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.

LOL Is diversity also our strength and the U.K. was built by immigrants by any chance?

What’s your point? That because there is still work to be done on women’s and girls rights in the UK we can’t say that the UK is far better for women than Iran?

They are unique to liberal democracies. I also think French culture is better than Irans.

western liberal democracies are extraordinary places for women.

A combination of our humour, witty sarcasm, politeness (ever said sorry when someone walks into you? British? Bet you have), desire to be orderly (generally, someone playing music out loud/ phone calls on speaker on the train? Side eye). Stiff upper lip, ‘keep calm and carry on’ (in the 2000s you’d have had that on a mug or cushion). The Royal Family, the Guard, red telephone boxes, the old letterboxes, bonfire night, old films Mary Poppins, Oliver Twist (“please sir can I have some more?”). Endless tea, biscuits, fish and chips on a Friday, a roast on a Sunday, a fry up, afternoon tea, Victoria sponge cake, up north then battered mars bar from the chippy (who thought of that?). Football, pub culture. Look at our schools, plays, hymn singing, country dancing, you must remember your year 6 play?, harvest festival (good morning mrs smith- bet you knew which rhythm to say that in).

This is all stuff seems small but we all collectively experience it (mostly or generally). These are just aspects that make up our culture and our shared experience. If we went into historical culture and tradition there would be more.

I’ve said many times it’s not the skin colour it’s the culture. Could just as easily be another white culture that jars. I agree with your friend.

Although the way in which it is written, I would say it’s your opinion rather than a ‘friend’

I caught that as well. Such a detailed post..

Sounds like you’re living in a bubble and very naive.

Your friend is 1000% correct. I'm half Black and I've been saying this for years. I get very frustrated with people bandying the term 'racist' about so casually. I recommend reading Samuel Huntingdon's 'Clash of Civilisations'.

It’s a tricky one.

Your friend might have an issue with very different cultures personally, but as a whole the country had/has an issue with immigrants no matter where they come from, as anyone could see from Brexit. It was European immigrants and it was still an issue.

Saying that, I think all countries, to a bigger or a lesser extent, have issues with immigrants, probably due to seeing their surroundings change too much and feeling “pushed out”, even if there’s no basis in lived experience.

I agree that it’s naive to think opposite cultures can coexist unless the incoming culture wants to assimilate. And by that I don’t mean forget your culture, I mean respect the surrounding culture and people.

I’m an immigrant and my partner is British and we still butt heads all the time because it’s a topic we’ll never see eye to eye - he’ll never fully understand the immigrant experience because it’s a reality that his country doesn’t have. It’s as simple as that. Retiring abroad doesn’t count.

In that case, you have no idea what you're talking about.

Yep, I wonder if those are OP’s views, presented as her friend’s.

She not racist and I agree with her wholeheartedly.

I live about 10 miles from Leicester, one of the most diverse, multi cultural cities in Europe. Over the last 50 years the city has experienced wave after wave of immigration. We have large Indian, Pakistani, Polish, Somali, Turkish, Kurdish & other East European communities. Among many others. Many of these communities live in their own areas & exist in silos, rarely making any attempt to integrate with others. Decades of ‘white flight’ out of the city mean that white British people are now one minority population among many.

Based on my own experiences of living for decades with Leicester as my local city, I agree with every word OPs friend said. She is absolutely correct, and not in any way racist.

They're getting very inventive.

Because a modest dress doesn't challenge the freedom of a bikini wearing society

I agree with her
my parents are from the caribbean
and it is 100% true

there are too many nationalities/ culture for us all to every be ‘one’ culture

Obviously. That doesn’t cover their attitudes and lack of respect for women. And potential negative behaviours that whilst illegal, could still happen. And frankly coming from such a culture, they’re more likely to. To suggest otherwise is idiotic, really.

Such simplistic bigoted thinking. He is one man. Not a country full of men who have been taught / surrounded by from birth (if after 1975) by such disgusting attitude towards women.

In response to 'newnamefortouchysubject', your friend's view seems to assume that people's views, beliefs, culture remain the same throughout a person's life. To me, UK culture (however you define it) has changed over decades and centuries. My views and beliefs have changed through personal experience including travel, living overseas, fresh evidence emerging from one year to the next. How many people change their mind frequently after they have new evidence? It may not be what they read in a research paper, or what they've seen on the news, it may be experiences from working with people from different cultural backgrounds (keeping in mind you can be comfortable working with colleagues of any ethnicity or cultural background perhaps same as your own but you may not want to socialize with them if they're personal beliefs differ vastly from your own but you'll never know that unless you have worked with them for a long time or had a serious problem or been in a life-threatening situation and had to find a way to deal with it or solve the problem. We are not born with a brain that stays the same for our whole lives. The brain changes. We change as individuals. If we didn't, very few would have issues in marriage because you would still view the person you married in the same way as you did when you first met them. Women would have remained chained to the kitchen sink forever without changing views and culture. I understand behaviours in some cultures are unlikely to ever be accepted by people of other cultures but it's interesting that children with different ethnicities, cultures and languages will play together without a problem. It's mainly adults who compare themselves to other adults and focus on their differences instead of similarities. I am not naive. People will always have other people they don't get on with but if your focused on a common work goal, it is possible to work with people even if you have different personal beliefs. Some people live with family who they despise but they have to find a way to live together because they have no choice and whilst they make think it's terrible, every day they'll be learning how to deal with people they find infuriating. That's a good skill to have.

She literally said her friend is not anti immigration. She’s fine with people coming if they come here and want to become part of the culture here. The friend also questioned whether people gravitate towards people with the same culture as them so eventually group together making true blending (as opposed to just living side by side) impossible. That doesn’t mean she’s anti immigration. It doesn’t mean she’s racist. It doesn’t mean she’s anti other cultures. It just means she thinks it’s hard and it is.

if someone says that English people move to Spain and just congregate and don’t join in the Spanish culture are they racist? and what if they say some parts of Spain feel like a hot English town because there are so many English people speaking English there? Because English people say this all the time. Spanish people too. It’s true. And it isn’t very respectful to move to Spain and show a total disinterest in the culture and to just take over for your own comfort and convenience. So why should and English person not say the same about any other culture coming here?

if I went anywhere else in the world, I would go and learn their rules and culture. I wouldn’t always get it right and might find it hard to pick up the language but I’d try. But then other countries don’t let immigrants rule the roost and drop major religious events, change language and customs in order to appease some 400 year old guilt.

But then other countries don’t let immigrants rule the roost and drop major religious events, change language and customs in order to appease some 400 year old guilt.

You what now? Who cancelled your Christmas and changed your language and did you do a Daily Mail sad face about it? Did a Muslim eat your hamster too?

Ha ha ha!

British people are not known for integrating, neither respecting other cultures when they go on holidays, literally all classes and time points from the Elgin Marbles to Benelmadena.

Why does ex-pat even exist as a class? Oh that’s right to say “…fuck them, I do what I want”

Having said that as a trying to integrate foreigner, it is really hard to fully integrate and takes a huge amount of effort, and I only live in a pluralistic European Country.

Nope she’s not racist. I completely agree with her.

What is the completely different way of life that she is so against? There is good and bad in all, including even - shock,horror - Western culture. Does she live in an ethnically diverse city? I do, and I certainly don't see any issues of isolationism and ghettoism here. Yes, you get areas that are more of one ethnicity or culture than another but that is an organic evolvement that happens when immigrants first go to a country and either naturally navigate to those areas because of the similarities to those who are already here, or it's where they can afford to live due to circumstance.

I live in a community that years ago, welcomed others. In our case, it was people from eastern Europe. Some fled to escape the Nazis, others followed. They came to.places like ours because we had similar industry's to the ones they grown up and worked in.

And, of course, they initially banded together in our city. They spoke the same language, ate the same food ect. Makes sense to be with them.

Over time, their children integrated more and more, as did the children of the native (right word?) people.

Over time, multiculturalism becomes the norm. To expect it to happen overnight is a bit optimistic.

We still have Ukranian and Polish clubs around here. We also have Catholic clubs and Working Mens clubs. But I don't pick up on any animosity between these groups. Someone with a "foreign" sounding name may be third/ forth generation from our area.