Consensus and detente on racism

'White' thinking is the norm and everybody else is expected to assimilate. It has always struck me as ironic that Obama is often called the first black President of the US when he isn't. His ancestry is as white as it is black. It's as though being white is the norm for a President, but Obama's DNA has been tainted. Americans expect a President to be white.

Interesting point, daphd. I have always been under the impression that people who are only part "black" regard themselves as black or, nowadays, as "people of colour", whatever the actual colour of their skin.

I don't get the statement "Americans expect a president to be white". The Americans I know don't. Plus, since Obama isn't white (not as most people understand it anyhow, which I think is "looking Caucasian"), isn't it just daft to have such an expectation when the country has had a black president for eight years?

I once heard an Australian child of no more than 8 refer to another child of white/SE Asian parents as 'Eurasian' , and it was said in a derogatory tone. She could only have heard it at home - so much comes from the parents.

I do dislike it when people who have objections to certain aspects of Islam, and don't think they should be condoned in a Western democracy, are called ' racist'. Of course they may also be racist, but the word is used far too much about people who are not in the least racist about the colour of anyone's skin.

It is perfectly true that there is a great deal of racism around the world between non white peoples - black/black, brown/black, you name it, and anyone who still thinks it's purely a white evil is painfully naive.

There is a difference between racism and prejudice.

Did anyone watch the wonderful Alice Roberts programme The Incredible Human Journey recently on how early humans left Africa and colonised the world. DNA tests have been done on just about every race and ethnicity in the world and we ALL have African genes.
It is also likely that people with dark skins who now live in Northern countries, will gradually turn paler and paler as their need for sun protection decreases. We are divided only by culture, religion and tradition but I feel in this country, the majority of traditions, especially food! are welcomed and become "ours".

lily I think there is some traction in your argument. I also think that the argument of the fascist right, which has so long been silent also gives "permission" for these ideas to surface.

I could take you to a pub in southend where a large number of South Africans and Zimbarbwians drink. They hate ( their words) one another, and nobody talks about the animosity between blacks and Asians.
Did anyone hear the Cuban lady on the radio explaining that many Central American immigrants were voting for Trump because they hated (her word) the Mexicans.
Reading between the lines on here I think there are a lot who don't live in a multicultural area, if you did you might see that it's not just the whites hating the blacks/ Asians/ Jews.

The left has used name calling and abuse of those who did not share their views to silence debate which was a great own goal since it drove dissenting opinion underground. Those with rational, reasonable and moderate views learned to keep quiet to avoid being labelled a racist, a bigot or a fascist.

The result of this was that swathes of decent, ordinary but silent people came out on election days and voted for a Conservative government and then for Brexit to the astonishment of those who silenced their neighbours but forgot that those they abused had a vote in a secret ballot.

One of the greatest faults of the left was to deliberately assume the irrational view that if someone disagreed with one, single tenet of an opposing opinion they were to be lumped in with the far right. Thus it was that, if Islam's inherent misogyny was qeven mildly questioned, the interlocutor was accused of being racist and of hating everyone different from them, an absurd and insulting assumption.

The consequence of this was seen in the Rotherham, Rochdale child-raping scandals where abuse continued for years for fear that local authorities could be accused of being racists for identifying the actual perpetrators of monstrous crimes.

People did not even feel they could speak out aginst this outrage so they voted instead.

As here so in America with the shock election of Donald Trump, the left created the right.

That was a reply to Ian68now Several posts arrived while I typed!

Gransnet!!!!

Children learn attitudes by absorbing them from those around them. One thing they learn is how whole races or religions or cultures are labelled without any consideration of the individuals within the group.

Even you posting that there must be something about Yemeni men, based on your knowledge of a nice one and his family, is a generalisation. I don't doubt that there are some Yemeni men who are not so nice as him, and that there are men from other countries who look similar to him who are just as nice as he is.

Class rules this country, always has

You've got to be taught to be afraid
Of people whose eyes are oddly made,
And people whose skin is a diff'rent shade,
You've got to be carefully taught.

(South Pacific)

Children learn about "others" from various sources. Just as in the playground they are allowed into a particular group or belong to a particular group where it is fun to exclude some, so this concept of race "fits" with this idea.

But we grow up and hopefully understand that such exclusion is both wrong morally and for the good of the world.

Come into our group because the "others" feel superior or are dimmer etc is even a call we hear in network.

Racism is such a huge topic. I notice the US has black lives matter but don't see any equivalent for the first nation lives and culture, destroyed by the occupation of the various groups who turned up and occupied their lands. Not a word about them in the recent election coverage.

I was youth working in Peckham and Brixton in the 80's, the whites could be racist , but so could the west Indians who despised the Africans the Cypriots didn't like some groups, it was impossible to resolve some of the issues I had to deal with in a muti racial club setting. If I tried to get the different group to be nicer to each other, I was told I was a racist mixing it up with their cultural beliefs.

I had white kids raised by west Indian foster parents who spoke a sort of patois and were very Caribean in their ways and black kids who were different again.......it is far to complex to call.

That we 30 years ago here.......they have grown up together and things are better, some of them got married and have kids now. people work together and get on or live down the same street and become good neighbours. It takes time.

The bigger worry for me is class, it determines so much more in the UK.

Easily Ism68, not by sitting a child down and clwiming people of a different colour/race are lesser human beings , it is dripped into children's minds over time

Children are not racist, you only have to watch a group of toddlers or slightly older children from all parts of the world to understand that. They don't "see" race or colour or at least put nothing perjoritive upon it.

Their must be something about Yemen men, our daughter has had 2 children with one and He is one of the nicest people I've ever met, He was born in Dudley, West Midlands. His mun can't speak English but that's what their culture is like.

AnnieBach How is racism taught

I agree with you, ww and ab.

I disagree with you, thatbags. I think more people are racist than care to admit it. Their thinking is so ingrained they possibly don't even recognise it themselves.

'White' thinking is the norm and everybody else is expected to assimilate. It has always struck me as ironic that Obama is often called the first black President of the US when he isn't. His ancestry is as white as it is black. It's as though being white is the norm for a President, but Obama's DNA has been tainted. Americans expect a President to be white.

You could have cited the example of anti-semiticism and Israel. The Israeli government itself is keen to push the idea that criticism of the Israeli government is anti-semitic.

My daughter's current boyfriend comes from a Yemeni family, although he was born in Manchester and went to a public school. Although he and his parents are agnostic and have a typical British lifestyle, he does have a Muslim-sounding name and experiences racism. Why? Nick Cohen wrote about the same experience in the 'Guardian'. Despite his surname, he's not Jewish, but people assume he is and he's experienced anti-semitic slurs.

Racism is taught

No, I don't think it's just white people. Speak to a Malaysian about the legal racism in the country or a South African coloured person about the attitude they perceive blacks have towards them.

im68 no! it is a learned concept.

Do you think racism is a built in thing with white people, I do,we can be very judgemental about non whites and you hear it on the golf course and in the clubhouse all very hush hush but its there.

I think part of Marcus's argument is that people are accused of racism or called racist even when they haven't done or said anything racist. A classic and common current example of this is when people don't distinguish between valid criticism of an ideology, such as Islam, and criticism of Muslims as a group, as if they were all the same. The latter is 'racist'* (in one sense though, of course, Muslims do not belong to a single 'race' in the usual sense—compare Muslims in Arab countries, for instance, with Muslims in South-East Asia; there are also some 'white' Muslims). The former, criticism of Islamic ideology, or some of it, is not racist.

*I would prefer a more accurate description, such as "anti-Muslim". Being anti-Muslim is necessarily wrong, being anti-Islamism is not necessarily so.

I need to think a bit more about the other main claim made in the article about some underprivileged Whites (they do exist) feeling that they are the only group who doesn't have any of what they see as special status.

Don't worry Anya . I think you'll find your not alone with those views, particularly here on GN. It's been glaringly obvious what some posters thought of people who read the Sun/mail/ didn't get an 'ology'.
Fortunately, there are a few educated women on here who do understand and 'get it'.