[patriots] FW: Are we all racist now?
- From: annette rose smith <annette-rose-smith@xxxxxxxxxxxxx>
- To: "patriots@xxxxxxxxxxxxx" <patriots@xxxxxxxxxxxxx>
- Date: Thu, 29 May 2014 22:30:47 +0100
They confuse racism with realism
Date: Thu, 29 May 2014 15:06:08 +0200
From:
To:
Subject: Are we all racist now?
Are we all racist now? As a survey of British social
attitudes reveals a shocking upturn in prejudice, Allison Pearson argues
that the political elite’s desire to advance multiculturalism with mass
immigration has backfired
Four years ago in Rochdale, when Gillian Duffy challenged Gordon Brown on
immigration, the affronted prime minister shied away and muttered darkly about
that 'bigoted woman'. It is quite clear now who was the bigot. Photo: Richard
Pohle
By
Allison Pearson
9:05PM BST 28 May 2014
3860 Comments
With impeccable timing, the children chose Mother’s Day lunch to tell
their grandmother she was racist. And what vile abuse had my poor mother
bandied about? She had asked her grandson if his choir sang Negro
spirituals.
“Raaaa-cisst,” chorused my junior Thought Police with more than a hint of
witchfinder glee.
“I’m not racist,” said my mother, clearly shocked. “What did I say that was
racist?”
“You’re not allowed to call them Negro spirituals any more,” my Daughter
informed her.
“What do you call them, then?” asked Grandma.
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“African-American spirituals,” announced Daughter, a creature of such
impeccable liberal certitude that she makes Nick Clegg look like Oswald
Mosley.
“People of Colour spirituals,” hazarded the Boy. He obviously didn’t have a
clue, but was enjoying his generation’s favourite baiting game: More
Politically Correct Than Thou.
“Grandma is not racist,” said Himself. “Heinrich Himmler is a racist.
Grandma, not so much.”
“Who’s Henry Himmer?” asked the Boy.
“Heinrich HIMMLER,” said Himself, “was a foul, Jew-exterminating, Nazi fiend
whom your grandmother’s parents and their whole generation fought a world
war to defeat in order that she could sit here 70 years later and be called
racist by her sanctimonious and ungrateful grandchildren. Anyone for
crumble?”
When my mum had gone for a nap, I explained to the kids that racism was not
as black and white as they seemed to think. During their grandmother’s
lifetime, the UK had seen vast social changes. Certain words once in common
usage were now regarded as toxic, and rightly so. I blenched to think that,
as a child myself, I went down the “Paki” shop to get some Blackjacks (inky
toffees in a wrapper decorated with the faces of, then unremarkable,
golliwogs). Miss Leyshon, my lovely primary school teacher, taught us to
count with the help of three toys, Teddy, Dolly and Golly. In 2014, she
would be considered guilty of inciting racial hatred.
I told the kids that, over the past 15 years, my mother’s town in South Wales
had seen a huge influx of Eastern Europeans. It was possible for Grandma and
her friends to note that the character of their birthplace had changed, and
express some unease about it, but also for them to enthuse about their
excellent Romanian dentist. Tolerance was not a one-way street. Tolerance
meant treating elderly people who used outdated language with understanding,
not finger-pointing and yelling “Raaa-cisst!” Real racism – the ugly,
frightening, visceral kind – would flourish if people’s tolerance was taken
for granted, and their communities changed too fast without any regard for
the consequences.
That was two months ago, and I wish I were more surprised to learn that a new
British Social Attitudes survey has found that more than a third of Britons
admit they are racially prejudiced. Prejudice fell to an all-time low in
2001, but the latest figures show that the problem has returned to the level
of 30 years ago. More than 90 per cent of those who say they are racist want
to see immigration halted. More interestingly, 72 per cent of those who do
not consider themselves racist also want to see immigration cut drastically.
As shell-shocked politicians from the main parties struggle to discern the
causes of Ukip’s deafening electoral success, here’s a tip: look in the
mirror, chaps! It is politicians, not the British people, who are to blame
for a resurgence in racism; politicians who have ignored public opinion and
created the conditions in which resentments fester and grow. Specifically,
though not exclusively, it is New Labour who welcomed workers from the new,
accession countries of the EU at a time when countries such as France and
Germany wisely exercised their right to keep them out for another seven
years. According to Jack Straw, this was a “spectacular” error. And Jack
should know, because he was Home Secretary at the time. The plan of Tony
Blair’s government, as laid bare by Andrew Neather, then a Blair
speechwriter, was to banish that old, hideously white, retrograde England
and usher in a new, vibrant, multicultural country which, rather
conveniently, would vote Labour. Mr Blair now works in international
conflict resolution, having stored up enough conflict in his homeland to
keep future generations busy for centuries.
As Frank Field, that admirably plain-speaking Labour MP, told Wednesday’s
Today programme on Radio 4, it was different when you had a European Union
comprised of countries with very similar standards of living. The minute you
gave drastically poor countries free entry to the UK, the inevitable
happened. Since 1997, four million people have come to Britain – the
equivalent of a city the size of Birmingham – yet there has been no
concomitant expansion of roads, schools or hospitals. It explains why it is
now easier for a camel to pass through the eye of a needle than to buy a
coffee in England from a native English speaker.
It also explains why regions such as my own East Anglia voted Ukip so
overwhelmingly last week. If places such as Peterborough turned purple with
apoplexy, it is not because its residents are necessarily racist or because
they saw in Nigel Farage the finest statesman since Winston Churchill. It is
more likely to be because women in labour are often turned away by one of
the region’s major maternity units, which has several times actually locked
its doors, so difficult does it find a soaring, immigrant-driven birth rate.
A midwife friend who was seconded there described conditions as
“third-world”.
Until recently, it would have been “racist” to point this out. Four years ago
in Rochdale, when Gillian Duffy challenged Gordon Brown on immigration, the
affronted prime minister shied away and muttered darkly about that “bigoted
woman”. It is quite clear now who was the bigot. Brown was typical of a
political class that became shamefully biased against its own people. In
thrall to a post-war European ideal, they had scant interest in the
difficulties and discomfort it caused ordinary people on the ground. If
anyone complained, simply shut them up by hissing “bigot” or “racist”.
A plasterer out of work because Poles living five to a room undercut him?
Little Englander!
A mother-of-three hit by the child-benefit cuts, which come into force next
week, and expressing disbelief that the UK is still sending £30 million in
benefits to the kids of EU workers, who aren’t even living here? Sorry,
nothing we can do about it, madam. It’s all for the greater European good,
you know. Do be quiet.
A teacher hounded from a school by Islamist hardliners who want girls and
boys segregated and treated in a way that is anathema to British values?
Racist!
Disgusted at countless male, Muslim grooming gangs treating vulnerable white
girls like “chewing gum thrown in the street”? Racist!
Fed up with being required to show cultural sensitivity to customs we find
morally repugnant, and getting no cultural sensitivity in return? Racist!
Constantly decried as racists by a bien-pensant elite, the overwhelming
evidence is that, until recently, Britons have absorbed seismic shifts in
this country’s ethnic make-up with remarkable patience and good humour.
Certainly, we are a lot nicer to our immigrants than the French (go on,
permit me un petit racist sentiment…). We have far more mixed-race marriages
than any other European country. Mixed-race celebrities such as Dame Shirley
Bassey, Lewis Hamilton and Jessica Ennis-Hill have been key influences on
public acceptance. In the Eighties, 50 per cent of the public was against
marriages across ethnic lines; that figure dropped to 40 per cent in the
Nineties, and stood at just 15 per cent in 2012. It’s a record of change and
growing acceptance to be proud of.
And now we are going backwards, with more than a third of British people
admitting they have racist feelings. If there had been a proper outlet for
public disquiet over mass immigration, that would never have happened. Even
settled immigrants, who have been here for more than two generations, say
they are fed up with the level of immigration. Are they racist as well?
During the campaign for the Euro elections, I saw an elderly couple being
asked by a TV reporter to explain why they were changing their vote from
Labour to Ukip. “We liked the old Rochdale,” they explained meekly. Those
pensioners are as entitled to their views as Nick Clegg is to his. Calling
them “racist” when you have altered their town without consulting them is
outrageous.
We should have seen this coming. Back in 2007, I appeared on BBC One’s
Question Time in the week that the Labour MP Margaret Hodge had called for
British-born families in her Essex constituency to take priority over
immigrants in the queue for council homes. Hodge had seen with great
foresight how that thorny issue was alienating white working-class voters
and playing into the hands of racists. The Labour Party immediately
distanced itself icily from Mrs Hodge’s pragmatic stance. On the panel next
to me, Alan Johnson, then a minister, regretted that Margaret should be
reduced to “using the language of the BNP”.
Well, they’re all talking about immigration now. Ukip has given them no
choice. In his recent party political broadcast, Ed Miliband conceded that
Labour would now address the issue it had tried to shut down for so long.
Overnight, “racism” had stopped being racism or bigotry and become “people’s
legitimate concerns about immigration”.
The deeply distressing and rapid rise in racial prejudice among the British
people over the past 13 years maps on to a period of uncontrolled mass
immigration. Cause and effect could not be clearer. Nor could the solution.
I only hope it’s not too late.
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