To ask how racist you think the UK is?

[HateWarts]

I’ve seen videos on this before, I’m wondering how you feel about it.

I think that among some sets (white working class in poorer areas) it's really fucking racist... horribly so.

White people are not discriminated against

Er, can you not see the hypocrisy in those two statements? You’ve made a huge sweeping and unpleasant statement about white working class people then claimed white people aren’t discriminated against when you’ve just done exactly that.

I think your statement that you don’t have problems because you’re white so nobody else can is also a factually incorrect and discriminative statement. It’s on record, there have been several inquiries and it’s been confirmed multiple times that thousands of working class white girls and their families were denied their legal rights and protections and access to public services for decades because of race. I can’t think of a more fundamental issue of discrimination than state sanctioned discrimination.

And it’s not either equity or equality. UK based BAME students are actually over represented at Universities as a whole, they make up 27% of the student population but are only 18% of the population in that age group. That’s an underrepresentation of 200,000 people. White working class boys are the most underrepresented group at UK Universities which nobody seems overly concerned about and white working class girls aren’t much better.

So as you might expect, the students who aren’t going to Uni have had to find alternative routes which have mainly been apprenticeships. 90% of UK apprenticeships are filled by white people although they make up 82% of the population. This means that white people are over represented in apprenticeships by 68,000, just over a quarter of the number missing from universities watchdog.

The equality watchdog has issued warnings about this and said it needs to change and higher numbers of BAME students recruited. So what will happen to the white students who have to make way for that? They’re underrepresented by 200,000 at university, 68,000 have taken an alternative route, but that has to be lowered to. So that will make about 150,000 white students who will be unlikely to receive any further education and will go straight into low skilled, low paid work with little opportunity for progression. And that is, apparently a good thing. Nobody is looking at the overall figures and pointing out that the higher numbers of white youngsters on apprenticeships is a symptom of underrepresentation in HE and a need for different opportunities. They’re just looking at graphs and saying ‘bad’.

It will be the most disadvantaged white students that this happens to. It won’t be the children of middle class parents being squeezed out. The children of the sort of parents who can say ‘white working class people are horribly racist’ or complain that the diversity in John Lewis adverts is not properly appreciated by the oiks in their ‘ignorance’ which is apparently a natural consequence of whiteness and Englishness.

It’s actually a deliberate policy to reduce opportunities for white people across the board even though those opportunities may sometimes be fair because they’re symptomatic of a lack of opportunities for white youth elsewhere. Those 150,000 students are being deliberately thrown on the scrap heap so white middle class people can feel better about the privileges they maintain for their own kids.

There’s no way it can be dressed up as equity, it’s a deliberate attempt to reduce opportunities for white working class youth by ignoring the fact over representation in apprenticeships is caused by under representation in universities. That’s straight up discrimination.

No. Not anyone can be fascist. You can be prejudiced but not racist. The distinction is important.

Racism is systemic.

If we look at the word, ‘racism’, we see that it is made up of ‘race’ and the suffix ‘-ism’. This suffix is used to denote a systemm_ which, at least in the western world, is a system of white supremacy.

This clearly differentiates racism from prejudice. Anyone can be prejudiced toward anyone else, regardless of their race. People of color can certainly be prejudiced toward white people. However it is not racism because there is no larger system in place which oppresses white people.

I meant racist not fascist. Stupid auto-correct. Sorrry.

If we look at the word, ‘racism’, we see that it is made up of ‘race’ and the suffix ‘-ism’. This suffix is used to denote a systemm_ which, at least in the western world, is a system of white supremacy.

I'm terribly sorry to be so direct but this is pseudoacademic nonsense. The suffix has a much broader use and, even within the context of a 'system', there is no inherent implication of said system needing to be dominant to be valid.

My personal belief is that the whole 'racism = prejudice + power' nonsense stems from a lazy attempt to reconcile the notion of a hierarchy of oppression with the reality that anyone can be prejudiced in ways that includes racism. People can even be racist against their own race.

In essence it's Minorityism vs Majorityism, the colour blind version of racism.

@Gronky that's ok. We can agree to disagree. So you don't believe there is systematic racism versus everyday prejudice?

I've heard racism comments about Pakistani/Indian groups and Polish groups in Scotland. Never about people of African descent or far east.

namechanger0064, I believe any prejudice based on race is racism, just as any prejudice based on sex is sexism.

I have been lucky and experienced very little overt race discrimination. I have Indian origin, born in UK. I was not bullied or treated badly due to race. I was the only none white pupil all through school apart from one year. Maybe that was due to having a disability- my trading was “peg leg” because a leg calliper in first school.

As an adult I’ve had a bit of racism. Also people who don’t use their brain and could definitely appear racist. This morning at a church event we were discussing different days - St Patrick’s, St George’s. One older lady was talking about empire day, saying they just had a half day, danced round a maypole and and sang the national anthem. I asked her what those activities had to do with the empire. She asked me did I not know Britain had an empire. I was shocked and told her I was well aware . She certainly didn’t mean to be racist but it was really odd.

UK based BAME students are actually over represented at Universities as a whole, they make up 27% of the student population but are only 18% of the population in that age group.

Source please.

Source is the BBC:

www.google.co.uk/amp/s/www.bbc.co.uk/news/amp/education-44226434

There’s another bit of interesting data in there as well. Oxbridge have very low BAME numbers and also low numbers of working class students. They take 60% of pupils from private and grammar and 25% from just 8 schools including Eton, Westminster and St Paul’s Girls.

So basically the left kick off at W/C white boys having too many apprenticeships, but when it comes to places that privilege white middle class kids, they suddenly become mute.

Yup, fairly racist. I had to chat to my parents over why golliwogs are racist at the weekend, very strange since they didn't raise my sibling or I to be racist. Not sure if it's an age thing or they taught us to be accepting because that's what they 'should do' back when we were kids.

If we look at the word, ‘racism’, we see that it is made up of ‘race’ and the suffix ‘-ism’. This suffix is used to denote a systemm_ which, at least in the western world, is a system of white supremacy.

That’s nonsense. -ism can cover any ideology but an -ism doesn’t necessarily hold the systems of power.

This clearly differentiates racism from prejudice. Anyone can be prejudiced toward anyone else, regardless of their race. People of color can certainly be prejudiced toward white people. However it is not racism because there is no larger system in place which oppresses white people.

This is not a universally held and generally accepted definition of racism. It was only coined in the 1970s and has become popularised over the last few years because it’s become the go to excuse that people who want to say really racist things about white people use.

It’s used in very much the same way white people used ‘I’m not a racist but..’ or ‘Some of my friends are black but...

Racism is systemic

In a country where there has been a huge amount of legislation passed to protect BAME people from discrimination and protect their rights and massive social pressure on organisations from the dominant ideology for inclusiveness from do you really think that is a fair comment?

And it’s totally untrue that there is not systematic discrimination as whites people. Look at Rotherham. The council, the police, social services, schools the NHS and others were all aware crimes were being committed for decades and they ignored them.

The men involved were breaking the law by having sex with underage girls then pimping them out. The police refused to investigate, arrested parents trying to rescue their daughters. They once found an underage girl, drunk, in bed with a much older man but ignored him and arrested the child for being drunk and disorderly!

They were not being treated equally to others in the eyes of the law because of their race. I can’t think of a more fundamental systemic problem than not having the law applied fairly or access to state services because of race issues.

The example I gave above about apprenticeships is another example of systemic racism. Not enough BAME people were going to Uni so a recruitment drive was launched and now they’re over represented and the numbers of white working class students has dropped. Obviously if the white working classes want to succeed they look for alternative routes and apprenticeships have been that alternative. But despite their underrepresentation in Unis they’re now being told by a government body that more of them should be turned away in favour of BAME applicants.

Basically the upshot of that is that it’s effectively government policy to get more white people to go into low paid, low skilled jobs with no prospects and reduce the number of white people gaining further education just to get the BAME figures they want,

Again, a government body is advocating that? How can that not be systemic?

Very racist. But often defensive about it.

bejam you are making incorrect assumptions about who made the JL comment there.
It was someone working at director level, privately educated to university level and in their 50s.
I haven’t made class assumptions, or said there is no discrimination against white people.

I do think a lot of racism round here stems from ignorance- people simply haven’t met anyone non-white. Ignorance doesn’t apply just to the white WC... see what you did there?

Whats the saying?! not all people that voted for Brexit are racists but lots of people who are racist voted for Brexit.
I really do worry about racism, more so since Brexit I feel its more of an issue than it was 4 years ago.

I think it's a big problem.

I recently moved to a mostly white, generally working class suburb and it's a lot more blatant. I work here too and have notified some very dodgy comments from people who would swear they weren't racist . I have given up making comments because it doesn't make any difference as they arrogantly feel that all white people think like them deep down.

That being said there are a couple of bame people actually working here (small workplace) as opposed to my old city centre job where everyone was woke and right on and white. Not just white but white British, no accents (not even the local working class one). Thst job didn't require any training or anything that would mean it attracted more white people and I did witness more than 1 bame person bring in a cv.

I think the answer to the OP will vary according to your location and ethnicity. I'm white in centralish London so would say from what I've seen there's very little racism. Change my skin colour and I'd likely have a very different answer. Change location as well and it would 100% be drastically different

But don’t you see racism is the magic bullet for the left? The main objective is to keep the larger pool of poorer people poor (otherwise larger numbers of people reaching the middle class will shift right as they gain a greater stake in the economy).

The beauty is by going up to bat for minorities they can virtue signal how they are tackling social inequality, whilst also importing more and more people from abroad to keep a nice constant influx of poorer people. With the double benefit is they get to plain capitalists for availing themselves of cheaper labour and if that cheap labour gets upset they are accused of racism, and thus are safely ignored.

Note how the “white van man” is a pejorative stereotype. Personally I’d prefer it if the left went back to addressing traditional economic based inequalities and trying to work on providing opportunities for social mobility for the many and not just the few.

Funnily enough the very racism people are talking about is fuelled by economic factors so if you really want to reduce racism you want to increase economic output and general wealth all round.

crowfrombelow, I don’t know why you think that’s relevant. The other poster, BlackPrism, mentioned the white working class and I only referred to w/w/c in response to her. I included the quote so it was quite clearly addressed that her, so I don’t know why you’ve just jumped to the conclusion that I brought the w/w/c up because I assumed anybody ignorant must be working class.

I said in response to you that you were complaining about oiks not appreciating the JL ad diversity. Oik means someone rude, ignorant and obnoxious, which you made it perfectly clear this was exactly your opinion of the people you referred to. Nor did I say you didn’t believe white people were discriminated against, that was a completely different poster again, so I’m a bit

As for your claim that people in East Sussex have never met anyone who wasn’t white, oh give over. 9%, almost one in 10 people in East Sussex describe themselves as non-black British and a further 7.7% don’t have British nationality at all and many of them won’t be white either. It’s almost impossible for anyone living there not to have ever met a black person.

Of course white working class people face discrimination in this country. But its disingenuous to call it racism. It's not. BAME working class people face double the discrimination. This is clearly seen in west Indian and south Asian communities.

In cases like rotherham the people in power were afraid of looking racist but weren't afraid of discriminating against kids in care as this was more socially acceptable. This is true, but it's not 'white racism' or 'reverse racism' at all. It's was all about class.

Plus, where are the investigations into the wives and daughters of the rotherham (etc) men, forced marriage, slavery to in laws etc. Brown women are being let down by law enforcement and social services too.

The op is Asian and states that Asian people can be pretty racist against white people. I'm not going to contradict her because clearly she hears thing that I don't. But racism doesn't effect
white people systemically, it just doesn't.

@Movingtoplanetclanger I think a lot of white people suffer a lot of internalised racism. I think the bigger problem lies in white people’s attitudes towards themselves. And god I object even using the term white peoples as it’s both exclusionary and othering of non-whites. We are all ultimately just people with different cultural backgrounds reacting in similar ways to similar pressures.

derval, that’s a great post. Totally agree with you. Identity politics is just the biggest ever game of divide and conquer ever played, isn’t it?

Labour’s slavish devotion to identity politics has lead to them abandoning the w/c they were founded to represent and become a party of urban, comfortably off ideologues who view ttraditional Labour w/c voters with contempt, as ‘gammon’ and too stupid and ignorant to be trusted with political participation.

Who benefits from that? The working class being abandoned, unrepresented, disenfranchised and their interests ignored? Well the wealthy of course.

Plus the main thrust of identity politics is not looking for what we have in common to bring us together, but obsessing over our differences instead. Different groups with different characteristics are pitted against one another and are encouraged to point fingers and blame other groups of ordinary people for their woes, made to feel they have to compete for resources so we squabble amongst ourselves, distracted, the super wealthy continue to get away with robbing the rest of us.

I agree totally they should go back to addressing economic based inequality rather than continue down this path of identity obsession. If the BAME w/c and the white w/c were to come together, identify that they share many issues and demand action, they would be a force to be reckoned with, but identity politics has made that almost impossible.

That might be true Dervel I know people like Tommy Robinson make me embarrassed to be white sometimes.

Being from the north of England and working class, you do kind of assume people think that you are racist and voted Brexit (for racist reasons) too.

The 'system' is working to keep us all in our place whether due to class or race or creed, or any other factor it's all about the people in charge staying in charge. Part of that is pitting people against one another, making us fight over who gets what of the tiny peice of the pie we have access to, so that we forget who has the 99% of the wealth and power.