Is my best friend racist?

[Newnamefortouchysubject]

Visited my best friend today for lunch and had a conversation that has left me confused, so thought I'd bring it to the MN table.
We were talking about immigration, refugees and asylum seekers.
My friend says the issue is not the colour of people's skin, but rather their culture.
She has no problem with people who wish to settle here when they embrace the UK culture.
Her attitude is that multicultural societies are almost impossible to implement to everyones satisfaction because different cultures have such widely opposing beliefs and values and she believes it is unrealistic to expect to integrate many different cultures and values without considerable conflict between the different cultures.
Furthermore, she believes it is so difficult to integrate different cultures that people of the same ethnicity will inevitably gravitate towards each other and form their own social groups to the exclusion of other ethnic groups, so the whole idea of integration is pointless anyway.
We just end up with lots of different groups of people isolating themselves from other groups who don't share their ethnicity.
She is firmly of the belief that tensions that people describe as racially motivated actually stem from cultural differences, that she knows no one who has any issue with people of different races when they adopt the culture of the country they choose to migrate to, and that the tension is created by ethnic differences and their cultural differences.

I still say this is racism because racism also includes discriminating against people based on their ethnicity. She called me naive if I believe a truly multicultural society is possible when 'you wouldn't even tolerate a friend who has the same ethnicity as you but doesn't share your values so how do you expect to embrace someone's complete different way of life'.
I explained that the way other people choose to live their lives doesn't affect me. She called me naive again at this point and said when people don't have the same values, when they live according to different social rules, it affects people living in their vicinity who don't live like that.

Im not sure whether to raise the subject with her again, or let it lie because she seemed quite adamant and I'm not sure I could make her see this is still racist.

Now I'm wondering if I don't understand what racism is. Maybe I am naive.

Her initial response was ‘No.’. As in no to you saying that British Muslims are contributing every day: building businesses, serving in the NHS, teaching in schools, leading in politics, and enriching arts, culture, and community life.

Depressing, really.

Wow - ‘no.’ Such nuance. Such depth. Debate clearly won!

Depressing, really.

Yes, this. Thank you!!

Exactly - denying the everyday contributions of millions of British Muslims isn’t just wrong, it’s depressingly transparent. If your response to facts is a flat ‘no,’ then maybe you’re not here for discussion - just denial. And honestly, watching that get applause is the clearest argument for multiculturalism I could’ve asked for

Thanks for showing your real colours to everyone. Would be interesting to see how many people call you out on your racist posts.

I still don’t see what we have as the pp does. Typically these threads have pp who say his bad it is here, but no answer on where they think does better.

I think we have many things going for us and shouldn’t undervalue it.

They always start the same way, that it’s only illegal migrants they object to and immigrants who won’t integrate.

But they can’t maintain the façade and it soon transpires they don’t see Muslims as part of society at all.

The Uk does have it's own stories that bring in people from other places and ethnicity. There is the long history in India, or the relationship to the Caribbean countries, parts of Africa. And those links do mean that there are often shared basis in culture and especially legal and political institutions. At this point in time, the British and India have had significant cultural exchange in both countries going back hundreds of years.

New World countries do have a differernt kind of emphasis, for sure, but they are also having their own struggles with multi-culturalism.

No was an error, which is why I edited it. I was going to bring up some examples of where communities might not agree with enrichment part of your argument, but I had second thoughts as I think you’d take it personally and didn’t want to insult you.

You don’t even have the courage to own up to your prejudices.

You confirmed it again in your post to me so I don’t know why you’re denying it. We see through you.

I refer you to my point about shutting down debate by accusing everyone of isms, phobias and ists.

The problem with the melting pot theory is that it's always assumed that new immigrants to western societies will end up adopting the 'superior' liberal culture that they move to.

That's not what we were taught in 1970s... we were taught that both the indigenous and the newcomer cultures change because of each other, neither is superior, but together they find mutually beneficial ways to blend best of both. Both sides have to open-minded about new ways of doing things and range of acceptable ways of how people live, how society operates.

How would you judge the outcome 50 years later?

Appreciate the clarification - but if you genuinely have a point to make, you should make it. I’m not here for personal flattery or shielding from uncomfortable conversations - I’m here for honesty. Just don’t confuse disagreement with taking things personally. If your argument stands on its own, it shouldn’t need to be tiptoed around.

My experience has been that to a very large degree, education is the thing that marks the differernce between those who will integrate well, and those who won't.

It's the same with some of the poor rural Hindus that have come to live in towns near me, they struggle to integrate and have in fact brought some of their own inter-cultural and inter-religious and class conflicts with them, which are playing out in communities and sometimes even in workplaces.

It seems similar with Muslim newcomers, those from more educated families and professions do very well, the poor, not so much.

In a way that shouldn't be a surprise, in India itself there are real problems between the educated urban classes and the poor coming from rural areas.

Stories, yes, which I think more can be made of (where they are positive) but not an origin story. And I think a lot of people forget that while Britain had an empire, the vast majority of people in Britain had no contact with it. Even at its height there were strict limits on the number of people allowed to go to India. It never exceeded 200,000 because there was a belief they too many British immigrants would cause tension and unrest. For immigration to countries to succeed, there needs to be an acknowledgement of the existence of a native population and a willingness to integrate, not live in silos alongside them. That means accepting their origin story, not telling them they have to create a new one.

Fair enough. I think we both know where the conversation goes if I bring up the ‘cultural enrichment’ of some areas of the U.K. so I’ll steer clear if all the same with you.

Yes, I think there is a tendency for some people to not want to acknowledge that the story of the UK, or the countries within the UK, do involve "native" populations. Some seem very uncomfortable with that which is strange as generally they are ok with other nations having that.

But the story of the UK does also involve long periods where new groups became part of the story, to the point where they were no longer "other" I have Celtic, Saxon, and Norman ancestors, but of those the only one people really treat separably are the Celts, and even then most of the time it would just be seen as Scottish or English (in my case.)

So, in the future (by which I mean 500 years or so), I think there is little doubt that some of the groups that have come here may cease to be seen as part of a subgroup at all, they will just be part of the mix of British DNA, and some of their cultural things, like music or food or elements of language, will just be part of British culture.

Long term integration can be radical and positive, but where it is happening now if it's not managed well it can be divisive and even violent (as it has been sometimes in the past.)

I refer you to my point about shutting down debate by accusing everyone of isms, phobias and ists.

I refer you to my point about shutting down debate by accusing everyone of isms, phobias and ists.

Honest question for you: are you a man? I'm finding your total lack of interest in women's rights frankly disturbing.

I am non-caucasian and a second generation immigrant. She is not completely correct as there are ignorant people who hate because of the colour of someone's skin and are barn door racist. Other than that, I agree with many of her points and she doesn't sound racist to me. She sounds switched on.

That’s entirely my way of thinking. People who don’t mind if their children marry a local or become Anglicans or atheists are predisposed to integrate well and we will have shared great great grand children. People who are resistant to that are only really accepted by host populations if they are temporary residents and go home. When they want to create permanent satellite communities that have effectively transplanted their entire way of life to a new country, they are not integrating and this causes tensions. Getting a job and being law abiding is not sufficient to be called integration. It needs to be social and familial.

So people can't put forward sensible points of view without being labelled as racist? YABVU

Honest question, have you read my posts? I have posted about the statistics of misogyny and sexual offences that women face in the UK.

What have you posted in support of women?

And why are you not disturbed by @ThatBoldBear who has openly denied that British Muslims contribute to the UK society? What does that say about you?