To be staggered that >95% of the population of Wales is White?

[ColeHawlings]

Or, I should say, that it was at the time of the 2011 census (almost 94% White British and Irish combined).

I had absolutely no idea that it was so high.

I vaguely thought that, like Liverpool, parts of Wales had been at the vanguard of multiculturalism, for seafaring reasons.

Am I just thinking too much of Cardiff?

Threads like this remind me of when me and DH went to a beach in rural sussex ages ago when we first started dating. On a long busy beach has was amazed he was the only non-white person there.

I really want to live in the countryside but DH is not as keen

I was born and brought up in a particularly multicultural London borough. I'm moving to Hertfordshire in 2016 and suspect it will be a bit of a culture shock to me. I know the rest of the UK is less diverse than where I am now, but knowing something and living it are two very different things.

social sciences level 1?

I am sure you are op seeing as the media would have us believe we're being over run by the brown people and immergarnts

The UK BME population is only 12 % of the UK as a whole so step outside on london ,Manchester ,luton,birmingham you will hardly see a black face

Just those four places 99? Are you quite sure?

Leeds, Rotherham, Bradford,Wakfield - up here. But these are large cities with a history of immigration.

Go to North Yorkshire - Harrogate and York - it's a different world.

Bran I'm ashamed to tell you what either my BA or MA subjects were

But, as I say, it isn't county-specific stats that surprise me (and I'm reasonably familiar with the national and London stats) it is specifically the whole-of-Wales figure that startled me a bit.

It's a fact that rascim is more prevalent the less diversity their is

Their has Been lots of study's done this is fear of the unknow I guesss

I don't think we can assume that there is more racism in Wales than in England, can we 99?

It's a fact that rascim is more prevalent the less diversity their is

Which means people don't move there - and the cycle continues.

I worked in a small village school. Very white. We organised a trip to a Mosque. Some parents complained because it was "mixing with coloured people"

cole

As above - if you were the only "insert appropriate characteristic" in the village, you are more likely to be a target for racism. If there were lots of people like you, it's safer.

That's why you get gay areas in cities - safe places because there's safety in numbers.

Does it matter?
My cousin is mixed race but she's really dark. She was the only black girl in her whole school and she thought she stuck out like a sore thumb.
She puts her ethnicity as white on forms. I think it did affect her growing up being the only black person.
Now she has moved to a more diverse area to fit in

That could be attributable to people feeling safer to EXPRESS racism when there is 'safety in numbers' maybe? It doesn't mean that 'whiter' areas are necessarily more racist, (or 'have more racism').

(That was toOrlando)

Does it matter? In what sense matter? It doesn't matter to me. It's faintly interesting, though.

You can't really tell - unless you are the person experiencing racism.

You are not going to get many racist attacks in a place which is mainly white. As there are few people to attack.

Why do you think the situation is as it is?

You are just hilarious, butterfly

The village I grew up in was shockingly racist, I can't think of a single non-white family living there, either. The area around was similar.

Living now in North East Wales, and it's a lot more diverse.

I suspect Orlando that the decline of industry coinciding with the boom in immigration explains it to a large extent. Other economic factors. Some cultural factors. But that's top-of-the-head stuff.

Pure demographics would be a fascinating thing to study.

I'd better drop it and get on with some work or i'll lose another two hours to reading about Welsh economic history

That doesn't surpise me. At my children's primary school ( state school 180 pupils) there were no pupils that were not of white british ethnicity.

Of their secondary school ( 1200 pupils) there are only two who are not white british- both of Asian dcecent. There are no pupils of afro-carribean decent at the school.

Donatellalymanmoss

A nurse I worked with started dating a guy from NI. When she went to meet his parents she said people stopped in the street to stare at her because she has brown skin.

My brother lives in Cornwall, I live in Wolverhampton, the two are very different, when I visited I used to feel, something I couldn't quite put my finger on, something odd, then I realised it's because I'm so unused to seeing a population that is so white.

At one stage I had two part time jobs, one teaching 20 miles south and the other 20 miles north, and the difference in diversity between the two groups was startling.

If they had not been temporary jobs I think would have been interesting to arrange exchange trips between the two.

OrlandoWoolf that is shocking! When did that happen?

As I said in my last post I was born in and live in a v. multicultural London borough. My eyes were really opened to racism when I met my dp who grew up in a not so diverse part of the land.

The first time I met his family they opnely made jokes that I'm sure they wouldn't make in front of a black person. I'd never heard anything like It. In the early days of our relationship I had a bad encounter with someone on the train and when he told his dad the first thing his dad said was 'it was a black person?' It wasn't actually but he had immediately assumed that. I've never warmed to his parents and that's a big part of why.

sassh

Chapeltown in Leeds and Alwoodley in Leeds. A massive contrast. Yet about 5 miles apart.

butterfly2015 - that comment about sheep is a great example of how racisim isn't just comments about people with a different coloured skin.

I grew up in South Wales - I didn't encounter a black person until I was about 14. I remember my grandfather pointing a black man out to me across the street because I'd never seen one. That was in the 70s. It's not that different now.

Some of my relatives live in a very white village. They have had problems with racism. I wouldn't live there.

It's a fact that rascim is more prevalent the less diversity their is

I agree to an extent, but think racism takes different forms.

Living in Scotland (where 96% of the population is white, compared to 85% in England) is like stepping back 20-odd years in terms of language and attitudes. It sort of manifests itself in outdated language like Chinaman or coloured or racist jokes. rather than people expressing deeply felt, entrenched attitudes, or at its mildest an uncertainty about saying or doing the right thing in front of non-white people or considering it 'impolite' to mention someone's colour.

But what I haven't seen is the visceral hatred and overt prejudice actively targeting minorities that I saw amongst a minority of people when I used to live in Leeds. In general people were more clued up and more comfortable around people of a non-white background, but what racism there was was uglier in character.

I realise this is totally anecdotal!