Racist thread

Correct. And I grew up in a mill town, not a mining town - and as a child we had a tin bath in front of the coal fire....

I know you are trying to be balanced, but you have fallen into the same trap that many of the racists do for different reasons. You are extrapolating from an experience you have never had, applying it in a broad brush. and making asumptions that aren't reflections on real life.

Without being too outing I live in one of those pit villages, although the pit is now gone. Not a million miles down the road a bunch of fascists tried to burn down a hotel with asylum seekers inside it just last year. About 700 people were outside that hotel - some locals yes, but also many "imported" professional fascists.

My village has about 6,000 residents - we have an active support group for asylum seekers who live in our village. We have always had people of different ethnicities in the village - many were miners or miners families. We still have a mix of ethnicities in the village. As asylum seekers get asylum (so far every single applicant has been given asylum) almost every single one of them has decided to settle here in this village because it is a nice place to live where they have British friends and are able to feel safe and settled. We have others who are first and secnd generation immigrants from other countries too - everything from doctors to the local kebab shop.

Do we have bigots and racists, yes, of course we do. It has nothing at all to do with community, or culture, or tradition. It has to do that these people get off on controlling and dominating others, on bullying and on being bigots. If the community was all white, they would still find someone to attack, because they are cowards who can only thrive when they have someone to blame for their own inadequacies. One thing you will quickly find out, however, is that often the village knows them - as in they are extended multi-generational families who have never brought anything positive to the community.

Some smaller communities may have more to learn about their new neighbours than some of the cities, but that doesn't mean they are scared or challenged by change.

And BTW - there are dozens of small former mining communities here and almost every single one of them has a support group for asylum seekers. Miners remember lots of things, and one of the things they remember is how many communities stood with them against injustice. Many think they owe a continued commitment to justice and equality.

I'm forever grateful.

There were also tin baths in the homes (source: me being bathed in one as a child at my miner’s widow gran’s). Go back far enough and there weren’t showers.

I have no skin in the game as I’m a Londoner with immigrant parents and loved growing up in a multicultural environment.

However I do wonder whether some communities feel that their small town or village is changing too quickly and that they are losing a sense of a shared history or culture where everyone had had similar experiences. For example ( and being very Broad brush here) whilst they didn’t actually talk about the fact that most of their fathers or grandfathers worked down the pit and had their backs washed in a tin bath by the fire when they returned home, or the strikes etc, it was a shared experience and that gave them a sense of community and belonging.

I found this to be the case growing up… my Indian friends’ parents had the same need to be with others who had escaped during Partition. They didn’t talk about it all the time; but it was a shared and traumatic experience.

However when people from these small towns and villages in the UK expressed a fear that things were changing too quickly, they were branded racists. I think that this current and distasteful demonising of asylum seekers and pinning crimes on them is because they feel they need to have a “reason” to dislike immigration and that the “true” reason makes them racist.

Effective immigration tends to take a generation. My friends felt “British” ; their parents loved Britain, but many kept yo their own communities.

My fear is that if politicians don’t listen, the resentment will just simmer and eventually boil over.

Why is pointing out the difference between opinion and beliefs patronising?
Because it takes out the veneer of intellectual sophistication and superiority?

The issue is not moderation

The issue is one side never accepting they ever may be wrong even a little (always something else’s fault as you just demonstrated) or that the other side may be right even a little

Why is pointing out the difference between opinion and beliefs patronising?
Because it takes out the veneer of intellectual sophistication and superiority?

The issue is not moderation

The issue is one side never accepting they ever may be wrong even a little (always something else’s fault as you just demonstrated) or that the other side may be right even a little

Your post sort of suggested it was, tbf.
**
“I think the Durham miners would have something to say about it”

What, all of them?

I know there were riots etc in London, but I think the racists were confined to skinheads whom everyone I knew loathed.

There probably was “casual racism “ but we just ignored it and definitely had each others’ backs and were vociferously defensive of each other! ( mouthy) 🤣

Thank you for correcting me. I was labouring under the false impression that the Durham miners were one homogenous mass and now I know better.

Talking about people being patronising followed by a definition of the difference between an opinion and a belief that nobody asked for - good one.

No the reason you can’t have a discussion here is because of inconsistent moderation.

Yes, my DH was saying before his parents moved out of the old mining cottages in the 50s (they were demolished in the 60s)people still used the tin baths. But they had showers at the pits by the early 60s.

There were also tin baths in the homes (source: me being bathed in one as a child at my miner’s widow gran’s). Go back far enough and there weren’t showers.

I know there were riots etc in London, but I think the racists were confined to skinheads whom everyone I knew loathed.

There probably was “casual racism “ but we just ignored it and definitely had each others’ backs and were vociferously defensive of each other! ( mouthy) 🤣

No, MiloMinderbinder925.

Some members of the Durham Miners Association will have something to say about it. There is always a spectrum of political views in any organisation. Presumably, the Association knows its members and their opinions far more deeply than the Reform Johny come latelys, and has taken its stance based on the majority view of its members.

Do you know any ex-miners or miner's children? Because what you are describing just is not the case IME (married to the son of a miner).

People from those communities are often very politically aware, left leaning, and don't fall for the foreign bogeyman shit. The ones that do are racist.

Eta: tin baths made me chuckle. There were things called showers at the pits.

You can’t have a good discussion with people who cannot discuss: they can lecture, they definitely can patronise, they can validate each other in closed setting, but they can’t discuss differing views.

Because they don’t have views, they have beliefs. And an awful lot of them seem to have based their personality and social identity on these beliefs.

What’s the difference between an opinion and a belief? An opinion is experience or facts-led and has the possibility to evolve and change when it appears it doesn’t accurately reflect the truth; it also has room for doubt.

But when you like your opinion so much that you start to dismiss contradicting facts rather than reassess said opinion or have no more room for doubts, that’s when it turns into a belief.

And beliefs don’t debate: they drown in noise, they scream murder, they deflect, they whatabout, they call for censorship, they deny, but they ll never admit they’re after all a subjective opinion like all the others and should actually be led by facts rather than take themselves that seriously, wherever facts take them.

And God knows this has happened to a lot of progressive people. They started with well-meaning ideas and slowly turned them into beliefs through 20y of unchallenged groupthink.

That’s why you can’t really debate with them. They’re not intellectually or morally equipped anymore. They’re the bigots.

Do you know any ex-miners or miner's children? Because what you are describing just is not the case IME (married to the son of a miner).

People from those communities are often very politically aware, left leaning, and don't fall for the foreign bogeyman shit. The ones that do are racist.

Eta: tin baths made me chuckle. There were things called showers at the pits.

I was just pondering whether that might be the real reason.

I’m interested as I felt that immigration was a real success in London in the 1980s and I’m wondering why there is negativity now.