To what extent would you say the UK is a racist country?

[VladmirsPoutine]

Bear with me on this. This thread is a culmination of some of the other threads I've been on and don't wish to derail. But thinking about for example ChildQ and the extent to which what happened to her was racially motivated, considering say the treatment of MM in the press which had a private school girl ostensibly painted as being 'straigh outta the hood'. I know that the UK is highlighted as one of the most racially tolerant places in the world, if not Europe. But just on the face of it I wonder, do you think the UK has a 'race problem'?

What you can do is try to cultivate, to some extent, an environment where that's just seen as another standard human difference

Which is literally what I said.

I think that the UK is far less racist today than it was 20 years ago, and I also think that it is far less racist than other European countries.

Of course racism still exists to an extent, but it's not always easy to see unless you are affected.

I dated a black man a few years ago and was shocked by some of the overt racism that he had to deal with. Before then, I just hadn't realised that that level of racism still existed.

I think one of the more surprising elements are the white people of whom make up the majority who are they themselves not racist and wouldn't ever conceive of being as such but who also don't see the every day racism that happens all around us.

[quote ldontWanna]@MangyInseam what more context do you need?

But the statistics were published in the context of child Q's case review. People kept saying we can't be sure this wouldn't have happened to a white person/girl. The statistics show that the children strip searched were predominantly non white . Which answers that question, and it was a valid enough argument to be included in the review.

Seriously you read that POC , children , are strip searched more frequently than white children and you ask about context?!? That's your issue with the stats?[/quote]
Well you say that boys were strip searched more often than girls, is that evidence of sexism?

I watched a podcast recently by Glen Loury, and one of the things that he mentioned was that, in the US, the stats on race distribution are often pointed to as evidence of structural racism in the justice system. The problem with that, he said, was that when you look at who commits crimes, in fact is that black men are significantly over-represented. And when you look at disparate results among things like sentencing, it actually does reflect differences in the criminal records.

You could ask all kinds of questions about why this is, and that would be a really good thing to do. Crunching the numbers, which is something GL is good at being an economist, suggests that to some extent it reflects poverty. But that does not really fit with the idea that police and judges are acting in a racist way, which is the claim.

It's similar if you at, where I live, stats on kids being expelled from school. Some groups are over-represented and it's been suggested that they are being given harsher penalties for the same problems, but when you dig into the stats, that doesn't seem to be the case.

Similarly with the statistics you posted. Yes, clearly there is a disparity, but why? What is the group they are drawing from? What is the racial and ethnic make up of the schools? Is there a difference in the racial profile of offenders? They are searching for drugs in those stats, is there a racial element in control or distribution of the drug trade?

None of those things may be the case, but those numbers don't tell us that and they are entirely possible scenarios. And frankly a lot of these kinds of reviews now don't make the effort to dig into questions like that, so I'm not willing to take it as read that they did.

@WeDontTalkAboutBrunoNoNoNo

What you can do is try to cultivate, to some extent, an environment where that's just seen as another standard human difference

Which is literally what I said.

It's also pretty clearly what the poster you were climbing aboard was saying.

@VladmirsPoutine

I think one of the more surprising elements are the white people of whom make up the majority who are they themselves not racist and wouldn't ever conceive of being as such but who also don't see the every day racism that happens all around us.

It's not that surprising really. They are unable (and some unwilling) to see it, because they have no other point of reference. To them microagressions and covert racism are just "making conversation/small talk" , "banter", "paying a compliment " and whatever else because that's the only context they have encountered it. If someone asked THEM that it wouldn't be racism and they wouldn't see it as such. Hence the mental gymnastics you've seen on so many many threads, including some where racism was blatant. I recognise your user name from various such threads (and the weariness some of them caused).

@MangyInseam yeah sure. Whatever you say..
I'm too tired today.
The context is wrong.
The stats are wrong.
The review is wrong.
Nothing to see here, it's all a big conspiracy/coincidence.

Happy now?

Yes, the UK is a racist country. This can be overt or covert. But, as noted upthread, Brits are NOT alone in their racism. I do feel things have improved compared to previous decades. There is more diversity and far more mixed-ethnicity families.:)
I do feel that white folks can experience racism or prejudice (for instance, certain parts of Africa. Not to mention xenophobia.

As a child of the 80s/90s, I was called 'pki,' 'n' half-caste, darky, coloured. We had excrement put through our door and windows broken.
Now I receive far less blatant racism--I get asked a lot 'where I'm from?' even though I have a very clear British accent. I've been told to 'fuck off back to my own country' and been mocked with an Indian accent.

But none of this is as bad as the experiences of the black guy I dated a few years ago: he was spat at, he was verbally abused, he was assaulted, he was stopped multiple times by police when driving.

The UK has come far but there is a long way to go.

Just to addI detest using the term 'race'-there is only one race. There are multiple and diverse ethnicities. I also dislike the terms BAME (talk about lump a diverse bunch of folks into one box!!!) and PoC (what colour would that berainbow??!!)

Just my two cents!!

The racial makeup of that area is diverse, but the strip search stats don’t correlate. I haven’t got the figures to hand but I think it is maybe 40 odd percentage white British population in that area. (Though the stats are out of date as they are from an old census)

And a very high proportion of the searches produced no evidence/no further action taken.

While annoying and also a little crazy if you think about it, this is very much the result of being told that anyone white needs to not have an opinion and ask "PoC" what they think about any and all issues that pertain to race and ethnicity.*

Or is it because for centuries, POC have always been seen as monolithic before such discussions were even had. A massive chunk of European and British history is mass genocide and enslavement of natives for the sake of land and resources. That also includes putting POC in zoos, experimenting on their bodies (with and without their knowledge/consent), and assuming ridiculous things because POC look just a bit different from them.

@VladmirsPoutine

I think one of the more surprising elements are the white people of whom make up the majority who are they themselves not racist and wouldn't ever conceive of being as such but who also don't see the every day racism that happens all around us.

I don't think it's surprising that people don't see it when they aren't confronted with it. I'm mixed race, and although I was well aware that racism existed, I didn't realise the extent to which it still existed until I dated a black man. This might be partly because I have lived in predominantly white areas.

Also, it's only really over the past few years that I've realised that people who don't know that I'm mixed race, tend to perceive me as white. This is strange to me because I don't perceive myself as white, but it probably explains why I didn't experience the same racism.

According to Google and Wikipedia and a number of peer reviewed surveys.

It's also pretty clearly what the poster you were climbing aboard was saying.

Climbing aboard?

Let's see.

A poster says something that I deem to be a poor choice of words.

I explain why I disagree with the wording based on my lived experience of being on the receiving end.

I very clearly explain the difference between being colour blind and educating children about difference

You come along, decide that I must be wrong. Reiterate the same thing I said but because it's come from you in all your superiority it's far more legitimate than my commentary.

In amongst this, my lived experience as a black woman who was the black child in the hypothetical situation outlined by the PP is completely disregarded.

Seems very familiar....

@VladmirsPoutine

I think one of the more surprising elements are the white people of whom make up the majority who are they themselves not racist and wouldn't ever conceive of being as such but who also don't see the every day racism that happens all around us.

I think you might be underestimating just how white most of the country is outside cities. White people that are hardly ever around other races due to proximity just aren't going to get it, in an ignorant way rather than a racist way in my opinion.

I grew up in Apartheid South Africa and have experienced more racism in my 12 years here than I ever had before. It's mostly when I'm on my own. Men have said awful things to me. A lady spat on me. It has calmed down since having my child but there are still occasions. Now I have to have to prepare my mixed race child for what is to come.

@RiverLily

Please tell me you are not in a city here. That’s awful.

X

I'm so sorry you've gone through that RiverLily.

I don't see what living rurally vs in a city has to do with it SenoraMiasma? It's shocking and abhorrent behaviour anywhere.

[quote ldontWanna]@MangyInseam yeah sure. Whatever you say..
I'm too tired today.
The context is wrong.
The stats are wrong.
The review is wrong.
Nothing to see here, it's all a big conspiracy/coincidence.

Happy now?[/quote]
If you are too lazy to dig into the context around statistics, it's no use looking at them. That's just how statistics work. Telling people they are idiots or bigots for asking the question that anyone who works with data would ask is not being a good anti-racist, no matter what anyone says. It just makes it look like you are more interested in proving a point than actually understanding the problem.

Those numbers might be perfectly reasonable to use the way you intended, but you can't tell just by looking at what you posted, and you don't seem to have gone any further.

The purpose of looking at numbers like these should be to see where something is going wrong, and do something about it. That won't ever happen if you don't take the time to really understand the information.

@Comefromaway

The racial makeup of that area is diverse, but the strip search stats don’t correlate. I haven’t got the figures to hand but I think it is maybe 40 odd percentage white British population in that area. (Though the stats are out of date as they are from an old census)

And a very high proportion of the searches produced no evidence/no further action taken.

The question though you have to ask is not about population - it's about who is doing whatever it is that they are searching for, which may not be the same proportions as the population.

In this case it seems like most of them are about looking for drugs. So the information you'd want to compare it to is what the racial backgrounds are of the kids in the school involved in drugs. Which might be quite difficult to find I suspect, you would probably have to try and get at it indirectly and sometimes that can mean you can't really get good data at all.

But people actually do I think intuitively understand the principle - no one seems to be saying the searches are sexist because almost all are of boys - people understand implicitly why that might be the case. A disparity does not always come out of direct discrimination.

The element of many not producing any evidence is worth noticing and would be something that I'd think could warrant more investigation, if for no other reason than it seems they aren't very effective at what they are trying to accomplish.

@SenoraMiasma In Oxfordshire

@Riverlily

I am very sorry to hear this. I don’t know what to say as I think most of us thought this was in the past.

Yep I’m white british / Romany and the hate and racism towards gypsies is shocking.

Can I say that although I've lived in a few countries and see the UK as less racist than most, I am really sorry to hear of some of the things people have experienced on this thread. I totally believe everyday racism happens, but of course if you're white you just don't see it so much. It's not necessarily wilful ignorance, although it can be, but mainly I think it's lack of awareness and not experiencing it for yourself. I think as white people we can only be prepared to listen and be supportive, but we just don't experience the same things. I remember when I was dating a black guy and he'd tell me about a racist comment someone had made about us while we were out, or the taxi wouldn't take him home at the end of the night. It was an eye opener - it's not that I wouldn't have believed it could happen, I'd just never experienced it before. When you mix in circles with people who are generally accepting and would never behave like that, it's shocking when you come across it.

...and not meaning to stir things up, but wanted to mention the taxi drivers were Pakistani though, not white.

@ButtockUp

I do think the UK has a long way to go with regards to combating racism.

The media including tv programming and advertising is bending over backwards to be seen as NOT racist. Hence so many adverts depicting a white person with a black person.

Dramas where the main protagonist is black and their partner is white.

Yet many many black couples , Indian couples , south East Asian couples, eastern couples, Arabic couples also exist but the media seems to want to 'blend' white and black.

It's like these household named companies want to 'be seen ' as being not racist when they're only trying to appeal to as many people as possible.
Yet still appeasing white people.

I gather there was a backlash against a supermarket just two years ago which attracted a backlash over featuring a black family at Christmas.

I live in a part of England that supplies huge volumes of soft fruit as well as orchard fruit to the supermarkets.
These farms are completely reliant on Eastern European pickers. Many from Ukraine!
The level of hostility towards them is absolutely shameful.
Interestingly a number of these fruit farms have ceases to trade as the Eastern Europeans feel no longer welcome, thanks to Brexit. Hence fruit crops have been left to rot.
These pickers would spend months in draughty cold tents or substandard caravans just to provide the uk markets with 'locally sourced' fruit/veg.

Yet the white middle class keep espousing the ' locally sourced' mantra, particularly on MN .

As regards the first part I agree totally. The UK as a whole is 83% white, 13% non white and of that 13%, 4% black. Adverts do not reflect this. Ask the average person on the percentages and it is likely to be greatly different to the actuality. I can see why a company will want a black, a white and as few people to pay, so a mixed couple is the ideal solution. Likewise there appears to be a protocol of "black cannot be baddies" which causes angst. Locally a number of Syrians were housed in a nearby island.locald were told by police, council and media "don't even question this decision by the Scottish government or we will prosecute you as racist. As it was the Syrians were generally welcomed by the more affluent retired middle class residents. As for the local working class who were on the doorstep, they were under scrutiny to be good....