Ukranian, welcome! Middleastern, African? Get to back of the bus!

[OldieWordly]

The war in Ukraine is truly horrendous, but so are all the wars happening all around the world. It is happening in Europe, a place this country is geographically and culturally a part of. So we can emphasise more with the Ukranians and hence the outpouring of support.

But it also helps that they are white and look like the majority of this country, and therefore more support is volunteered.

Why do I as a black woman, while feeling great empathy and sorrow, also feel that other asylum seekers also fleeing war and destruction in their home countries, have been relegated to the back of the bus?

Where are the offers of a sponsored home from UK individuals/families and reimbursement of £350 a month? The right to live in the UK for up to 3 years? The right to work, or to immediately access benefits if needed?

Many of you may say, it's not about skin colour, ethnicity etc, it's about humanity. But tell me, why do so many of us black, brown or non white people often have a feeling of being treated subconciously as belonging at the back of the bus? And the welcome given to Ukranian refugees as apposed to those from Syria troubles me greatly.

Once they have picked up the language, Ukrainians would actually be very well suited to living in France come to think of it. There is a common cultural shorthand.

Its ludicrous, but in the last two years most people have become dependent on the media to tell them how to think and feel. Its worked marvellously - also people love to virtue signal now. You can't do anything in private because the giving is not about helping the needy anymore, its about the ego of the giver. So many "I wasn't going to post this but look at how fantastic these donations are" posts they most definitely were ALWAYS going to post about it. Consumers have become their own mini PR agencies to promote the self. Its allll about the self.

To me this all sounds like another excuse for people to be hostile about refugees and racist whilst simultaneously trying pretend that actually its all because they are just so anti racist.

Eastern Europeans have suffered from plenty of racism in the UK. Hostility to more immigration from Eastern Europe was one of the reasons that some people voted for Brexit.

I expect that the most of the people now generously welcoming Ukrainians to their homes are not racist and are very unlikely to have been the same people who were critical of the UK welcoming refugees from Afghanistan and Syria.

This is the biggest refugee crisis in Europe since the second world war. 2.8 million people at last count and the numbers are growing every day.

Putin has been getting away with awful things for years. He is responsible for much of the misery in Syria. He has been escalating and escalating. We aren't able to oppose him directly for fear of nuclear war.

He has now attacked a country where there is an ability and willingness to fight back. The Syrians were trapped in a civil war situation between Assad/Russians and ISIS.

The Ukrainians have already done the rest of us a massive favour by resisting Putin's attack and forcing losses on his army to discourage future aggression. The least the rest of Europe can do is help support them by offering refuge to civilians so that the Russians can't use them as hostages.

Luckily most people have realised this.

@Alexandria12 Yeah exactly, people are glossing over years and years of prejudice against Eastern Europeans in Britain.

[quote pucelleauxblanchesmains]@Alexandria12 Yeah exactly, people are glossing over years and years of prejudice against Eastern Europeans in Britain.[/quote]
By some people. And against a background of austerity and lack of investment in health and education services. People who can't buy a house, get a doctors' appointment or find a school place for their child look for scapegoats.

Had they not been shouted down as racists every time they raised concerns, and had the government listened and provided more investment (and used the laws available to it while we were in the EU to restrict migration) we might not have had Brexit.

Something that's become clear to me is that many people don't know how the refugee system works. They have a vague idea that refugees come, but not much else. And also not how other countries deal with refugees.

So while they may be aware when an immediate crisis happens, like Ukraine or Syria, they are much less aware that there are refugee camps in Africa with people who have lived there for 50 years, with kids who are born there, waiting for their applications to be processed.

They aren't really thinking comparing these groups and deciding one is more desirable than the other from a place of meaningful understanding. They are just responding to what's on the news right now.

By some people. And against a background of austerity and lack of investment in health and education services. People who can't buy a house, get a doctors' appointment or find a school place for their child look for scapegoats.

Had they not been shouted down as racists every time they raised concerns, and had the government listened and provided more investment (and used the laws available to it while we were in the EU to restrict migration) we might not have had Brexit.

People also fail to realize that a lot of the objections to that kind of migration relate to global capitalism. Global capitalism depends on movement of capital, and it is also very much partial to the movement of labour.

That kind of movable workforce has been great for the well off and even middle classes, but typically a lot less so for working class people and especially, the viability of working class communities.

The inability of progressive parties to understand and acknowledge that has a lot to answer for, and their failure to do so is mostly because they are made up of mainly middle and upper middle class urbanites - the people most likely to benefit from the freedom to move around and pick up jobs wherever, and least likely to suffer the downsides of it.

And despite Isreal regularly breaking international law and creating plenty of Palestinian suffering, the western world is happy to call them an ally. Yet when Russia does to white people what Isreal does to Palestinians, the world starts falling over itself to try and make it stop.**

This

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OP, this might be the racism encountered in your life time.....I'm in my 40s and from a white Irish immigrant background - no physical differences at all.
I remember as a young girl seeing signs for 'no blacks, no Irish, no dogs' on local pubs and clubs. My older Irish relatives who moved to the UK in the 1900s and beyond all experienced extreme discrimination and lived in poverty for many years.

Racism aside - Can I make a point about the refugee v economic migrant thing? Its partly because refugee crises happen in stages...

1. Normally in wars there is a massive flow of refugees to Neighbouring countries first. You saw this with Syria where people fled to Turkey/Lebanon, you see it in Africa, You see it in Afghanistan where people fled to Pakistan. Normally (not always) there is some welcome there initially. This first migration consists of lots of families- lots of women and children.
2. In time though, the refuge countries systems, infrastructures etc start to buckle under the pressure - not because refugees = bad but just because there is a huge impact from absorbing that many people. Life becomes very hard for the refugees and there is likely to be increased hostility towards them. Also by then time has passed, they realise they won't be going home anytime soon.
3. Some refugees decide if they are to live at all, they need to move on. This is a riskier journey so is likely to be mainly male - either fathers going on ahead or families sending there sons so at least one person has a better life. It could be seen as economic migration but it isn't really - it is still driven by the desperation of war.

Ukrainians are still at stage 1 - the being absorbed by nearby countries stage. The Syrians etc arriving by Dinghy are at stage 3. It doesn't make them scroungers/less deserving It does raise questions about how the world can manage migrant crises better in the future so that people aren't making incredibly dangerous journeys and paying thousands to criminals. That might well mean putting more money into countries experiencing stage 1 and keeping that support in place longer term. It might also mean taking more families from refugee camps etc to reduce the temptation to take more dangerous routes.

@MangyInseam and yes I agree, speeding up the applications of families in those camps would stop them being stuck in a permanent ghastly limbo.

@namitynamechange this is not a thread about refugees. It is about racism - read the OP

I'd welcome a woman with a child / children seeking refuge wherever they were from. I am going to sign up as we can arrange the house so that they have their own floor with a bathroom and just share kitchen/dining area.

I wouldn't open my home up to an unknown man, I'm a woman with a small child whose partner works away a lot, I wouldn't put myself at risk like that.

If it comes to it and we are asked to also house men, I will happily let them use the kitchen and bathroom in the day and have tents etc in the garden for overnight.

I said this on another thread just now..

If you want to help all refugees from all over the world who are currently based here or in 'camps' in France, I recommend donating to or volunteering for the registered charity Care4Calais.

Care4Calais yesterday interviewed a young Black Sundanese refugee who was in a freezing tent in Calais where he'd been surviving for months with just 1 tin of tomatoes to eat that day & no access to a doctor, who would like to come to the UK, and compared his situation to a White Ukrainian girl who was put up in a hotel by the French on her arrival in Calais with other Ukrainians, and promised a UK Visa asap.

Not saying she's not deserving.. after all she's left a horrific war behind.. but so have the other refugees from eg Afghanistan or Syria.
The difference is she gets a Visa & will travel to the UK by Eurostar.
The 'others' may drown in a dinghy or get crushed by a lorry, may get here if they're lucky then have to go through the Asylum process in Priti Patel's 'Hostile Environment'.

It's easy to look and think the main factor must be skin colour. But.. what else can it be really??

You're not wrong OP. Spot on.

@MarineBlue33 I get that and Im not trying to derail but.... as always these threads descend into people discussing the difference between women and children "real" refugees and mostly male refugees and it bugs me because there are legitimate reasons for the difference. If you actually care about racism why is countering that narrative a problem. Likewise, if you care about the victims of racism (non white refugees) in this case why is talking about practical things that governments/individuals can do to improve things a problem.
(And my grandfather was a "single male" refugee who fled alone as a child. His whole family were killed - basically his mother sacrificed everything to make sure one child survived. Those impossible choices aren't discussed enough when people compare women and children V young men)

@Cerealnamechangerer

I agree . Whether or not there were genuine reasons behind it the demographic was mainly shown as men

Yes. Shown as men. I wonder who might have a vested interest in showing pictures of young men arriving as anti migrant propaganda. I live on the South east coast and i have seen quite a lot of these boats arrive on my daily walks. All of the boats i have seen have at least some women and/or children in. It's heartbreaking to see the parents feel they have no other option but to make a perilous journey halfway across the world and then put their very young children in an inflatable dinghy and sail it across one of the busiest shipping lanes in the world. I sit in my warm safe house and i couldn't possibly judge the lengths someone would go to get to safety. Just because the uk isn't letting them in, doesn't mean they're not genuine refugees.

i would go along and believe this if it wasnt for the fact that they are already in a safe place , they have normally passed through several eu countries to get to france which is where they cross the chanel , it cant be said france is not safe , they could if they are genuine refugees lodge asylum claims there , but they bloody dont , because they are bent on getting to the uk , they do have another option besides risking their childrens lives and their own , if they were unable to stay in france and claim this id have sympathy , but the hard truth is they just want to get to the uk

YABU because the UK is doing fuck all to help Ukrainians. What you are seeing is the EU massively helping them and welcoming them with open arms. The UK is making it very hard for them to come here, they have to have visas and passports and all kinds of paperwork the average poor fleeing refugee doesn't have. Do not confuse what the EU is doing with the UK. The UK's behaviour in this is as appalling as in respect of other refugees.

@ForeverSingle881

YABU because the UK is doing fuck all to help Ukrainians. What you are seeing is the EU massively helping them and welcoming them with open arms. The UK is making it very hard for them to come here, they have to have visas and passports and all kinds of paperwork the average poor fleeing refugee doesn't have. Do not confuse what the EU is doing with the UK. The UK's behaviour in this is as appalling as in respect of other refugees.

^ this - the way the system has been set up makes it clear that the UK government doesn’t want anyone here at all.

@ForeverSingle881 Are EU countries sponsoring Ukrainian refugees to the tune of £10,000 each with local authorities?

I will reserve judgment to see what is actually delivered, because hey, it's Boris Johnson, the man who hides in a fridge. But, on the face of it, it is quite generous. And as OP points out, a whole lot more than refugees escaping chemical bombs in the Middle East got, which was sweet fanny adams.

Those of you trying to make out there isn’t a race issue here are deluded. It is only the non-white who truly understand the subtle and not so subtle undertones. It is fact whether you like it or not that non-white people in Ukraine were turned away and dragged off trains. It is fact that Ukraine has a far-right following, look up Azov who are part of their military and politics. You may be inviting only women and children into your homes as you put it but some of them will arrive with those views and prejudices. The outpouring of sympathy for Ukrainians is so hypocritical, I’ll save my sympathy for those who have been suffering long before and are still suffering in the world thanks to the West.

More recently the refugees and asylum seekers in the UK have not been white European. As of 2020 there where 200,000 here, most of the more recent ones from Syria.
I think many people have been wary of some recent asylum seekers partly because many have come from countries where ISIS and other Islamic fundamentalists have in infiltrated them. We have seen people pertaining to be born again Christians blow themselves up and elderly foster carers aghast at what their foster 'child' had done.
The government do seem to be dragging their feet in the case of the Ukrainian refugees but I suspect our history of poisonings by Russians and what others have done has given them some anxiety.
I'm not sure how many of us would offer to home single men who have been the majority of more recent migrants as apposed to the 100,000 who are offering their homes to Ukrainians today.
I am old enough to remember when there was a sudden mass exodus in the 70s when the Ugandan Asians came, people came together offering homes to house them just as is happening today. We didn't discriminate against them because they were Asian, it didn't come into it.
So I don't think it's true to say we wouldn't act the same if the Ukranians were of another race.

Are EU countries sponsoring Ukrainian refugees to the tune of £10,000 each with local authorities?

My EU country is providing visas on arrival which is the most important thing right now(no need for the complicated process the UK has). Then welcoming them at the airport and providing them with all of the details to access work, benefits, free medical care, education(including grants for University), housing, food, pushchairs, even sim cards. I don't think we have put a monetary cap on it, it is more whatever they need we will help with although u have seen estimates that it will cost 33million euro each year for every 1000 refugees housed which would be 33,000 each.

So yeah, EU countries are being generous.

@RoastedFerret

Are EU countries sponsoring Ukrainian refugees to the tune of £10,000 each with local authorities?

My EU country is providing visas on arrival which is the most important thing right now(no need for the complicated process the UK has). Then welcoming them at the airport and providing them with all of the details to access work, benefits, free medical care, education(including grants for University), housing, food, pushchairs, even sim cards. I don't think we have put a monetary cap on it, it is more whatever they need we will help with although u have seen estimates that it will cost 33million euro each year for every 1000 refugees housed which would be 33,000 each.

So yeah, EU countries are being generous.

This. I love when some people think UK is the most generous, progressive, open-minded and generally THE BEST country in the world, but it's just a facade really.

[quote namitynamechange]@MangyInseam and yes I agree, speeding up the applications of families in those camps would stop them being stuck in a permanent ghastly limbo.[/quote]
It would, but it also isn't simple, even if there was some amazingly efficient process.

There are so so many people.

Some of them may not be who they claim.

Some may not be good people that we want to have come live in our countries, even if they are real refugees. Sometimes a person can be both a perpetrator of war crimes (or any crimes) and someone who is running from war.

Some may not be easy to resettle - health issues, lifestyle issues, they might be elderly, it may be that they will not be able to learn the language.