All we can say is that communities become ghettoised. What we cannot say with any certainty is whether they would become ghettoised absent of the environment within which they find themselves.

'Self-ghettosing' has perhaps a slight unintended connotation of blame. I suggest it's a little more complicated than that. This is an important practical point. The question is not 'Whose fault is it?' but 'How do we get on better?'

@Hoo my personal opinion on your post was that it was intolerant and quite vile and I suggested that it wasn't particulary welcoming. You can agree or disagree

The prospect of getting into a discussion with you about the questions you have raised is an unappealing one for me personally, so I'll give it a miss

"'Self-ghettosing' has perhaps a slight unintended connotation of blame"

Oh no, it was very much intended. What I *don't* mean here is communities of first generation immigrants, who arrive in their target country in large numbers and with little money, and are given housing by authorities who concentrate them in small areas with others of their kind. (I'm obviously thinking here of the waves of post-WW2 immigration to Britain). And I also don't mean those people *compelled*, legally, to live in certain places.

I am, rather, referring to people probably born and raised in the country of their residence, who nevertheless actively and publicly reject its culture and its inhabitants' mores.

The question of "How do we get on better?" is predicated on the assumption that we all want to get on better. And some people clearly demonstrate that they're not actually interested in getting on better, or indeed engaging with the culture in which they live at all. So the important practical point is - how do you deal with people like that in your midst?

"my personal opinion on your post was that it was intolerant and quite vile and I suggested that it wasn't particulary welcoming"

Yeah. You did say all that, in exactly the same words, the first time.

What I was hoping was that if you posted again you might include some *additional* information. Some explanation, perhaps. Justification. Reasons. Evidence, even. Some sort of background or basis for your opinion, rather than just your opinion, again, in exactly the same words.

I can't "disagree", since I don't even understand how post 21 is "intolerant". I'd ask you to explain it, but, well, explaining is unappealing to you, so hey ho. Thanks for your contribution, I guess.

Yes, I thought it was. But I was giving you one last chance not to come over as an obnoxious bigot.

what you asked me was

Are you suggesting that self-ghettoising communities don't exist?

Or... are you saying that I'm wrong, and that they in fact DO manage to preserve their culture so they're indistinguishable from "home"?

Or... are you saying that their insularity and rejectionism should be commended, rather than condemned?

I declined to comment

Sorry, not sure what it is you're characterising as bigotry.

Are you saying there are no such people? The evidence appears to be otherwise.

Or are you saying that such people are not a problem? In which case, what was the point of the question "How can we get on better?"?

Peanut:

I invite you to copy and paste the content of this post, also, and append something you've copied and pasted from your last post.

Do not, please, under any circumstances, add any further useful information or give any actual thought to these actions. Just copy, paste, and press "Post Message".

Are we having fun yet?

I didn't cutnpaste your post Hoo

I didn't think that I would have to dissect particulary why I thought it was intolerant and quite vile, it was kind of evident throughout I thought and just had to say something out loud

You don't need me to explain to you where I am coming from, you understand perfectly well how that sort of post is going to sit

It has been brought to our attention that this thread has the potential to break the House Rules in a number of ways. If the tone does not change, we will be given no option other than to close the thread, either temporarily or permanently.

Thank you, Community Editors.

*tones down*

but please can we let the yikesed post stand, so we know what set the tone for the subsequent posts

I wouldn't like the wider context to go unnoticed either, in which there were other parallel discussions going on about h2g2 being a welcoming place for alls

and the OP grated from the off

in terms of Ask and 'familiar patterns of behaviour', guess they are on display here, not excluding myself from that