The UK is Not Innocent??

[Brian Kirby]

StuartO - 2020-11-24 9:23 AM

 

My exchange with Brian seems to have gon fallow among the squabbling exchanges so I've bumped my last post in the hope that Brian will respond.

 

StuartO - 2020-11-22 8:18 PM

 

That doesn’t make sense to me at all Brian. [Your argument that we all share responsibility stemming from our history.] My surname originates from around 800AD in this land and social mobility didn’t arise until after WW2 in my family so my ancestors were as good as slaves under the feudal system followed by Working industrial class so it’s pretty unlikely that they ever had any benefit from slavery or that they had any intact with anyone other than their own kind until after WW2 and immigrants prior to the arrival of lots of South Asian workers for the dying Cotton Industry. I was the first to achieve anything other than a working class role in life. If there is responsibility for historical anything I can’t see how it makes any sense to accuse me or my family of anything except becoming resentful when the Asian communities in East Lancashire (after I had left) became so numerous and overtly tribal that they started taking over. The first person “of colour” I had any personal dealings with was the son of a Nigerian judge with whom I shared a body in the Anatomy Dissection Room and we got on fine. He became an orthopaedic surgeon and moved to Texas, invented a clever gadget and made millions. Colour simply wasn’t an element in our relationship; we were both busy enough coping with being foreigners in Glasgow.

 

You’re welcome to feel responsibility for the dark side of British history if you want to but I certainly don’t.

 

An additional point I could make is that most non-whites living in UK (apart from places like London) are second or third generation voting UK citizens so why is my continuing personal responsibility as a Brit for the dark side of British History any different that theirs?

You seem to be taking this personally, and I don't think that is the intention. Can any of us seriously be asked to take personal responsibility for the actions of our parents, and so on back into pre-history?

 

But, if/when we stick out our chests and proudly proclaim ourselves British, it seems to me we are obliged to absorb for ourselves the "baggage" of that lineage, for good and bad.

 

Britain is a slowly evolved state whose past is inevitably chequered. The actions of Britain are the actions of the state, which means of us all, as a collective, but not, I think, of each of us as individuals.

 

As you reasonably argue, few of us has any agency over the actions of the state from day to day and, as we look back to the time of the Divine Right of Kings, the number with true agency shrinks to close to one!

 

We have a form of democracy that gives us some limited influence, but only as a part of the transient majority in an election. Some of us gain greater influence as politicians, authors, pundits, bloggers or broadcasters, but most of us remain as you describe, voiceless virtual serfs whose role in life is to pursue our chosen path in the shade.

 

But I don't think this is about you, or me, or a demand that we must all don sackcloth and ashes and scourge ourselves wandering the world crying "mea maxima culpa". I think we are being asked to look at ourselves honestly as individuals, and ask whether we have attitudes that leave us reluctant to accept "others" as readily as we accept those we recognise as our kith.

 

It can't be easy to be one of those "others" whose appearance marks them out. Good grief, we can't even unreservedly accept people from different parts of the country as of our kith, so what chance does someone with different skin colour stand!

 

Who'd be a redhead, even today, followed around by calls of "ginger"? )-:

 

But, if one were a member of a group that is widely disadvantaged, often constructively, throughout their lives, by a "native" population, it must feel almost impossible to proclaim themselves British. The evidence, for them, is that the British don't like them, don't want them, and rig all the scales against them.

 

That, in part, is the shadow of our collective history, and in part of those who still discriminate today.

 

Some say "well then, why don't they just become like us, and just merge into the background. They respond it is because our (collective) continual rejection of them makes it too bloody hard!

 

I think it is an inevitable case of reaping what we (collectively, over a long time, in various ways) have sown. I disagree with a lot of their method, but I do have great sympathy with their cause. They have, IMO, a point. Had "we" behaved differently toward "them", we should have sown differently and gained a less bitter harvest. Fixing that error is going to take a long time, and requires all of us to contribute. I think that is all they are saying.

[Bulletguy]

Brian Kirby - 2020-11-24 11:05 AM

 

Birdbrain - 2020-11-22 7:36 PM......................................Do you expect modern Germans to "own" WW2 atrocities from only 80 years ago the same ???

My impression is that, by and large, and especially the youth, they do. All Germans? No. No group of 70 odd million people who live in a democratic country could be expected to all think in the same way. And before you ask one of your usual silly questions; no, I haven't been around Germany interviewing the Germans on their reactions to their past atrocities. So my impression is gained by what I read and see in the mainstream media, and by the way in which the Germans have opened their Holocaust sites to the public and otherwise erected public memorials to those events. The Berlin Holocaust memorial was especially impressive, both for its scale and for its highly publicised, central, location.

As ww2 history and post war DDR has long been an interest for me i've spoken with a number of German people prepared to talk about it. Some i met during visits to the same sites of interest as myself and i remember noticing a large group of young school children walking around Dachau which was the first of many concentration camps i visited. At first i thought it an odd place for children their age to be walking around but before leaving i spoke with one of the site assistants in the bookshop who told me it was compulsory for German school children to visit a concentration camp before their school holidays. I found that admirable and told her so but she replied, "i'm not so sure....some take notice and listen but for many it goes over their heads as it's so far back". I could see that as i've never had interest in 1st ww history as it's so long ago and i feel not relevant to my generation. So what she told me made sense.

 

Views from German people vary greatly and if they are people you don't know you do have to be aware of the 'types' you may find yourself in conversation with. The Holocaust memorial in Berlin is pretty incredible mainly because of it's size though i'm not much for it's modernist style. However, i met a husband and wife Berliner couple who lived not far from it and they hated it. As they said it's there in their face every day the same as the Berlin wall was. We wouldn't think about that as none of us ever had to experience it.

 

Germany juggles a very difficult balancing act in keeping open it's many Gedenkstatte sites (not only concentration camps) for people like me to visit, whilst keeping a very close eye out for any far right extremists or neo-Nazis determined to shut them down. One of the huts at Dachau was set on fire by one of them. It was quickly doused but as the huts are wood it was badly damaged. The site chose to leave it that way so visitors can see what they're up against. The Berlin Holocaust memorial is under 24hr surveillance for the same reason.

 

Something i'll always remember my mother telling me as a young lad eager to know more about the war and she said, "just remember there were Germans and there were Nazis involved in the war". Took me a bit to figure it out but i've never forgot it.

[Birdbrain]

Brian Kirby - 2020-11-24 11:11 AM

 

Birdbrain - 2020-11-22 8:40 PM............................Brian world ... Other European countries with a colonial history good ... Us with a colonial history bad ... Makes me laugh, why those like Brian want to live in the past and hate his own country for that past yet in many countries today much worse atrocities happen than ever happened under British rule and the Brians of the world stay quiet ... Wonder why ... Hate on Brian

You see only what you expect, or want, to see. Please tell where I wrote anything that amounts to "Other European countries with a colonial history good ... Us with a colonial history bad". Go on, I dare you. Quote me that passage. :-D

 

I'll do what you do when I have previously asked for proof of all those things you have puked my way ... Your posts maybe dont directly say that but its the impression you give ... Whats good for you is good for me princess

[Birdbrain]

Brian Kirby - 2020-11-24 11:05 AM

 

Birdbrain - 2020-11-22 7:36 PM......................................Do you expect modern Germans to "own" WW2 atrocities from only 80 years ago the same ???

My impression is that, by and large, and especially the youth, they do. All Germans? No. No group of 70 odd million people who live in a democratic country could be expected to all think in the same way. And before you ask one of your usual silly questions; no, I haven't been around Germany interviewing the Germans on their reactions to their past atrocities. So my impression is gained by what I read and see in the mainstream media, and by the way in which the Germans have opened their Holocaust sites to the public and otherwise erected public memorials to those events. The Berlin Holocaust memorial was especially impressive, both for its scale and for its highly publicised, central, location.

 

Chuckle ... Holocaust memorials mean Germans "own" WW2 atrocities ... Give up

[Guest pelmetman]

Brian Kirby - 2020-11-24 12:11 PM

 

pelmetman - 2020-11-21 8:16 PM........................

1 Don't tell me you haven't noticed how the rabid Marxist left are rewriting OUR history to suit THEIR agenda? *-) ........

2 You LOSERS really are a desperate bunch 8-) ........

1 I hadn't, but if they are, they aren't likely to succeed are they? Ask yourself how likely it is that a "rabid Marxist left" history of Britain could become widely accepted - except, of course, among the rabid Marxist left! It would be shredded in no time by proper historians.

 

2 "Losers" is you favoured reference to remainers (and now presumably Trump! :-D). So how on earth does Brexit come into the role of the UK in the slave trade and other related events arise? This is completely irrelevant, pointless, nonsense.

 

1...........Not surprising seeing as you only see what your Loser blinkers allow you to see *-) ........

 

2..........."LOSERS" is a very apt description for those who refuse to accept Democratic results >:-) ........

[747]

Brian Kirby - 2020-11-21 6:16 PM

 

StuartO - 2020-11-21 11:15 AM

 

This slogan has been prominent recently and got me thinking about who the accusation is addressed to - is to UK whites (as part of the Black Lives Matter movement) because who else in UK should be the accused? Is someone accusing me, and of what? Otherwise how can a whole Country (of people, I assume) be accused of being guilty of something?

 

There are associated slogans such as "Your Silence is Violence" or, more specifically, "White Silence is Violence" and "All Lives don't matter until Black Lives Matter"

 

How do I come into this? Am I being accused personally? Am I getting something wrong simply because I'm not immediately joining in with this protest? Am I not allowed to listen and then decide for myself whether to support or vote for something in our democracy?

 

And for example is Lewis Hamilton right to try to coerce other F1 drivers (who are all white) to join his knee-on-the-grid BLM campaign because he feels strongly about it and believes others should? If he feels as strongly as that should we not be able to question the rationale of his personal commitment - and also his financial support (as a multimillionaire) to the BLM movement?

 

If the cause is so pressing and so important as a moral necessity, is it only white people, or at least some of us white people, who are getting it wrong?

Haven't seen the slogan, and a web search drew no hits. I find it impossible to understand life from the standpoint of people who face prejudice because of their looks.

 

But, if your point is to argue that the UK is innocent, then I think you have quite a challenge, whether it be the slaughter by Cromwell at Drogheda, our dominant involvement in the slave trade, the putting down of the Scottish clans, or any other of a number of actions we'd prefer not to talk about.

 

We are, as are all nations, a series of accidents of history, some good, some bad. We tend, I think unhealthily, only to celebrate our victories and achievements, among which are some truly liberating and life- enhancing gifts to humanity, at the expense of our less noble and at times highly destructive past acts.

 

So, we are being challenged over our past actions as imperialists and slave owners and traders by some of those who still suffer the consequences of our past actions. We are being "encouraged" to take responsibility of the impact of our actions (think Windrush, think no blacks, no Irish, no dogs!) on those who are still disadvantaged in numerous ways by our present attitudes, and by the hangover of our historic actions, and to begin to put right the present inequalities they suffer.

 

It is bound to be a "difficult" conversation, and those promoting it don't always do themselves many favours by the way they conduct it. But it is IMO time the wrongs were righted - for our mutual benefit. They are trying to put a "worm" into all our heads, to make us think about the circumstances that brought them here, and the way we still too often treat them today. They live here, but they are too often reminded that they are, despite having lived here in some cases (as families) for several hundred years, not a part of "us".

 

You make great use of the word 'we' in your post. Is that the 'Royal we'? 8-)

 

May I remind you that during the years of slavery (when the UK was active in it), my family, like many others, lived in conditions just a step up from slavery. Their lives were dictated by landowners. They had no opportunity for education, so could neither read nor write. They had no opportunity to travel outside their immediate area, so knew noting of the wider world.

 

So using the 'we' word just radically weakens your argument .... in my view.

[StuartO]

Brian Kirby - 2020-11-24 1:29 PM

 

[stuart] You seem to be taking this personally, and I don't think that is the intention. Can any of us seriously be asked to take personal responsibility for the actions of our parents, and so on back into pre-history?

 

But, if/when we stick out our chests and proudly proclaim ourselves British, it seems to me we are obliged to absorb for ourselves the "baggage" of that lineage, for good and bad.

 

Britain is a slowly evolved state whose past is inevitably chequered. The actions of Britain are the actions of the state, which means of us all, as a collective, but not, I think, of each of us as individuals.

 

As you reasonably argue, few of us has any agency over the actions of the state from day to day and, as we look back to the time of the Divine Right of Kings, the number with true agency shrinks to close to one!

 

We have a form of democracy that gives us some limited influence, but only as a part of the transient majority in an election. Some of us gain greater influence as politicians, authors, pundits, bloggers or broadcasters, but most of us remain as you describe, voiceless virtual serfs whose role in life is to pursue our chosen path in the shade.

 

But I don't think this is about you, or me, or a demand that we must all don sackcloth and ashes and scourge ourselves wandering the world crying "mea maxima culpa". I think we are being asked to look at ourselves honestly as individuals, and ask whether we have attitudes that leave us reluctant to accept "others" as readily as we accept those we recognise as our kith.

 

It can't be easy to be one of those "others" whose appearance marks them out. Good grief, we can't even unreservedly accept people from different parts of the country as of our kith, so what chance does someone with different skin colour stand!

 

Who'd be a redhead, even today, followed around by calls of "ginger"? )-:

 

But, if one were a member of a group that is widely disadvantaged, often constructively, throughout their lives, by a "native" population, it must feel almost impossible to proclaim themselves British. The evidence, for them, is that the British don't like them, don't want them, and rig all the scales against them.

 

That, in part, is the shadow of our collective history, and in part of those who still discriminate today.

 

Some say "well then, why don't they just become like us, and just merge into the background. They respond it is because our (collective) continual rejection of them makes it too bloody hard!

 

I think it is an inevitable case of reaping what we (collectively, over a long time, in various ways) have sown. I disagree with a lot of their method, but I do have great sympathy with their cause. They have, IMO, a point. Had "we" behaved differently toward "them", we should have sown differently and gained a less bitter harvest. Fixing that error is going to take a long time, and requires all of us to contribute. I think that is all they are saying.

 

This thread was aimed at accusations of persisting white privilege in our society which blames whites for getting things wrong. I rejected the implied personal culpability being ladled on me (and explained why) to illustrate the baselessness of it.

 

Perpetuating "white privilege" is an accusation that some of us in UK are still behaving oppressively towards others, i.e. whites against blacks, who are thereby disadvantaged and therefore need liberation and extra help, which the whites should feel an obligation to provide. I reject the accusation and I feel no obligation to provide any more help for depreved blacks than for deprived whites because I believe the main reason for underachievement among failing blacks is the same as the main reason for undeachievement among failing whites - which boils down to having poor aptitude often combined with poor parenting. I believe that there is plenty of equal opportunity in UK for all to thrive if they have the potential and the main handicap for those with marginal aptitude is having lousy parents and a failure of social services who leave children suffering from that poor parenting for far too long. We could make further improvements to equal opportunity but not without addressing the problems of poor parenting and inadequate social services as they fail deprived children.

 

But the BLM movement is making a crusade of pouring blame on us whites, because we have not yet tried hard enough to give them equal opportuinity - or rather as they seem to demand it, equality in all things, whether they have earned them or not, simply because they feel hard done to and choose to blame others for their lack of success. Their aspiration (and demand) is that blacks must all have nice houses and nice jobs and nice benefits too and that until that sort of equality is achieved they will continue to cry injustice. They identify as an ethnic group which is all failing as a group (patently not true, there are many real successes among UK Blacks and Browns) and somehow see oppression of their group as the sole cause.

 

Some research was published a few weeks ago (by a brown-skinned academic) which showed that blacks from deprived areas faired better on average than whites from comparable poor white areas - but a black academic who was being interviewed about these findings rejected them and was poo-poo-ing the very idea that this could be true, because it didn't fit his ideas of persisting White Privilege in our society.

 

So I resent the accusing behaviour of the BLM movement and associated slogans like "UK is not innocent" because it projects and represents a thoroughly blinkered and distinctly racist attitude. The examples of poor policing we have seen (mainly in the USA) are a sad reflection of the difficulties which US police face, seemingly with poor policing methods and training as well as a drug-ridden and armed society. The single case I've heard of which didn't involve a drug-crazed criminal who wouldn't be subdued was a tragic example of how a system of justice which allows armed defence of a home and at the same time an overwhelming armed response when a warranted entry into a home (which turned out to be the wrong home) against resistance which went catastrphically wrong after the first shot was fired. Why do US police have to resort so quickly to a shootout with overwhelming force when pausing for thought to assess and contain the situation rather than barge in shooting wildly could avoid a bloodbath?

 

But none of these killings seemed to me to be fundamentally racist events, although of course racists attitudes could have been a very significant factor in the way they turned out. In the US the police have a credible need to be able to deal with drug-crazed and powerful criminals who will not comply or submit and whom even tasers fail to control. The only relatively safe way to apply the necessary restraining force to a violent lunatic is for a trained group to go in simutaneously in a preplanned, well practised way so that overwhelming force simultaneously constrains every potentially flailing limb and flashing tooth. UK secure mental hospitals and prisons have such teams available but they are not otherwise easily and quickly mustered. And in this modern era of terrorist and simulated terroist attacks it is necessary for our UK police to shoot quickly to contain high risk, as in the London Bridge incident. I think it can be argued that racism has very little to do with any of this; we're just learning that there are no easy ways to handle such events and you simply cannot always do it with kid gloves on.

 

So I have tried to feel sympathy for the BLM movement 's aims and arguements but I find them lacking in merit. I reject any idea that the problems they highlight are valid as racist accusations agaisnt whites like me and see them more like examples of black people playing the race card en masse. And to people like Brian who always seem to be bending over backwards to be politically correct, I say Not In My Name!

[Brian Kirby]

747 - 2020-11-25 9:15 AM..............................

You make great use of the word 'we' in your post.

1 Is that the 'Royal we'? 8-)

2 May I remind you that during the years of slavery (when the UK was active in it), my family, like many others, lived in conditions just a step up from slavery. Their lives were dictated by landowners. They had no opportunity for education, so could neither read nor write. They had no opportunity to travel outside their immediate area, so knew noting of the wider world.

3 So using the 'we' word just radically weakens your argument .... in my view.

1 No, it is the collective we.

2 As is well known, and is common for the the great majority of us. The masses have never had privilege: that is for the few. I was not seeking to drive a wedge between the privileged and the under-privileged. I'm not excluding myself from "we". "We" are the British. Stuart refers above to atrocities committed by the Germans. But I'm sure he would not wish to be understood as implying that all Germans committed atrocities. (Though having just read his post immediately above, perhaps he would!) Surely we (sorry! :-)) understand the distinction?

3 As 2 above, I don't think it should. I get lambasted for writing at too great length as it is! Imagine the length were I to stop to spell out which bit of we is to apply where. As I said to Stuart, I don't think any of this is to be taken personally (including our forbears). But, where our British forbears did what we now consider wrong, and those wrongs have persisted into the present, should we not all, to whatever extent was can, seek to clean the slate, in the name of Britain? If we (sorry again! :-)) want to talk the talk, should we (sorry again1 :-D) not also walk the walk?

[Brian Kirby]

pelmetman - 2020-11-25 9:10 AM.........................2

2..........."LOSERS" is a very apt description for those who refuse to accept Democratic results >:-) ........

We've been here before, Dave. It is not a refusal to accept democracy.

 

By your definition above, if there were two of you, and you both told me you thought Brexit was best, I would have to accept that I was outnumbered and that Brexit is best.

 

But you seem to think that also means I should then change my opinion and agree that Brexit is best.

 

So yes, I have to accept I am outnumbered and, despite my strong reservations, the decision is Brexit. But that does not mean I have to change my mind to favour Brexit. That goes too far. That would be totalitarianism, under which all opposition or disagreement is prohibited.

 

Democracy works by argument between opposing ideas. You are merely objecting because I won't switch my opinion to match yours, on the basis that more people voted for Brexit than voted to remain in the EU.

 

So yes, we all have to accept the verdict of the referendum, but in doing so we do not all have to agree that Brexit was the best choice. That difference of opinion IS democracy.

 

By your logic, because the Conservatives won the last election, all other parties should have disbanded and their members should have joined the Conservatives. Has that ever happened following an election?

 

But you have never put up your arguments in favour of Brexit to try to persuade others of your case. In fact, you put forward no debatable argument at all.

 

What have you actually done to persuade others that Brexit is the best course? Absolutely nothing. All you say is we won the referendum, so you should agree with us. Agree? On what basis?

 

So, you get what you have. Division. You think you have won, and I think we have all lost - that your victory will prove hollow. We'd all better hope I'm wrong, hadn't we? Otherwise, I see trouble ahead - for everyone.

 

But this string is not about Brexit. It is peripherally about democracy. So shall we return to the subject in hand?

[Brian Kirby]

Brian Kirby - 2020-11-25 4:21 PM

 

747 - 2020-11-25 9:15 AM..............................

You make great use of the word 'we' in your post.

1 Is that the 'Royal we'? 8-)

2 May I remind you that during the years of slavery (when the UK was active in it), my family, like many others, lived in conditions just a step up from slavery. Their lives were dictated by landowners. They had no opportunity for education, so could neither read nor write. They had no opportunity to travel outside their immediate area, so knew noting of the wider world.

3 So using the 'we' word just radically weakens your argument .... in my view.

1 No, it is the collective we.

2 As is well known, and is common for the the great majority of us. The masses have never had privilege: that is for the few. I was not seeking to drive a wedge between the privileged and the under-privileged. I'm not excluding myself from "we". "We" are the British. Stuart refers above to atrocities committed by the Germans. But I'm sure he would not wish to be understood as implying that all Germans committed atrocities. (Though having just read his post immediately above, perhaps he would!) Surely we (sorry! :-)) understand the distinction?

3 As 2 above, I don't think it should. I get lambasted for writing at too great length as it is! Imagine the length were I to stop to spell out which bit of we is to apply where. As I said to Stuart, I don't think any of this is to be taken personally (including our forbears). But, where our British forbears did what we now consider wrong, and those wrongs have persisted into the present, should we not all, to whatever extent was can, seek to clean the slate, in the name of Britain? If we (sorry again! :-)) want to talk the talk, should we (sorry again1 :-D) not also walk the walk?

Apologies, it was Birdbrain who mentioned German atrocities, not Stuart. Sorry Stuart. :$

[Brian Kirby]

StuartO - 2020-11-25 10:21 AM..............................................

 

This thread was aimed at accusations of persisting white privilege in our society which blames whites for getting things wrong. I rejected the implied personal culpability being ladled on me (and explained why) to illustrate the baselessness of it. ........................

I found your post very troubling. It puts forward an argument that has no resolution. It seems to discount evidence, and to deny recognition of alternative points of view. It pits white against black, and appears to allege that any recognition of past wrongs is mere political correctness. It accuses others of base motives, without appearing to interrogate their motives for alternative cause. It rehearses the old argument that the disadvantaged are merely the victims of their own fecklessness. It cites the particular, and implies it is the general. In essence, it seems to say "because I did not personally do any of these things, I reject being associated with any of them, and I also resent the allegation of any historic associations with them."

 

It gives no quarter, but appears to demand full quarter. It is no recipe for social harmony: quite the reverse, in fact. A long exposition of my way, or the highway. It is a challenge that I sincerely hope no-one takes up.

[StuartO]

Brian Kirby - 2020-11-25 6:35 PM

 

StuartO - 2020-11-25 10:21 AM..............................................

 

This thread was aimed at accusations of persisting white privilege in our society which blames whites for getting things wrong. I rejected the implied personal culpability being ladled on me (and explained why) to illustrate the baselessness of it. ........................

I found your post very troubling. It puts forward an argument that has no resolution. It seems to discount evidence, and to deny recognition of alternative points of view. It pits white against black, and appears to allege that any recognition of past wrongs is mere political correctness. It accuses others of base motives, without appearing to interrogate their motives for alternative cause. It rehearses the old argument that the disadvantaged are merely the victims of their own fecklessness. It cites the particular, and implies it is the general. In essence, it seems to say "because I did not personally do any of these things, I reject being associated with any of them, and I also resent the allegation of any historic associations with them."

 

It gives no quarter, but appears to demand full quarter. It is no recipe for social harmony: quite the reverse, in fact. A long exposition of my way, or the highway. It is a challenge that I sincerely hope no-one takes up.

 

You can do better than casting non-specific assertions (like "you are ignorining evidence") if you want to develop this argument usefully Brian. I cited relevant evidence, I explained my reasoning and I carefully used the term "aptitude" in order to avoid pejorative terminology altogether. I certainly didn't use "fecklessness", that was your spurious interpretation - although I grant you that some low achieving whites and blacks are pretty feckless. I pointed towards improving equal opportunity if we face up to dealing with the obstacles which are the elephants in the room, so how was my post merely a message of discouragement and dispair? In what way am I demanding "full quarter"? Try again Brian, let's have a grown up discussion about this instead of you simply resorting to empty waffling and personnalised criticism.

[Brian Kirby]

Maybe Stuart, but that is not how your post reads to me.

 

I think your central point is captured in this paragraph. I'll ignore the references to the USA as your central point concerns the UK, and because your wish to draw US experience into the debate somehow further troubles me..

 

"Perpetuating "white privilege" is an accusation that some of us in UK are still behaving oppressively towards others, i.e. whites against blacks, who are thereby disadvantaged and therefore need liberation and extra help, which the whites should feel an obligation to provide. I reject the accusation and I feel no obligation to provide any more help for deprived blacks than for deprived whites because I believe the main reason for underachievement among failing blacks is the same as the main reason for underachievement among failing whites - which boils down to having poor aptitude often combined with poor parenting. I believe that there is plenty of equal opportunity in UK for all to thrive if they have the potential and the main handicap for those with marginal aptitude is having lousy parents and a failure of social services who leave children suffering from that poor parenting for far too long. We could make further improvements to equal opportunity but not without addressing the problems of poor parenting and inadequate social services as they fail deprived children."

 

So, taking that one point at a time (italics for ease of identification):

 

You say "Perpetuating "white privilege" is an accusation that some of us in UK are still behaving oppressively towards others, i.e. whites against blacks, who are thereby disadvantaged and therefore need liberation and extra help, which the whites should feel an obligation to provide." The first part (in italics) is, I think, a fair summary, albeit I have some reservations over the "white privilege" phrase, but only because I haven't seen or heard it used by black complainants. But I'm happy to accept that you have. When it gets to the second part I disagree, in that what I understand the disadvantaged blacks to be saying is not the above, but that what they want is to be treated in the same way as an equivalent white person would be treated. They aren't asking for post hoc liberation and extra help, but equal treatment. An "non-Windrush" example here of just one way in which black people experience unconscious prejudice: https://tinyurl.com/y4okl2lc Not typical, but she is a barrister, so not typical of any of us. But if it can happen to her in that setting? Not "defence counsel" you note, but "the defendant".

 

You go on to say "I reject the accusation and I feel no obligation to provide any more help for deprived blacks than for deprived whites because I believe the main reason for underachievement among failing blacks is the same as the main reason for underachievement among failing whites - which boils down to having poor aptitude often combined with poor parenting." As above, I'm not convinced that they do ask for more help, just the same help. But that requires the barriers they face compared to white people to first be removed to level the playing field. Perhaps that is the extra help you are seeing?

 

Reports of casual, petty, unthinking, discrimination are rife in newspapers, and radio and TV news programmes. Put yourself in the place of someone whose black face earns them unfavourable responses, and has done so from their adolescence or earlier, to the extent that the cool response becomes the expectation. How does/should one respond to that? Evidence? It is all around you if you read and listen. At least, it is all around me, and I have heard it at first hand numerous times. Simply put, a substantial contingent of the UK white population is racially biased. They don't shout about it in public, but they do reveal it in private, in comments and facial expressions they seem to think pass below the radar. What impact does that have on the black people they meet - or pointedly avoid meeting? Might this not feed back into the poor aptitudes and poor parenting you lament? It seems it does for the disadvantaged whites, so why not for the blacks? That feeling that they were born disadvantaged? That no matter what they do they will always be rejected because of where they live, how they sound, or how they look? That sense that everyone else was born with the proverbial silver spoon? It affects kids from the less well off council estates, in the less salubrious parts of our towns and cities. They grow up not with a feeling of entitlement, but the exact opposite. So they become bolshy and resentful, ending up in conflict with authority, which compounds their sense of alienation. Then they become parents. It may not be logic to you or me, but it is perfect logic to many of them. Then throw a black face into the mix. So yes, at the simplest level, white and black alike all need the playing field levelled out, but the advantage of the white population is that they look like "us", while the disadvantage for the black population is that they don't.

 

Then you say: "I believe that there is plenty of equal opportunity in UK for all to thrive if they have the potential and the main handicap for those with marginal aptitude is having lousy parents and a failure of social services who leave children suffering from that poor parenting for far too long. We could make further improvements to equal opportunity but not without addressing the problems of poor parenting and inadequate social services as they fail deprived children."

 

Again, taking that one piece at a time, "I believe that there is plenty of equal opportunity in UK for all to thrive if they have the potential" A belief. I apologise for pointing out the obvious, but many people believe many things. A lady who is the wife of my wife's first cousin is a Zoroastrian. I'm unconvinced by her beliefs!! :-) As with her, the facts do not seem to support your beliefs. So, smaller steps! "there is plenty of equal opportunity in UK". In total, maybe, but it is not evenly spread. "for all to thrive if they have the potential" Possibly, if all had access to it and all had the potential. But, sadly, they do not necessarily have either, or the necessary both. I'm sorry, but to me your central belief is a Panglossian assembly of partial, conditional, truths. (You did ask :-D) In the best of all possible worlds etc.

 

Specifically referring to the disadvantaged black population, yes to everything you say regarding poor parenting and inadequacies in social services. But, there is still that little issue of the background level of racial prejudice, and the impact that has on on the black population from cradle to grave. If you are disadvantaged white, given encouragement and a bit of help, you can raise your game and become one of "the elite". Not many do, but some succeed. If you are disadvantaged black, you first have to overcome that additional disadvantage before you start on the others, and if you do succeed, you will still be black, and liable to be sought, as you go to enter court, on the list of defendants.

 

I just wish it were possible to have this discussion in terms less redolent of South Africa under Apartheid. :-)

[Birdbrain]

Brian Kirby - 2020-11-26 6:07 PM

 

Maybe Stuart, but that is not how your post reads to me.

 

I think your central point is captured in this paragraph. I'll ignore the references to the USA as your central point concerns the UK, and because your wish to draw US experience into the debate somehow further troubles me..

 

"Perpetuating "white privilege" is an accusation that some of us in UK are still behaving oppressively towards others, i.e. whites against blacks, who are thereby disadvantaged and therefore need liberation and extra help, which the whites should feel an obligation to provide. I reject the accusation and I feel no obligation to provide any more help for deprived blacks than for deprived whites because I believe the main reason for underachievement among failing blacks is the same as the main reason for underachievement among failing whites - which boils down to having poor aptitude often combined with poor parenting. I believe that there is plenty of equal opportunity in UK for all to thrive if they have the potential and the main handicap for those with marginal aptitude is having lousy parents and a failure of social services who leave children suffering from that poor parenting for far too long. We could make further improvements to equal opportunity but not without addressing the problems of poor parenting and inadequate social services as they fail deprived children."

 

So, taking that one point at a time (italics for ease of identification):

 

You say "Perpetuating "white privilege" is an accusation that some of us in UK are still behaving oppressively towards others, i.e. whites against blacks, who are thereby disadvantaged and therefore need liberation and extra help, which the whites should feel an obligation to provide." The first part (in italics) is, I think, a fair summary, albeit I have some reservations over the "white privilege" phrase, but only because I haven't seen or heard it used by black complainants. But I'm happy to accept that you have. When it gets to the second part I disagree, in that what I understand the disadvantaged blacks to be saying is not the above, but that what they want is to be treated in the same way as an equivalent white person would be treated. They aren't asking for post hoc liberation and extra help, but equal treatment. An "non-Windrush" example here of just one way in which black people experience unconscious prejudice: https://tinyurl.com/y4okl2lc Not typical, but she is a barrister, so not typical of any of us. But if it can happen to her in that setting? Not "defence counsel" you note, but "the defendant".

 

You go on to say "I reject the accusation and I feel no obligation to provide any more help for deprived blacks than for deprived whites because I believe the main reason for underachievement among failing blacks is the same as the main reason for underachievement among failing whites - which boils down to having poor aptitude often combined with poor parenting." As above, I'm not convinced that they do ask for more help, just the same help. But that requires the barriers they face compared to white people to first be removed to level the playing field. Perhaps that is the extra help you are seeing?

 

Reports of casual, petty, unthinking, discrimination are rife in newspapers, and radio and TV news programmes. Put yourself in the place of someone whose black face earns them unfavourable responses, and has done so from their adolescence or earlier, to the extent that the cool response becomes the expectation. How does/should one respond to that? Evidence? It is all around you if you read and listen. At least, it is all around me, and I have heard it at first hand numerous times. Simply put, a substantial contingent of the UK white population is racially biased. They don't shout about it in public, but they do reveal it in private, in comments and facial expressions they seem to think pass below the radar. What impact does that have on the black people they meet - or pointedly avoid meeting? Might this not feed back into the poor aptitudes and poor parenting you lament? It seems it does for the disadvantaged whites, so why not for the blacks? That feeling that they were born disadvantaged? That no matter what they do they will always be rejected because of where they live, how they sound, or how they look? That sense that everyone else was born with the proverbial silver spoon? It affects kids from the less well off council estates, in the less salubrious parts of our towns and cities. They grow up not with a feeling of entitlement, but the exact opposite. So they become bolshy and resentful, ending up in conflict with authority, which compounds their sense of alienation. Then they become parents. It may not be logic to you or me, but it is perfect logic to many of them. Then throw a black face into the mix. So yes, at the simplest level, white and black alike all need the playing field levelled out, but the advantage of the white population is that they look like "us", while the disadvantage for the black population is that they don't.

 

Then you say: "I believe that there is plenty of equal opportunity in UK for all to thrive if they have the potential and the main handicap for those with marginal aptitude is having lousy parents and a failure of social services who leave children suffering from that poor parenting for far too long. We could make further improvements to equal opportunity but not without addressing the problems of poor parenting and inadequate social services as they fail deprived children."

 

Again, taking that one piece at a time, "I believe that there is plenty of equal opportunity in UK for all to thrive if they have the potential" A belief. I apologise for pointing out the obvious, but many people believe many things. A lady who is the wife of my wife's first cousin is a Zoroastrian. I'm unconvinced by her beliefs!! :-) As with her, the facts do not seem to support your beliefs. So, smaller steps! "there is plenty of equal opportunity in UK". In total, maybe, but it is not evenly spread. "for all to thrive if they have the potential" Possibly, if all had access to it and all had the potential. But, sadly, they do not necessarily have either, or the necessary both. I'm sorry, but to me your central belief is a Panglossian assembly of partial, conditional, truths. (You did ask :-D) In the best of all possible worlds etc.

 

Specifically referring to the disadvantaged black population, yes to everything you say regarding poor parenting and inadequacies in social services. But, there is still that little issue of the background level of racial prejudice, and the impact that has on on the black population from cradle to grave. If you are disadvantaged white, given encouragement and a bit of help, you can raise your game and become one of "the elite". Not many do, but some succeed. If you are disadvantaged black, you first have to overcome that additional disadvantage before you start on the others, and if you do succeed, you will still be black, and liable to be sought, as you go to enter court, on the list of defendants.

 

I just wish it were possible to have this discussion in terms less redolent of South Africa under Apartheid. :-)

 

Jesus ... The "you will still be black" guff comes with what evidence exactly ??? ... I know black guys I grew up with that have done well, I know black guys that I grew up with who havent done well but their skin colour makes no difference at all to what they have achieved in life ... Stop making a sodding problem where there aint a problem ... Some folk do well, some dont but skin colour has feck all to do with it ... I have a feeling that like Barry and his Grindr you have zero experience with that you claim to know much about

[Guest pelmetman]

Brian Kirby - 2020-11-25 4:21 PM

 

747 - 2020-11-25 9:15 AM..............................

You make great use of the word 'we' in your post.

1 Is that the 'Royal we'? 8-)

2 May I remind you that during the years of slavery (when the UK was active in it), my family, like many others, lived in conditions just a step up from slavery. Their lives were dictated by landowners. They had no opportunity for education, so could neither read nor write. They had no opportunity to travel outside their immediate area, so knew noting of the wider world.

3 So using the 'we' word just radically weakens your argument .... in my view.

1 No, it is the collective we.

 

You speak for your self 8-) ........

 

I'll never wee/piss in the LOSER pot >:-) .........

[StuartO]

Brian Kirby - 2020-11-26 6:07 PM

 

Maybe Stuart, but that is not how your post reads to me.....I disagree, in that what I understand the disadvantaged blacks to be saying is not the above, but that what they want is to be treated in the same way as an equivalent white person would be treated. They aren't asking for post hoc liberation and extra help, but equal treatment. An "non-Windrush" example here of just one way in which black people experience unconscious prejudice: https://tinyurl.com/y4okl2lc Not typical, but she is a barrister, so not typical of any of us. But if it can happen to her in that setting? Not "defence counsel" you note, but "the defendant".

 

I remember that story; the young, attractive black barrister took objectiion to being taken for a young defendant. Barristers wear no robes and wigs in lower courts but they certainly used to wear morning suits (dark jacket and pin stripe trousers) so the mistake could have been entirely innocent of racial prejudice if this young female wasn't wearing conventional female barrister dress. Just as I was assumed not to be a doctor when I was newly graduated wandering about in a white coat because I looked too young. Whilst I took it all on the chin and without assuming any intended offence this chippy barrister chose not to adjust her presentation so as to look more like a barrister but to strut her stuff about the episodes and call them racist. I wasn't impressed by her stroppy attitude at all. I even suspected it might be purely attention seeking in way of self-publication. I felt she needed to grow up and be more willing to resist the temptation to jump down other people's throats. It's becoming increasingly common for people of colour to play the race card and the emergence of the BLM movement encourages this sort of behaviour.

 

.... I'm not convinced that they [the Blacks] do ask for more help, just the same help. But that requires the barriers they face compared to white people to first be removed to level the playing field. Perhaps that is the extra help you are seeing?

 

No, the extra help (or intervention of some sort) I mentioned was in connection with poor parenting and ineffectual social services suppoort for deprived children and it is needed for deprived children of all ethnic and racial sorts.

 

......Evidence? It is all around you if you read and listen.

 

Or rather it's all around for people who have become touchy about such things or see it as an opportunity to have a moan to try to gain advantage. In recent years we've heard more and more of it, thanks to liberals wanting to force feed us with it all. I don't see that trend as at all helpful.

 

On the other hand we are, in 2020, seeing far more black people in TV adverts and programmes than hitherto and I see that as a potentially useful development. More and more example of blacks presented as successful and being "normal" in society could have a subtle but beneficial effect, The calibre of black people appearing on TV (eg as presenters) is improving too.

 

Then you say: "I believe that there is plenty of equal opportunity in UK for all to thrive if they have the potential and the main handicap for those with marginal aptitude is having lousy parents and a failure of social services who leave children suffering from that poor parenting for far too long. We could make further improvements to equal opportunity but not without addressing the problems of poor parenting and inadequate social services as they fail deprived children."

 

Again, taking that one piece at a time, "I believe that there is plenty of equal opportunity in UK for all to thrive if they have the potential" A belief. I apologise for pointing out the obvious, but many people believe many things. A lady who is the wife of my wife's first cousin is a Zoroastrian. I'm unconvinced by her beliefs!!

 

I believe as in I have a considered opinion about the issue, not as a matter of faith! Why on earth are you assuming that? Nor am I saying that the areas for improvement which I have pointed to are any sort of magic bullet. Taxation and Poverty will always be with us and in our multicultural society some of the poor are going to be blacks.

 

.... I'm sorry, but to me your central belief is a Panglossian assembly of partial, conditional, truths. (You did ask :-D) In the best of all possible worlds etc. But, there is still that little issue of the background level of racial prejudice, and the impact that has on on the black population from cradle to grave. If you are disadvantaged white, given encouragement and a bit of help, you can raise your game and become one of "the elite". Not many do, but some succeed. If you are disadvantaged black, you first have to overcome that additional disadvantage before you start on the others, and if you do succeed, you will still be black, and liable to be sought, as you go to enter court, on the list of defendants. I just wish it were possible to have this discussion in terms less redolent of South Africa under Apartheid.

 

Now you're just talking fanciful b*****ks again. Why do you ignore the evidence of the study I cited which found that blacks from poor areas do better in life than whites from poor areas? Your just peddling your fixed idea that White Privilege exists and persists because some black and brown people keep telling you it does. I'm not saying that racist behaviour doesn't happen but I am saying that we need to be realistic about dealing with it with an open mind about who's dishing it out, both whites and non-whites.

[Brian Kirby]

StuartO - 2020-11-27 10:18 AM...................... Why do you ignore the evidence of the study I cited which found that blacks from poor areas do better in life than whites from poor areas? Your just peddling your fixed idea that White Privilege exists and persists because some black and brown people keep telling you it does. I'm not saying that racist behaviour doesn't happen but I am saying that we need to be realistic about dealing with it with an open mind about who's dishing it out, both whites and non-whites.

I did not ignore what you said, but you didn't link to, or identify, that report. I did find this, https://tinyurl.com/yxvzandp which refers to a report by the Social market Foundation, which records educational performance by ethnic group, which basically says that the Chinse, Indian, Bangladeshi and Black African kids do better than white Brits, and that Black Caribbean kids do worst of all.

 

My point, however, is that something plainly goes wrong for those Black Caribbean kids (who just get indiscriminately swept into the BAME, or black heading), who coincidentally seem to be the main ethnic group protesting. And yes, I have known a few, and heard their stories of casual, unthinking, racism over the past 50 or so years.

 

Whatever the underlying causes, that is a shaming waste of talent, and that needs fixing, and that, in turn, first needs a willingness to listen rather than reject out of hand. Neither am I peddling the idea that "white privilege" exists: that was your phrase from the outset and I expressed my reservations on it earlier. I am however adequately convinced that racial prejudice exists, and presents an added challenge for those against whom it is used. I hear your rejection of the argument for listening with sadness. However, I see no point in further discussion, as your mind is clearly set against this. In due course, I hope, we shall see where this goes. I just hope that repeats of past social disorder are not required before common sense prevails.

[StuartO]

Brian Kirby - 2020-11-27 7:18 PM I did not ignore what you said, but you didn't link to, or identify, that report. I did find this, https://tinyurl.com/yxvzandp which refers to a report by the Social market Foundation, which records educational performance by ethnic group, which basically says that the Chinse, Indian, Bangladeshi and Black African kids do better than white Brits, and that Black Caribbean kids do worst of all.

 

My point, however, is that something plainly goes wrong for those Black Caribbean kids (who just get indiscriminately swept into the BAME, or black heading), who coincidentally seem to be the main ethnic group protesting. And yes, I have known a few, and heard their stories of casual, unthinking, racism over the past 50 or so years.

 

Whatever the underlying causes, that is a shaming waste of talent, and that needs fixing, and that, in turn, first needs a willingness to listen rather than reject out of hand. Neither am I peddling the idea that "white privilege" exists: that was your phrase from the outset and I expressed my reservations on it earlier. I am however adequately convinced that racial prejudice exists, and presents an added challenge for those against whom it is used. I hear your rejection of the argument for listening with sadness. However, I see no point in further discussion, as your mind is clearly set against this. In due course, I hope, we shall see where this goes. I just hope that repeats of past social disorder are not required before common sense prevails.

 

Where on earth did you get the idea that I am closed to the idea of listening? If your way of dismissing ideas relies on accusinging me falsely of things like that (and interpreting my analysis of ideas as a belief as in faith) we're not going to get very far. I accept that there is racial prejudice and expression of racist ideas among some whites - but I'm arguing that there is also far too much in the way of racist behaviour by those of colour, both anti-white sentiments and expressions and playing of the race card.

 

The study you are citing seems to be merely an observation that different racial groups have different potentials in education (which should be unsurprising) whereas the one I mentioned was a specific outcome study of groups from comparable poor or deprived areas. It was the subject of an interview on the BBC in which the brown-skinned academic who'd done the study was explaining the result (that black kids had done better then whites) but a black academic commentator was insisting that this result made no sense because "white privilege" existed in our society, so it couldn't be true. Clealry there is failure to progress in all depreived groups but it was a revelation that (this sample of) blacks were doing better than this sample of comparable deprived whites.

 

I agree that there is wastage of talent going on and maybe that's especially true among blacks for some reason (such as whatever "sweeps them indiscriminately" into BAME as you put it) but some people are bound (perhaps doomed) to waste equal opportunity so we can never hope to make silk purses out of them all. The challenge we should set ourselves is to ensure that there is genuine equal opportunity for all by addressing all the opportunity factors, including the cultural ones such as the temptations of gangs, drugs etc as well as educational opportunity.

 

The difference between us is perhaps that you think of the people who are failures in our society as well as having non-white skins as victims of oppression (especially historically by whites) whereas I see at least some of them (both the white and nonwhite failures in our society) as architects of their own downfall, having made bad choices, wasted their opportunities and chosen criminal ways. I'm interested in improving equal opportunity for all rather than giving non-white losers excuses and apologies because they are losers because they are historically oppressed.

[Brian Kirby]

StuartO - 2020-11-28 10:51 AM................................

1 Where on earth did you get the idea that I am closed to the idea of listening? If your way of dismissing ideas relies on accusinging me falsely of things like that (and interpreting my analysis of ideas as a belief as in faith) we're not going to get very far. I accept that there is racial prejudice and expression of racist ideas among some whites - but I'm arguing that there is also far too much in the way of racist behaviour by those of colour, both anti-white sentiments and expressions and playing of the race card.

 

2 The study you are citing seems to be merely an observation that different racial groups have different potentials in education (which should be unsurprising) whereas the one I mentioned was a specific outcome study of groups from comparable poor or deprived areas. ............................................

 

3 I agree that there is wastage of talent going on and maybe that's especially true among blacks for some reason (such as whatever "sweeps them indiscriminately" into BAME as you put it) but some people are bound (perhaps doomed) to waste equal opportunity so we can never hope to make silk purses out of them all. The challenge we should set ourselves is to ensure that there is genuine equal opportunity for all by addressing all the opportunity factors, including the cultural ones such as the temptations of gangs, drugs etc as well as educational opportunity.

 

4 The difference between us is perhaps that you think of the people who are failures in our society as well as having non-white skins as victims of oppression (especially historically by whites) whereas I see at least some of them (both the white and nonwhite failures in our society) as architects of their own downfall, having made bad choices, wasted their opportunities and chosen criminal ways. I'm interested in improving equal opportunity for all rather than giving non-white losers excuses and apologies because they are losers because they are historically oppressed.

 

The problem is that neither of us knows the other, we can't see each other, so can only judge each other on the basis of what we write and how we phrase it, and that we do that through a veil of our own biases. Our personal cognitive dissonances, if you will.

 

We don't agree on a number of things, so see each other through an imagined image of the other which is inevitably coloured by those dissonances.

 

So, in reply to 1 above, I offer this, from you, on 25 November 2020 at 10:21 AM:

 

"But the BLM movement is making a crusade of pouring blame on us whites, because we have not yet tried hard enough to give them equal opportuinity - or rather as they seem to demand it, equality in all things, whether they have earned them or not, simply because they feel hard done to and choose to blame others for their lack of success. Their aspiration (and demand) is that blacks must all have nice houses and nice jobs and nice benefits too and that until that sort of equality is achieved they will continue to cry injustice. They identify as an ethnic group which is all failing as a group (patently not true, there are many real successes among UK Blacks and Browns) and somehow see oppression of their group as the sole cause."

 

This is plainly, to me - in the emphasis you have chosen and in the exasperation you express - an instinctive personal reaction. Some of it I echo - for example "that there are many successes among blacks and browns" - but other passages are plainly exaggerated: for example that "blacks must all have nice houses and nice jobs and nice benefits too" which I have never heard suggested by any. So my mind instinctively questions the motivation underlying the exaggeration. It is a form of ad hominem. The creation of a mountain from a molehill. So, a question: why do that? Why doth he "protest too much"? An alarm bell rings. A whole sentiment is thereby to be dismissed. I see a writer hiding behind his "tin ear" in preference to challenging it and interrogating the argument. That, since you asked, is where I gain the impression that you are "closed to the idea of listening". I can't help that, because were I to just say "oh, but I know what he means" I should then be overlaying your unconscious dissonances with mine - to end up where? Potentially in a world neither of us recognises? So I express my reaction to what I read so that you can respond, though not, I hope, with indignant rebuttal. Failed there, didn't I?

 

2 That different racial groups have different educational potential? Given the equivalent education and home circumstances, is there any evidence for that? Are some races inherently educationally superior to others? Really?

 

3 "BAME" is a catch all into which radically different cultural and ethnic groups all get swept. So is "black", which is the de rigeur term for anyone whose ancestry is less than pure "caucasian", no matter their actual skin tone. Those most prominent among the protests seem to me mainly of Afro Caribbean descent. Their disadvantages seem to me more cultural than ethnic, which is a slight puzzle, as most seem (from contemporary pictures of their disembarkation from the Empire Windrush at Tilbury - see below) to have arrived dockside in their Sunday Best - so hardly a gesture of defiant difference! So, something seems to have changed for them over the past 70 odd years. I think that something should be examined, and that they (but not limited to the Windrush migrants) should be given a fair hearing as to their experiences and grievances. We just might learn something useful about ourselves, and they about themselves. Truth and reconciliation? Where is the harm?

 

4 No, but I am persuaded that, in the same way that women find they meet undue prejudice in many fields, so do people from various ethnic groups. Not the glass ceiling, but perhaps the black ceiling. This merely wastes talent, so, as in 3 above, I think the underlying reason for the disaffection deserves investigation and understanding, and above all, rectification. Of course some waste their chances, but most who do know that, and some even admit it. But given the scale of the outcry, it seems wholly improbable that a majority of those protesting fall into that category. So, instead of blaming them as wastrels, perhaps we should hear them out and then think.

[Brian Kirby]

Here is the "Sunday Best" picture I omitted from the above. From all the pics I have seen of the Windrush Passengers it seems to encapsulate as well as any those arriving at Tilbury - though there were a few that were better, but I couldn't download.

[StuartO]

Brian, perhaps you see me as someone antipathetic to your own feelings about these matters and unsympathetic to the feelings of modern-day UK blacks (as you have defined them) who are actively resentful of the oppression their ancesters have experienced, echoes and reminders of which they feel they continue to experience at the hands of some whites, sometimes impacting on their wellbeing and prospects. You feel there at least some truth in these resentful perceptions and you feel some obligation to help them to feel less burdoned about all this, not least because you have white skin and you feel the blacks who are complaining about continuing offensiveness from whites at least have a point. Even though you don't think you behave badly towards any blacks personally, you feel an obligation to be helpful because you are white and they regard whites accusingly.

 

I on the other hand I don't feel any obligation just because I'm a white skinned UK citizen to help my fellow black-skinned UK citizens because they blame whites for their ills. Some of them are behaving in what I see as a grasping and unreasonably accusing way towards all or most UK whites, with whom they feel entitled to bundle me simply because I'm white, so they sacrifice my sympathy and willingness to help. The BLM movement, because of the way it is campaigning so accusingly, has that effect on me. I am resentful that they demand equality (as distinct from equal opportunity) for blacks, i.e.an equal share of possessions. I think all UK citizens should have equal opportunity but that whether they actually achieve anything in life by using their opportunities is down to them.

 

That does not mean that I am blind to the failures of equal opportunity in our society still and nor do I shirk from my obligation as someone who pays taxes, to pay enough, within reason, to make further improvements to genuine equal opportunity for all in UK. Likewise I'm happy to contribute towards foreign aid, again within reason. But I'm also content for black criminals to be treated as criminals, just the same as white criminals, whether or not there are disproportionately more of them.

[Brian Kirby]

Yes Stuart, I get all that, and disagree with your reading of my response to their complaints, and to your speculation as to the reasons I do so. So all we are left with is that for whatever reasons we see things differently, and respond differently. 'Nuff said?

[Guest pelmetman]

Well done Doc ;-) ......

 

It looks like Blah Blah Brian has met his match :D .........