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.

There’s no ‘good’ or ‘faith’ in any of your posts.

There’s no ‘good’ or ‘faith’ in any of your posts.

Au contraire. My posts contain reasoned points and statistics. Yours are just snide insults.

You don't understand at all the nuance of my post either of you. Intelligence is something that has passed you by - a reference to Blackadder.

😂 Sorry I didn’t read your message 🤷‍♀️ Just saw FT keywords.

If there’s no one else who will listen and take action to protect our society, then some will, perhaps holding their noses as they do so, in the same way many in the US voted for Trump after millions flooded over the southern border.

Nope. It won't happen. Stop referencing a misogynistic and sexually abusive POTUS. Or perhaps you like that about Trump?

Stop referencing a misogynistic and sexually abusive POTUS. Or perhaps you like that about Trump?

Implying that another poster is pro sexual abuse is a bit much. I'm sure there are no personal attack rules.

If you've never given this issue any thought until today, I'm afraid you are a simpleton. And people like you are the reason this country is in such grave decline.

What is there to like about Trump? Given that you agree he's misogynistic and sexist.

A country in such grave decline that to quote a previous poster "Half the population of the world wants to come here". That's roughly 4.5 BILLION people. Is that poster a 'simpleton'?

I'm on your side. People can live together whatever their races or cultures. This happens a lot. Unfortunately, race or ethnicity are often used as triggers to divide people. When there are tensions it is usually based on the economy.

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.

Does the UK have one culture? Is it working class, middle class, or upper class?
How can we equate class with race/ethnicity?

You are so desperate to have an argument with someone, are you not married?

Come on, surely you can see that the two aren’t mutually exclusive… A country can simultaneously be in decline and still much better than other countries….

In the same way I can put the brakes on my car on the motorway, but still be faster (for a while at least) than cars travelling on a farmyard track.

Indeed, I think Trump is a narcissist sociopath. I strongly dislike the man…

And yet, simply because I suggested that a failure to allow people to voice cultural concerns, let alone address them, may push otherwise moderate people to the likes of Trump, you haven’t simply assumed I’m a Trump supporter, but presumed I was someone who is so sick that I support him because he is a sexual abuser!

There are many people who voted Trump who disliked the man hugely - hated even - but did so nonetheless because they felt the overriding concern was to choose a man who actually seemed to listen and be committed to do something about their grave concerns about the direction they felt the country was heading…

However bad the man, at least they felt he would make the country great again, and they felt that was the most important thing.

You will doubtless disagree with their analysis, but it doesn’t change the fact that this was their logic… Your “completely agree with us or be damned” attitude risks the same kind of thing happening here.

I'm not sure I'd call that racist. It may sit uncomfortably with you if you have a different opinion, but it sounds like a point of view to which she's entitled.

I agree with your friend. This isn’t racism.

The “Left”s ideological rigidity when it comes to insisting that you either toe the line and accept with question that multi-culturalism is good, otherwise you are a “racist” - and there’s nothing worse or more ostracing to them than being a racist - is one of the reasons why they are losing the political battle to the “Right” at the moment, who, whilst it was its own issues, is at least in tune with the majority, and doesn’t seek to “cancel” them for political heresy if they dare to question particular views.

@GoodPudding over the last few years, any deviation from CorrectThink has lead to various namecalling - Terf, selfish granny killer, racist, bigot, islamphobe etc. It's massively lost it's impact, especially now when there's such disquiet at the numbers. I don't think they realise the shift that's taking place.

And one actually gets attacked for just pointing it out fairly neutrally. I mean, I saw migration as a positive, and channel crossings as a non-issue, until relatively recently. But you'd have to be blind not to realise that the sheer numbers of legal migrants are not compatible with integration, and will lead to social changes not necessarily welcomed (and yes I know they peaked under Boris Johnson - so much for HIS red wall popularity!); and you'd have to be blind and deaf not to see the social tensions caused by the migrants in the hotels, after case after case of sexual assault and even murder.

Calling people racists at this point just feels like gaslighting.

Which bit was snide? Bet you can’t post even one example. Nice attempt to gang up on me with your chum though 👍

"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."

The problem with this is that there are more differences between us from similar or the same cultural backgrounds than there are between cultures.

So, does your friend have issues with very religious Christians? I would argue that most of the UK aren't devout Christians. Does she feel that those integrating into the UK should be forbidden to become eg. Jehovah's Witnesses? That the rest of Western Europe should only be allowed to enter the UK if they have passed a test in the ability to form an orderly queue? Bet she doesn't. I suspect she's just talking about Muslims. At worst, anyone with a brown skin.

I'm sorry, I wouldn't be friends with this person. I'm a bit shocked at the normalisation of this type of rhetoric on MN.

That’s been the case for a while but there’s now needs to be more than the usual attacks.

Why is the narrative that populations should go up always a good one, and why is the chaotic, dangerous, unvetted system of asylum the best we can do? Tear gas on beaches and protests? It’s no where near a good system.

And that’s before you get to the vast profits made from it by trafficking networks.

Really? What a bore you are.

Yawn. Move on and change the bed sheets.

Married twice darling 💋