Racist Schmacist

[erudito]

When, Dafydd and I were visiting vizi, we got into a discussion with some of his housemates about Hamas’ recent election victory. I mentioned that one of the more sensible public statements on it had been made by Dubya. To which one housemate responded that Dubya’s “racism” was more circumspect

Comments

Racism In England

[anonymous]

Have just got back from England, where I met many ordinary English guys in pubs. Interesting. I found well-educated English incredibly tolerant and supportive of mutli-ethnicity, but lower down the scale much less tolerance. Reason? Two sets of laws. One for locals and another for migrants. Or so it is alleged.

A very worrying moment was being told that a student at Manchester Uni had been typing at his computer and a girl sat next to him. He begins openly masturbating. Girl complains to authorities, and his explanation that all Western women are slags and hence his reaction was fine allowed him to escape punishment. In other words, the University is telling this guy oh you poor boy, life is so hard for you because you are a useless loser who will never work and we have to keep infantilizing you because you are a sufferer from cultural difference. Oh dear.... but we already knew that oppression of women is apparently fine as long as its ethnic.

On the bright side, the Court of Appeal has just knocked back a girl who goes to a mostly Muslim school and has sued the authorities for not allowing her to wear a jilbab. She had been fine with the official school uniform (which included head-scarf, trousers and jacket as would be recognized in any school with Muslim girls in it) for years already, but the local mullahs have funded her to push for the full jilbab. Other girls at the school (including the Principal, who is a female Muslim) know where this is going. Had she won her case, the other Muslim girls would be forced to wear it too or be beaten up, stoned to death etc. Anyway, they've appealed, but I rather fancy that the House of Lords will knock this one back too. Which is good, because when they lose that appeal as well it will cost them a fortune which will then not be available for suicide bombs. Dafydd

Re: Racism In England

[erudito]

Two different sets of rules is more-or-less guaranteed to cause resentment. One of the issues that Pauline H's insurgency picked up on is that folk at the lower end of the housing market who struggle to, or cannot afford, to own their own home resent really badly houses being "handed" to Aborigines some of whom, for predictable human (it's free and they'll get handed another) and cultural reasons (the mores of home ownership are not exactly built into hunter-gatherer culture), effectively trash them.

But if you complain, or even mention that, you're "racist". (And, indeed, complaints might be expressed in racist ways, which does not mean that there is no substantive point underlying them.)

The House of Lords did indeed knock back the student's appeal. See here and here.

You might note the identification of anti-Islamic feeling with racism in the first blog's header.