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.

How to say “I’ve lost the argument” without saying “I’ve lost the argument”…

Of course there’s a range of views and perspectives held across the UK, but there are broadly a common set of values, (whether someone is from the upper, middle or working class), that allow us to exist as a coherent society…1) the rule of UK law, 2) the right of women to be independent citizens free from male domination, 3) democracy rather than theocracy, 4) freedom of religion, 5) freedom of expression…

People from many cultures across the world are able to accept these, and assimilate pretty well accordingly. However, this isn’t the case for some Asian cultures which are based on fundamentalist Islam, who don’t subscribe to the five basic principles outlined above.

That’s not to say all Muslims don’t, I personally know some that do and - love him or hate him - Sadiq Khan certainly ascribes to the five values I’ve outlined above.

You can call this Islamophobia is you like, but that’s just trying to stifle and silence the legitimate concern that certain cultures based on Islam are fundamentally incompatible with the UK’s core values. It’s nothing about race, however much some people try to make it so.

@TankFlyBossW4lk

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

That may be true for many cultures across the world that assimilate pretty well into the UK, but unfortunately it isn’t for some Asian cultures based on fundamentalist Islam…. As I outlined in my previous post, these differences are profound, and extend well beyond the relatively superficial differences between people in different classes and sub-cultures within the UK.

I fundamentally disagree with this statement. The majority of Muslims in the UK are perfectly well assimilated.

The othering of Muslims is racist.

There's probably 4 million muslims in the UK now (last data 2021 3.87m) which is almost the population of Scotland - how can you know they are all perfectly well assimilated?

A lot of Muslims are assimilated, but there are substantial numbers that aren’t, and live in communities that don’t hold to the five core values I outlined in a previous post that are the bedrock of our society.

And Islam is a religion that anyone can join… it’s not a race. To say that criticism of Islam is “racist” assumes all Muslims are “brown”, which is itself arguably racist!

A lot of Muslims are assimilated, but there are substantial numbers that aren’t, and live in communities that don’t hold to the five core values I outlined in a previous post that are the bedrock of our society

Yes I'm thinking of areas of Yorkshire as well as parts of Birmingham. Unless people are using a different definition of assimilation than I am.

Let’s implement the Spanish Inquisition as the Reform Inquisition of Muslims and put every Muslim under investigation and trial. Any Muslims that don’t pass muster can be executed in the town square.

// sarcasm off.

Stop holding Muslims to impossible standards. The vast majority of criminals are white, go assimilate them first.

Oh dear. Demographics and statistics aren’t your thing, are they.

I think there are many different interpretation of what assimilation actually means. Which makes the term pretty meaningless. There should probably be a national conversation about what is actually expected of immigrants. Best time to do that was really a few decades ago, but maybe better late than never.

It seems they’re not yours. Before requiring every Muslim to be whiter than white, look at your own community first.

The vast majority of criminals are white

Why do you keep saying this? Are you trying to make some sort of point, or do you genuinely not have any understanding of basic statistics?

I’m guessing you’re white and from the UK? Women have rights in the UK. There’s still some prejudice, but you’re really ignorant if you think women in Asian countries have better women’s rights than in the UK. Speaking as someone who’s half Asian.

When posters start saying assumptions about ‘all Muslims’ then they need to be reminded of the statistics.

Just to be clear, when she says ‘white’ she is not being racist. She actually means non Muslim. It’s a cultural thing and another example of the shocking failure of multiculturalism,

The statistics show that men from islamic cultural backgrounds are more likely to commit rape and sexual assault. Some nationalities like Afghans are around 20 times more likely to be convicted of rape than a white man. Obviously, nobody is saying all muslims are rapists. But the fact people of this cultural background are more likely to attack women is absolutely something that needs to be discussed. Surely, you agree with this? Or are you suggesting we should turn a blind eye because it's their culture - and anyway, even though they're more likely to rape than white men, they're still raping fewer women overall as they're the minority?

Your friend is correct and yes you are being naive.

The statistics about Afghans were posted upthread. There were 19 sexual offences by Afghans in 2024. I’d hardly call that an epidemic. 🙄

There are a disproportionate number of Muslims in prisons but not for sexual offences.

This is due to a number of factors, with Muslims coming from lower socioeconomic backgrounds and more likely to be sent to prison, also that prisoners are more likely to convert to Islam and also that Muslims tend to be younger and most prisoners are younger.

Oh dear. Though I suppose it's better that you just don't understand relative vs. absolute frequency, rather than that you're trying to say it's fine that muslims rape at a higher rate!

Let's have a little basic maths, shall we.

I'd rather not use rapists though.

So...

Imagine a pack of dogs, some black and some white. If 10 black dogs bite people and 2 white dogs bite people, presumably you would think more black dogs had bitten people than white dogs. And you would, of course, be correct. But this does not mean that black dogs are necessarily more likely to bite people.

Imagine there were 100 black dogs in the pack, and only 10 white dogs.

10 out of the 100 black dogs have bitten people, which means 1 in every 10 black dogs has bitten someone, which means 10% of black dogs have bitten someone.

2 out of the 10 white dogs have bitten people, which means 2 in every 10 white dogs has bitten someone, which means 20% of white dogs have bitten someone.

And 20% is more than 10% (double, in fact), so white dogs are actually twice as likely to bite as black dogs. Even though black dogs do more actual biting in total, as there are ten times more of them.

So white men do more raping, as there are significantly more white men in the UK than non-white men. But proportionally, (some) non-white men are more likely to rape. Statistics have shown Afghans are around twenty as likely to rape as white men. But (luckily), rape isn't all that common and there also aren't very many Afghans in Britain. So a very few men doing something twenty times more often than something that's not done all that often, is not going to be a big number.

Hope this helps.

ETA Sorry, forgot to add quote - this is (obviously) to @nomas

But (luckily), rape isn't all that common

Clearly you have no idea.

https://rapecrisis.org.uk/get-informed/statistics-sexual-violence

Was going to add a footnote clarifying that obviously I wasn't trying to minimise rape. But the post was already long enough, and I figured it was pretty obvious as the post was discussing statistics. Apparently not.

Rape is rare in the sense most women in this country never experience it, and if they are unlucky enough to do so, it will usually be once at most in their entire lifetime. Most of us crash our cars significantly more regularly, and unless you're a horrible driver you probably don't think you commonly smash up your car. We mostly have more children than attacks, yet we probably don't say we are commonly giving birth. We consider them rare, unusual events. Of course, for some women, horrifically, this is not the case, and it should go without saying (but apparently not) that one rape is far too many rapes.

Maybe you’re just bonkerphobic.

The statistics about Afghans were posted upthread. There were 19 sexual offences by Afghans in 2024. I’d hardly call that an epidemic. 🙄

Earlier in the thread I posted the stats showing that in Germany, Afghani men are ten times more likely to be charged with rape than German men.