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.

That’s a straw-man, at least as far as I’m concerned, I’ve never said everyone who identifies as a Muslim needs to assimilate, as many, perhaps even most, already have. And this applies to anyone who doesn’t subscribe to basic British principles (ie such as the five I outlined earlier), irrespective of whether they are Muslim, Christian or whatever.

All women in this country will know someone who has been raped. That's a fact.

I don’t know anyone who has been raped.

They likely won't tell you. I know someone who was raped and had no idea until she told me.

Ok, but you said all women know someone who has been raped and that it’s a fact - how can you state that as a fact? Am I to assume that at least one woman I know has been raped? Because honestly, I think they would tell me

It is racist, yes. We have far more in common than not. Sweeping statements about ‘culture’ is fear based divisive nonsense

Why would they tell you? I have told like three people about my rape.

Trust me, I know my friends.
I’m sorry that happened to you.

These British values which were whole heartedly embraced by our British leadership during Covid and by the British throughout history as they raped,murdered and pillaged their around the globe. These British values that are doing so much for working class white boy and the rights of women.

As for our political leadership during Covid, well, we were able to eject the Tory Government due to our open democracy, something most people don’t have.

As for our raping, murdering and pillaging across the globe, the British Empire was far from perfect, but you seem to have it confused with the Vikings or the Mongol Horde.

As for the rights of women, we are light years ahead of the likes of Iran and Afghanistan. To claim woman don’t have rights or value in British society compared to most non-western societies, or pretty much all societies throughout history, is a staggeringly stupid statement.

You’ve only underscored and validated my original post - thank you.

The only thing the only thing that has been underscored is how far you sit to the right.

Absolutely right. Though did you see that gay marriage has now been allowed in Afghanistan, Iraq, Iran, Palestine, Syria, Saudi Arabia? Amazing, they are starting to enter an enlightened zone.

*not really

Which countries’ values would you prefer?

So stating that we have a democracy, women’s rights and were not the Vikings is “far right” now… Bizarre!

Values aren't exclusive to countries.

If you went to a data agency and asked them to assess a sample size of 19 Afghans who had committed sexual offences out of 140,000 Afghans in the UK, they would laugh you out of the building.

19 Afghans is not a big enough sample size to judge an entire ethnicity.

But oh dear, it’s clear you won’t understand this either.

What do you mean? You like those values but think other countries have them?

Still a work in progress, obviously :)
Gatherings of my family have become like a meet up of the United Nations. In the 1970s my family was overwhelmingly WASP but now There's a huge diversity of cultural backgrounds in who my cousins and their kids have married or had serious relationships with. Peruvian, Indian, Korean, Curasao, El Salvadoran, white English... hick right wingers, vaccine skeptics, Republicans, Democrats, creationist born-again religious socialising fairly peacefully.

At least that was how it worked pre-Covid. Since my grandmother died, some people in my dad's generation are becoming frail, some personality conflicts (mostly not political) and Covid meant people couldnt' see each other, there is now less socialising.

Most American are hugely diverse & comfortable with the diversity. Among the racist thugs who embrace MAGA are people shocked to discover ethnic identity of JD Vance's wife. The head of the FBI (is unqualified but also) an ethnic minority guy. Nikki Haley would have won Presidency if Trump hadn't run in 2024. I would argue the melting pot has worked fairly well and if American political and regulatory institutions survive the Project2025 Assault, the melting pot will continue to work ok.

Why this response to that post? It’s talking about democracy, women’s rights etc

19 Afghans is not a big enough sample size to judge an entire ethnicity.

Again, we fortunately have statistics available from more than one country. As I've stated twice now, in Germany, Afghan men are charged with rape at a rate ten times greater than German men.

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!

Lazy get out of jail free card. We know who you mean when you talk about 'Muslims'.

Given you have called me and snide and insulting, I won't be engaging with you.

The idea is to avoid US cultural issues, not replicate them.

We sure do, Buddhists.

Maybe this is your point, but the melting pot is a distinctly differernt approach than multi-culturalism. The idea is that everyone goes into the pot whatever they are and comes out as an American.

In practice we see that of course many people retain strong elements of their culture, be they Italian, Chinese, Mexican, or whatever, but they are also distinctly American. You see this attitude even with many immigrants to the US.

It's interesting that your examples are largely on the conservative side. It doesn't surprise me at all about Vance's wife. There are lots of conservative immigrants in the US, conservative Hispanics, black conservatives, and gay conservatives. Sure, there are little pockets of racial supremacist and other weirdos, but they are not mainstream. Even the KKK is struggling these days which we should be thankful for.

The people who are really surprised are typically Democrat voting while professional Americans, who can't seem to think of members of those groups as just American with a full range of opinions on politics and society.