Miss Dickson Wright - what a nasty vicious racist woman she is!

[vivizone]

Well she fits in very well with the DM ethos.

Disgusting person

www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-2233958/One-Fat-Lady-race-row-Muslim-ghetto-jibe-The-Islamic-area-Leicester-frightened-says-TV-chef.html

[mignonette]

Punkatheart

That is so sad. I grew up in a Latin American country where I was the only blonde with ringlets and blue eyed child in the whole school. I vividly feeling very different but I was never made to feel inferior. I learned the language to the point of forgetting how to speak English properly and loved the food. But I was never made to feel that I should deny my roots and that a public acknowledgement of them would be interpreted as our failure to 'assimilate'.

Is your Mother now more comfortable about her family background? I do hope so.

we have to hope that as dinosaurs like CDW die out, not too many new ones replace them.

[nailak]

^^I won't hold my breath, seems to be plenty of them on this thread

[Frontpaw]

For every CDW there are ten thousand people who don't think anything like her.

Sadly it's the creakiest gate that gets the oil of publicity - like the eedjits we see crying out to turn the UK into a muslim state (there are about three of them in the UK but they are very loud). They are who the likes of the DM hold up as 'representative' - sheesh!

I think things have got nastier because of the wars in the ME and recession/pissed-offness of people in general.

Regarding integration, its a toughy - if I lived abroad, I would do so because I really wanted to go, luckily not because I was persecuted, disposessed or had to build a new life. I would want to learn the language, eat the food (well, maybe not if I lived in Japan, as real Japanese food is... challenging) but I'd look pretty stupid turning up to a formal event in a kimono (tall with red hair, hmmmm). If I did things in my own way I'd not be rejecting my new home but I couldn't possibly agree with everything they do (think Spain and bullfighting - don't think they do this anymore - and the bull runs which are pretty cruel). That wouldn't make me against everything though. Taking nationality is another question mark - not so tough if you were an EU citizen with a UK passport, but if you lived in the US, its another matter I suppose.

I have met some people born in the UK who spoke very little English (Bangladeshi women in East London). I think thats a bit sad - how can you vote, work, speak to the milkman or postman, go to the doctor or hospital by yourself/with your kids, take your kids to school or to the cinema to watch the latest films if you can't communicate fully? Theres a scheme near us for women to learn English set up by a woman in her 50s who came to the UK as a teenage bride but only learned English when she realised that her teenage daughters were drifting away from her due to lack of communication. I am crap at learning languages, so in no way judge anyone who does not learn (am in awe of anyone bilingual anyway, ie most of my family - I'm the thicko!)

In the UK we don't make people integrate (not sure what that would look like?). Maybe that's because we have a long history of refugees coming to our shores - now that's something we should be bloody proud of.

[gordyslovesheep]

She is right. There are "no go" areas that have turned into ghettos where white people are made to feel uncomfortable. I have been racially abused and intimidated whilst walking in a certain part of East London as a single white female on my own.

kind of the experience for BEM people in 90% of the white dominated UK then

[Frontpaw]

What's BEM? My friend used to get a lot of abuse when she lived in Sarf London - Brixton (very pale white skin, red hair, lesbian - take your pick).

[gordyslovesheep]

Black and ethnic minority

[Punkatheart]

I straddle two worlds...I am paleish but with a darker mother and an even darker uncle...we are all shades. So I get to experience worlds of many colours. I'm afraid my mother still hates being foreign, Mignonette...she wants to be invisible.

I have lived in Brixton many many years ago and I used to be called 'donkey' which I believe is a half-caste insult. Or I just look like a donkey, I'm not sure!