to be thinking wtf when it's difficult to walk down a street in town these days?

[LolaTheShowgirl]

The town I used to live in and grew up in is very multicultural. Some areas of the town are majority populated by the Asian community. Now the other day myself and 2 friends were walking through a particular area trying to find somewhere. None of us had ever been in this area before, but as it was a nice day people where out and about and we did not see one non-Asian person at all. The majority of our walk was on a main road and all the people in the cars were even Asian. This itself was not a problem. The problem was the hostile stares we recieved. People looked really angry that we had dared to be white and go in their area.

One of the people who was with us looks Pakistani (although is Iranian) and apparantely one of his friends saw us and said "it's lucky those white fuckers where with you, otherwise they'd have had a good beating by someone or other"

"What's the alternative? To force them out to the country?"

how about making sure they don't feel threatened if they step off "their" patch? The examples you give are excellent - as the Jews have felt themselves to be more integrated and welcome, the East End has progressively emptied of Jewish enclaves. The remaining few heavily Jewish areas tend to be based on religion rather than ethnicity.

Similarly, there are no Huguenot ghettos in modern Britain that I know of ...

but then again I have posted sourses on here before and no opne bothers to read them..

Mrsruffalo - you didn't answer my question as to why you would want to go there. What is the appeal of these districts to you personally - hidden oil and mineral deposits? Free pony rides? Park and ride?

Talbot - I sense from publicity around the recent elections that, if I was a non-white ethnic minority, I could legitimately consider most of the rural South West as an area where I was not welcome.

Jews left the East End as they got wealthier and could afford to live in nicer areas. That's why so many of then now live in "ghetto's" like Golders Green, Totteridge etc and North London overall. The same will happen with Muslims ulitmately, in fact they are already leaving the Brick Lane area as rising property values means they can afford to go elsewhere.

lola;..sorry that happened to you....i know white people who have experienced similar...

This is true, talbot, but overlooks the fact that, in doing so, they dispersed - not only do they no longer feel tied to the East End, they no longer feel so strongly tied to each other (though I acknowledge the exception of the Hassidic communities in, for example, Stoke Newington.)

Similarly, the Huguenots have now spread out and married into the existing population - because no one goes out attacking or persecuting Huguenots any more.

Well, the OP said she hadn't been to the area before and was looking for somewhere.

That's a perfectly acceptable reason.

Of course it is.

Looking for the house of a friend (in a whites no-go area), perhaps.

Or looking for a shop, perhaps a national chain or somewhere selling goods not of specific interest to the Asian community (in a whites no-go area), perhaps.

Or looking for a public building like a library or leisure centre or council offices (in an out-of-town, whites no-go area) perhaps.

It's perfectly acceptable and perfectly likely.

But actually, MrsRuffalo, I asked you why YOU would want to go to such an area?

But they have not really dispersed. Like most ethnic communities (Indians in Southall, Bengali's in Whitechapel, Koreans in New Malden etc etc) they choose to broadly congregate, in their case, in North London and specifically Golders Green. Overall, over 50% of the UK Jewish community live in London.

I could name you 20 areas off the top off my head which have unusally high concentrations of nationalities. Even the Americans, French and Italians choose to congregate in certain areas of London. I'm not aware of any persecution of Koreans in the UK and yet New Malden has the largest Korean expat community in Europe.

Sometimes you just have to go into the no go areas to get to a shop, to see a friend, to catch a bus lots of reasons.

I am glad I moved away from Glasgow for the simple reason that it means I don't have to encounter these no go areas on a daily basis.

There is only one place like that up here and it's a gypsy site next to a bridge I had to walk over it to get to and from work and it was horrible the nasty glares, the laughing, the pointing at yo and muttering about you in Romanian very intimidating.

There is not one area here that is in any way hostile towards any ethnicity other than those horrid people.

i've just read some of this thread...i can't believe some people thought lola would be making this up?

It's because 'Lola' has been starting threads all over the place about stupid stuff just trying for a reaction, not so much that the story was untrue but the fact the OP just does seem to be out for a wind up!

They do still congregate broadly, that's true enough. But do they feel forced to or is it an informed choice based on shared culture, language, values and aspirations?

Whereas the initial source of ghettoisation, in Europe and also in the US, was entirely about control of minority populations and blatant expressions that they were not welcome elsewhere.

It is very hard to say which of these reasons for living next door to people like yourself prevails in the modern world.

Okay, sources...

For an easy intro you can read Murder in Amsterdam by Ian Buruma or any Hirsi Ali's work. She has a website too. Here is a piece from the guardian www.guardian.co.uk/film/2005/may/17/religion.immigration

Or Nick Cohen's What's Left and Waiting for the Etonians

For more indepth and complex analysis have a look at Paul Berman's books 'Terror and Liberalism' or 'Power and the Idealists'

For a really dense analysis with lots of legaliese there is Phillip Bobbitt's 'Terror and Consent'

I won't hold my breath...

Not sure what you are implying by your "people like yourself" comment but as you can have no idea of my ethnicity (and indeed quite obviously don't), I'll let it pass.

I think we can safely assume, based on the available evidence, that in modern Britain, ethnic monorities are not being forced into ghetto's.

hi mamadiva..

i always had lola down as being pretty straight- up?...

hope you're good anyway

They aren't be forced, many communites are inclusive by choice though.

How kind of you to deem those acceptable reasons miflaw.
Why, I could imagine I would go because of any of those reasons to- visiting a friend who lived there, or looking for a shop that had been recommended to me, or travelling to a train station/bus depot

Why? Why does anyone go anywhere? What do you want to know my personal reasons for?

I can't see the relevance of why one would want to go to such an area.

shock horror, Lola, don't you know that asian people are incapable of racism is the general reaction

"Mrsruffalo - you didn't answer my question as to why you would want to go there. What is the appeal of these districts to you personally - hidden oil and mineral deposits? Free pony rides? Park and ride?"

why the need to justify going anywhere public in a free country?

Not even to enjoy the culture, the food Talbot? That's why we often go to chinatown.

By "people like yourself" I meant "people like oneself" but didn't want to use the word "oneself" - it was not intended to be about "you" (talbot). Sorry for the confusion.

"Why, I could imagine I would go because of any of those reasons to- visiting a friend who lived there, or looking for a shop that had been recommended to me, or travelling to a train station/bus depot."

Why would a "friend" suggest you visit them in an area which is no-go to you? Who would recommend a shop to you if they thought you might get threatened or attacked in going there? Train station/bus depot - perhaps, but all the (very few) genuine no-go areas I've heard of have been insular housing estates and thus typically contain neither.

"Why? Why does anyone go anywhere? What do you want to know my personal reasons for?"

Because I suspect that this is one of those tiresome, "why shouldn't I go anywhere I want?" arguments which is used by the BNP, the FN, and bigots of all persuasions in Northern Ireland to justify marching into sensitive areas, casting themselves as victims and then capitalising on the inevitable chaos for political ends.

MT, I was agreeign that one should be able to go where ever one likes without justifying it. Hence the reasons why someone goes somewhere are relevant.

"One should be able to go where ever one likes without justifying it."

Exactly. Why anyone in their right mind would "like" to go to an area where they ran the risk of verbal or physical attack is beyond me. Seems very odd to me.

Shows what a quiet life I live.