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.

Your friend is spot on. 100%.

You are extremely naive. I hope you don't have young daughters. The future in this country isn't looking too bright for them if you do.

Why don’t you check out the stats for sexual offences?

Hmm, hate to say it, but I think she’s right.

I don’t think she is wrong about the issues around multi-culturalism, people not adopting local cultures, choosing to live near other like minded people. That’s human nature. What I’m not clear on is why she is suggesting all that is a problem. If someone wants to come to live in the UK and in their own homes and communities, have their own customs, what does that matter? As long as they follow our laws, what’s the problem?

Many people who complain about this seem more than happy to go abroad to anglicised areas, full of our own immigrants expats. In fact, our own empire, believed to be what made Britain “Great” was based on us exporting all of our customs to countries we thought had a lot to learn from us. Are we really surprised other nations do that too?

Your friend is not racist and she has a point that I agree with

The one bad thing about this country is the way we say anyone can come and don’t worry about not embracing the culture or integration

I think your friend had valid points, here.
But we’re not even allowed to talk about it.
She was having a fair enough conversation.
However, you’re entitled to your view too.

Given the incredibly low number of sexual offences reported, using this statistics to prove anything other than “white men are not held to account for their crimes against women nearly enough”, is a silly thing to do.

And yet, here we are……talking about it. Again.

Everyone is a little different, no matter who they are or what their culture is. It's what makes the tapestry of life so rich!

This tells me you you a clueless about life outside of your little bubble, there are plenty of areas and countries where you could go as a female and your rich tapestry of life would turn it a complete world of horror and terror, you really are naive.

PS. Your friend is 100% right and you throwing around a racecard like it's confetti is dispicable and you should be ashamed.

This is a really good point. If you go somewhere new and everyone around you is throwing rocks, are you going to try and sit down with them for dinner?

Does your friend discriminate against others because of their race? If she does she’s a racist.
But it sounds like she was expressing her views and concerns about the state of the country. I don’t think that what she said is wild. My family were Irish immigrants. They were discriminated against when they came to London in the 1940s. Judge everyone by the content of their character.

oh please spare a thought for the women in those countries the young male asylum seekers leave behind.
Forced marriages, prohibition on working/ going out alone/ ... a legal system that requires subordination by a wife... or wives... to their husband... violent punishment for women who disobey/ break chastity laws/ don t cover their bodies and heads appropriately.

It's what makes the tapestry of life so rich!
FFS

So instead of admitting there’s cultural influences and differences, and it impacts the way women are regarded and treated, you’d rather call everyone racist?

You can try to claim some kind of moral superiority by clamping your eyes shut in wilful ignorance but the statistics do not agree with you.

I bet this is a reverse as noone is that naive.

…so is there some sort if Generic “British Culture” that we are all agreed on, and signed up to?
Surely if we know that some cultures don’t “fit in”, we must know what our culture, is and isn’t.

So what is the British Culture that people from other cultures don’t fit in with ?

Are women well treated within our British Culture?

What I see are record numbers of violent and sexual crimes against women and girls, the almost decriminalised of Rape, an employment system that keeps women in poverty, children left in poverty because their fathers don’t pay for them, Domestic violence not treated properly, poor sentencing for crimes against women and girls, rampant misogyny both in person and online, victim blaming for women who don’t cover themselves properly.

What a Utopia for Women this country is …

That would be xenophobia. Not racism.

Statistics are irrelevant to the fact that if you negatively judge individuals and would treat them differently based on the country that they come from, you are racist.

While I agree with everything you have said, I think it's actually worse in many other cultures?

Surely you must be aware of events in the U.K. over the last 30 years outside your village? Your friend is correct.

I agree with your friend, and wouldn't have described anything she said, as being 'racist'... I'd have called it, pretty much, stating facts! Sorry OP!

I agree with her. I’m a culturalist. I think some cultures are better than others - my test is the status and treatment of wowmn and girls.

cultures who treat women and girls badly are not good cultures. If people from those cultures want to live here they change they ways.

and frankly we should be putting far more pressure internationally on cultures in other countries that treat women and girls poorly

(and yes there are still big issues about the treatment of women and girls in the UK - bit it is nothing compared)

I’m mixed race and I agree with your friend.

bingo, the old Britain has no culture chestnut.