to wonder if BAME people care more than others about women’s rights?

[ThinkingaboutLangClegosaurus]

Do BAME people care more about women’s rights?

Today I read about attorney general Suella Braverman opposing the SNP’s plan to
speed up gender self-ID. By allowing anyone to claim to be the other sex, self-ID would of course give every man (trans or not, sex predator or not) access to all women’s services and spaces.

Yesterday, it was the equalities minister Kemi Badenoch stating that all new public
buildings must have single-sex toilets.

Health secretary Sajid Javid has told the NHS to stop replacing words that have a female meaning (such as ‘woman’) with expressions such as ‘person with a uterus’. The NHS and many large organisations have been doing this to avoid offending trans people. But it is baffling to many people, who then risk missing vital health information.

Dame Kelly Holmes supports the Fair Play for Women campaign to stop males competing in women’s sports, despite transactivists’ aggression.

And so many heroic resisters have been fighting legal battles: Allison Bailey, Keira
Bell, Raquel Rosario Sanchez, Shahrar Ali …

And it’s not only the fight to keep women’s single-sex rights. Sajid Javid has also
refused to shut up about grooming gangs, despite being (unfairly) accused of racism.

Those are just the few I can think of on the spur of the moment. I know there are
many more.

Of course there are many other, non-BAME feminists and allies fighting against the
withdrawal of women’s rights and protections. But the percentage who are BAME seems very noticeable.

Any ideas why?

^Well, sorry you didn't like my points but you only have to listen to the constant reference to 'bitches' and 'ho's' in rap music to ascertain that there's a distinct lack of respect for women there. And the disproportionately high number of black guys who abandon their wife and kids doesn't really help paint a picture of respect. Things like female circumcision, forced
/child marriage, honour killings, etc, are also particularly prevalent in the wider BAME community. I mean have you seen the level of harassment women get in India? It's shocking.^

This comment sums up white feminists so beautifully I don't think I could have done a better job had I tried it to satirise it myself.

This is the wonderful thing - because surely a person who holds these views and feels very confident espousing them as debating points in a discussion about BAME women would never think themselves racist at all. Indeed they are probably progressive, have a black neighbour who they always say good morning to, donate to charities, think critically about tory policies and so forth... (some of them even have black husbands and/or half black kids). The people we have to fear aren't the nazi flag waving, banana throwing people who use the n-word as a matter of course. No - it's the people who will post 'BLM' on their twitter feeds yet still wonder why the government aren't doing more about those 'islamics' and all those dead-beat black fathers. I love it.

In fact, I'd say that the further we get from western influence the closer we get to barbaric practices.

I forgot this part. The whole post was just so perfect I couldn't pick my favourite. These are the daughters of the witches you couldn't burn. These are the Amy Cooper's of our time.

Whatever. You don't know anything about my ethnicity or background.

I'm not any less critical of white people than BAME, but I'm a little sick of the double standards tbh. I mean, can you imagine if the thread had suggested that white people care more about women's rights? There'd be an uproar.

The real problem is people who claim to fight prejudice but are every bit as prejudiced as the people they decry. If anything they're even worse as we're not just talking about ignorance or outdated beliefs learned as a child. We're talking about well educated, intelligent people who've managed to rationalise that it's perfectly OK to be a bigot to a certain demographic because 'reasons' .

It's socially acceptable to bash men and white people nowadays but it always changes. Previously it was the Irish, BAME people, etc. In a 100 years it'll be another group. The problem IMO is when you start putting people in boxes and using class analysis to inform your actions on a personal level. Using the actions of other members of a demographic to guide how you treat entirely unrelated individuals that share certain characteristics (sins of the fathers etc).

In fact, I'd say that the further we get from western influence the closer we get to barbaric practices.

Fucking wow. You'd better get back to the gentle and civilised practice of colonisation and teach the world how to be less barbaric.

Whatever. You don't know anything about my ethnicity or background.

I would love it now if you said something like 'W€lL AcTYeWaLLy My HuZbAnd iZ bLaCk & I'm a QuArTa 1nDIan and a QuArTa Bl@CK'

Have you ever stopped to consider why it's 'now' acceptable to despite you calling it "bashing" to discuss inequality and inequity to bring up men and white people? Have you ever picked up a history book?

You make a really good example of something someone once said 'the fight for equity always feels like discrimination to those who've always been privileged.'

Imagine a country in which 3 people all have £100 billion in wealth and everyone else has a tin of beans and 4 pence. You'd be the type to champion the fact that the country is in fact one of the richest on earth.

With regard this -

And the disproportionately high number of black guys who abandon their wife and kids doesn't really help paint a picture of respect.

Let's assume for a minute it's true. Another thing I heard on radio 4 is that this is a legacy of slavery. During the African slave trade, slave owners would basically 'breed' children from slaves (please excuse the awful language) the mother/father/child relationship was smashed to pieces. This went on for generations and became an ingrained pattern of men having little involvement or responsibility for any children. Apparently this pattern is not so prevalent in Africa and is much more pronounced within communities that descend from victims of slavery.

I say all this without actually checking the numbers though and am just repeating what I've heard.

At the risk of attack from VladmirsPoutine I don't disagree with the comments about misogyny in rap or in India. I have a friend (not British or white) who lived in India for five years and who talked about how terrible her time was there married to an Indian man. She was beaten regularly by her husband, and his mother, went to the police who called her husband to collect her and told him to keep his wife under better control!

@VladmirsPoutine

Can you please not do stuff like this -

I would love it now if you said something like 'W€lL AcTYeWaLLy My HuZbAnd iZ bLaCk & I'm a QuArTa 1nDIan and a QuArTa Bl@CK'

I want to listen to you and stuff like that is just distracting.

It doesn't make the point untrue though. How many women posting here would prefer to exchange their legal and social situation as a member of a western democracy with the legal and social status of a woman in some other place?

There are qualifications we could make around particular places but do you really think many women would make that exchange, and move to say, China, the UAE, India, maybe even a place like Japan? And if not, what's that about, if there are really no significant cultural differences?

No, it isn't the legacy of the slave trade. There were actually more intact families when slavery was still legal in the US than there are now among black families in the US, and after slavery the proportion rose significantly. Up until the 1960s it was generally fairly close to while families and was much higher than it is now. It was only in the 60s that the number of intact families dropped like a stone, they did in the white community as well but not to the same degree. But the black community went from most kids being raised in two parent homes in the 50s to most being raised by single mums by, iirc, 1970.

There was an interesting discussion I heard on a podcast (think it was Coleman Hughes') which was examining the claim that it was increased welfare payments that broke up black families in the US - that there was a government policy of encouraging single parent (mother) families precisely for this reason. I think this is a claim made by Thomas Sowell, who is very interesting indeed on economics and black history in the states.

I think it's fair to say that western culture has done better than most others so far in bringing about fairness, justice and equality for women and minorities.

Imagine a country in which 3 people all have £100 billion in wealth and everyone else has a tin of beans and 4 pence. You'd be the type to champion the fact that the country is in fact one of the richest on earth.

Well, yeah, I agree with this. When women (usually white and mc) start talking about male CEOs I'm always sceptical about this as a barometer of men's privilege - I mean, what % of men are even CEO? But that's class analysis for you. It doesn't look at the breakdown of the group.

I've heard all the soundbites before about privilege but at the end of the day the colour of someone's skin is the last thing I want to focus on when meeting and assessing an individual.

Some demographics still absolutely benefit from the atrocities committed by their forebears but I'm still pretty hmmm about inherited culpability. For instance, I hear so many women say they don't care about male issues because 'they've reigned supreme for so long'. But the individuals we're talking about today aren't the same individuals from the history books.

I don't think all this woke stuff, cancelling, blaming, etc, actually helps anyone. I'm also not convinced it even comes from good intentions for the most part. People don't speak like this in real life and most of this shit would die overnight if the internet spontaneously collapsed. The people who give their time to help others in real life would still be doing that, but for the most part these aren't the same people calling out everyone on twitter and trying for a podium in the oppression olympics.

I think this might be more to do with cultural ideas around homosexuality and transgender men/women. There is a lot of discrimination still ongoing in many parts of Asia and Africa. Homosexuality is still illegal where I'm originally from (although the police do not enforce it thankfully and people are allowed to live as they wish).

You make it sound like a deliberate policy, why would that happen though?

I think it's fair to say that western culture has done better than most others so far in bringing about fairness, justice and equality for women and minorities.

@beastlyslumber I agree! The slave trade and colonisation was really just about 'helping' out those ethnics who'd have otherwise been lost without the west. The white slave owners who raped their slaves and the white women who used their black female slaves as 'nursing maids' were merely just teaching theory in a practical way. I'm from a place where tea is actually grown but oddly enough it's not Yorkshire. I've been to Yorkshire and haven't seen a tea plantation ever. What I have seen though are my parents fighting for reparations for their grandparents' stolen land which some white guy once thought looked pretty good. Thank goodness for the west. My ancestors would have been lost without them setting fire to their land then chaining them up to make them slaves.

@Kendodd You're right about that but seeing how ingrained these mindsets are always annoys me especially when I made a deal with myself to never talk to white people about race again as it's akin to banging your head against a wall and then wondering why your head is bleeding. But you are right - that kinda rhetoric doesn't help when there are some out there who would be willing to listen.

FWIW, the worst racism by far that I've heard in recent years has been from my Sikh workmates towards Pakistanis (I work for a Sikh company) and also from the Muslim guy I used to meet up to spar with when I kickboxed (always slating Indians).

I also have a Thai acquaintance who I've known for years and know a Latvian women who straight up say they don't like Indians or black people. The former also hates the Chinese and always says she wishes she could ban them from her restaurant because they're stingy.

This idea of white people being more racist than other ethnicities just isn't true IME. Although I also believe that in our society people are very aware of what they can and can't say, and I've no doubt that many people would air pretty bigoted opinions in the right company.

You say 'the slave trade' Vlad as if there was only one! Obviously the Atlantic Slave Trade was a horrible abomination. But in the west, we abolished the slave trade and eventually made racism illegal, too. There are countries in the world which still now have flourishing slave trades, I'm sad to say. I'm proud to live in a country where slavery has been abolished.

That was the impression I got from the discussion, but I can't remember the specifics of what was said. If I remember who Coleman was talking to, I'll find a link for you.

In fact, I was drinking with my Indian colleagues after work the other day and one literally said "I've got nothing against gay people but if my son was a battyman I'd send him to live in India."

Apparently, the number of slaves in the world today is around 4x the number that were enslaved during the entire 300 years of the transatlantic slave period. Why do people seem to care less about that than what happened hundreds of years ago?

This idea of white people being more racist than other ethnicities just isn't true IME. Although I also believe that in our society people are very aware of what they can and can't say, and I've no doubt that many people would air pretty bigoted opinions in the right company.

Maybe some would. But in general I think that racism is repugnant to most people. I've very rarely come across racist views being expressed, especially in the last ten years or so. It was pretty bad when I was growing up, a lot of racist attacks and language. Nowadays, the culture has changed and white people really aren't that racist. I'm fearful, though, that there'll be a backlash from the anti-white sentiment that now seems to acceptable. People don't like being told they're shit because of the colour of their skin and it is only going to encourage division.

Slavery is bigger than ever nowadays and then worst offenders by far seem to be BAME societies. There's only one caucasian country in the top nine and it's debateable if it's even a Western one (Russia). Thats probably why a lot of people would rather focus on the past.

The Global Slavery Index (2018) estimated that roughly 40.3 million individuals are currently caught in modern slavery, with 71% of those being female, and 1 in 4 being children.[123][124] As of 2018, the countries with the most slaves were: India (8 million),[125] China (3.86 million), Pakistan (3.19 million), North Korea (2.64 million), Nigeria (1.39 million), Indonesia (1.22 million), Democratic Republic of the Congo (1 million), Russia (794,000) and the Philippines (784,000).[126]

en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Slavery_in_the_21st_century#:~:text=free%20the%20unseen.-,Statistics,1%20in%204%20being%20children.

Yes, there does seem to be quite a surge in the alt right etc in recent years. But then I also wonder whether it's just the internet allowing the angriest voices to be heard, same as with all the cancel culture brigade etc.

@MangyInseam @beastlyslumber or as Boris Johnson (the greatest feminist of all) puts it "The problem is not that we were once in charge, but that we are not in charge any more.”

India? Really? The country Britain has shat on again and again? Oh yeah, why aren't they more genteel like us? I guess it's barbaric to us to kill a newborn baby. Over there though they do it because they have no access to abortion and don't want the baby girl to grow up to be raped and starving like them. Why are they poor and have no health are, nothing to do with Britain I'm sure.

China is under communist dictatorship. I mean, I don't think anyone is choosing to emigrate there of their own free will. Is communism an inherent barbaric trait of the Chinese or have they got themselves a fucked up government that they can't get rid of? The west fucked them over too.

Japan? I know plenty of women that have chosen to live and prefer to be in Japan?

I don't get how you saw and acknowledged colonialism then brushed it off like it's nothing It doesn't make the point untrue though. This country and Europe has fucked so many countries it's impossible to say what they would be like without it, what Europe would be like without it. There could never be a level playing field, ever. Europe broke hundreds of backs that they stood on and now sit at the top of the wall wondering why nobody else can climb up.

Is burning women alive barbaric? Is enslaving people barbaric? Is letting poor people starve and live in slums barbaric? Is spiking a woman's tongue because she talked too much barbaric? Europe did all that, then they won the world and got bored. Let all the other countries catch up and see how barbaric they are. Before colonialism made you rich you were a bunch of savage women hating misogynists too.

UAE is still new money, check back in a few hundred years. Britain fucked them too 👍