People chanting “Make Britain white again!”
There’s a public Facebook album of screengrabs of xenophobic or racist bullying.
There is much, much more.
Tip Jar
There’s a public Facebook album of screengrabs of xenophobic or racist bullying.
There is much, much more.
Horrible.
It will be even worse here if Trump is elected. Riots and shooters going into minority neighborhoods to destroy.
What happened to you, Britain? You used to be cool.
No, they were always racists on the whole. I lived there for 5 years in the 90’s and was constantly shocked at the level of overt racism towards Asians. And I’m Australian, we know a thing or two about racism ourselves!
Most countries have deep problems with xenophobia and racism, honestly, just as they all seem to have variations of misogyny. But those variations can often make a particular nation seem ‘better’ to those outside of it, at least those aligned with social justice causes. There’s numerous stories, for instance, about African-American GIs being treated better by Brits while stationed in England than they were back home, or even by white GIs. (I’ve caught more than one NPR piece on the subject.) So it’s easy to think, “Oh, that culture must be so accepting, because they don’t have [insert specific flavor of awfulness that you encounter on a regular basis in your own homeland].”
Hell, even in a given country, this can be true. (It’s particularly in effect in the U.S., with our pronounced regionalism). Southern racism and northern racism are notoriously different in how they are performed, and it’s not uncommon for the targets of their own local variety to assume that the other side of the Mason-Dixon line is better (though given the history of the country, the assumption is more common going South to North).
Spacejunkie has it right. There’s always been racism in Britain. It was there when I was stationed there in the late fifties; it was there when I was a student there in the sixties; it was still there when I was on assignment there in 1999-2000. The people who tweet this kind of thing, who verbally or physically assault perceived ‘foreigners’ many of whom are british too, who mouth off about immigrants without knowing who the immigrants are, where they are or where they come from or why, are the direct descendants of the bovver-booted paki-bashers of yesteryear. But they are that with or without “brexit”.
Thinking about it maybe before the fifties began it was mostly latent but only because there were so few coloured immigrants. Starting early fifties, migration began first from the Caribbean and later from South Asia and brought it out into the open.
I think all societies have a racism problem. In times of peace, prosperity and certainty those voices are marginalised because they can’t gain traction in the general population. After all, the general population are doing ok, they feel personally secure and that enables people to be more generous and tolerant. Fast forward to a period of strife, declining living standards and uncertainty and suddenly those voices banging on about the ‘others’ do gain traction with people who now feel personally threatened by life and abandoned by the established political class.
We’ve seen it throughout history and unfortunately we’ll see it again.
The big task is whether we can prevent a widespread slide into deeply conservative and authoritarian rule or, much worse, outright fascism. I’m not entirely convinced that western societies will avoid that, if not widespread rioting or even war/revolt over the next 20 years (or sooner). Quite apart from the very real climate and external issues we face, the economic system is fundamentally broken and is being kept on artificial life support to put off and soften the inevitable crash. This means there is no ready, sustainable or imminent return to widespread prosperity. Those doing badly have no realistic hope and those who are prepared to ride the wave of discontent have a huge opportunity.
In the middle ages they used to simply wipe all debt at this point. No-one really important would be harmed. Sure, the middle class might be decimated, but they didn’t matter (they hardly existed) and if the peasants revolted you taught them a sharp and brutal lesson. I suppose we should be thankful we don’t live under an openly feudal system (although I suspect a modern version of that may be one possible outcome of all this).