Southport Stabbings

[Cambon]

In typical uk media tradition, blame has to be sought. 
However, these immigration issues have been constantly bubbling under the surface for over half a century. Sometimes it boils over. I remember it boiling over back in the ‘70s, but it happened before that. Whether it was black, Asian, Irish, European, it has been there. It is there. The current outburst will last a week or two, and then calm down. 

[Chinahand]

I'm quite behind in this thread and rather busy at work so maybe this has already been raised but my understanding is that there is more nuance in this than "they hate brown people". Much as that will shock HeliX. 

My understanding is that people are resentful of poor people. Poor people with a different culture who illegally arrive here and get given scarce resources while locals are told they have to do without. 

There is then even more anger at, mainly but not entirely false claims, that these people also do not respect local girls with claims of sexual assault. 

These are issues of poverty and culture not race. Marxism not fascism. 

And of course we can go working people are being manipulated so that their class camaraderie is twisted into racial hatred. 

And definitely some racists are both involved and manipulating the situation but this is far more complicated than just racism and personally I think issues of poverty and culture are more important than issues of race. 

About the same number of Hong Kong Chinese have arrived as boat people but they can afford their own houses don't get concentrated into cheap hotels in poor areas and their Confucianism is a close cultural fit. 

In my view that is the reason mobs aren't baying against people with yellow skins. 

 

 

[HeliX]

43 minutes ago, Chinahand said:

I'm quite behind in this thread and rather busy at work so maybe this has already been raised but my understanding is that there is more nuance in this than "they hate brown people". Much as that will shock HeliX. 

My understanding is that people are resentful of poor people. Poor people with a different culture who illegally arrive here and get given scarce resources while locals are told they have to do without. 

There is then even more anger at, mainly but not entirely false claims, that these people also do not respect local girls with claims of sexual assault. 

These are issues of poverty and culture not race. Marxism not fascism. 

And of course we can go working people are being manipulated so that their class camaraderie is twisted into racial hatred. 

And definitely some racists are both involved and manipulating the situation but this is far more complicated than just racism and personally I think issues of poverty and culture are more important than issues of race. 

About the same number of Hong Kong Chinese have arrived as boat people but they can afford their own houses don't get concentrated into cheap hotels in poor areas and their Confucianism is a close cultural fit. 

In my view that is the reason mobs aren't baying against people with yellow skins. 

 

 

There are lots of poor white people, are they being targeted? There are plenty of non-poor brown people, are they being excluded from being targeted?

[Chinahand]

If large numbers of poor white people turn up in an area then the local population don't like it. 

Ask an Irish traveller. 

Edited August 6 by Chinahand

[HeliX]

6 minutes ago, Chinahand said:

If large numbers of poor white people turn up in an area then the local population don't like it. 

As an Irish traveller. 

That's not what I asked. The defining attribute of people who are being attacked in the streets is that they're brown. I don't think anyone can deny that?

[The Voice of Reason]

6 minutes ago, HeliX said:

That's not what I asked. The defining attribute of people who are being attacked in the streets is that they're brown. I don't think anyone can deny that?

From what I’ve seen on the TV the most attacked group in the streets are police officers. 
I would hazard a guess that most of those are non brown.

Then you’ve got the racists throwing stuff at the anti racists ( not much travel in the opposite direction). Again the majority of the anti racist protestors appear also not to be brown.

And there’s a lot of violence towards property. Shops etc being looted.

 

Just my observations from the reports I have seen and read.

 

[P.K.]

25 minutes ago, The Voice of Reason said:

From what I’ve seen on the TV the most attacked group in the streets are police officers. 
I would hazard a guess that most of those are non brown.

Then you’ve got the racists throwing stuff at the anti racists ( not much travel in the opposite direction). Again the majority of the anti racist protestors appear also not to be brown.

And there’s a lot of violence towards property. Shops etc being looted.

Just my observations from the reports I have seen and read.

@The Voice of Reason

Dear me, talk about being "economical" with the truth...

A mob of ultra-right racists lay siege to accomodation housing asylum seekers and even try to burn the terrified occupants out and all you can see is the far too thin line of coppers coming under attack for trying to prevent something worse happening.

You should hang your head in shame...

[John Wright]

2 hours ago, Chinahand said:

I'm quite behind in this thread and rather busy at work so maybe this has already been raised but my understanding is that there is more nuance in this than "they hate brown people". Much as that will shock HeliX. 

My understanding is that people are resentful of poor people. Poor people with a different culture who illegally arrive here and get given scarce resources while locals are told they have to do without. 

There is then even more anger at, mainly but not entirely false claims, that these people also do not respect local girls with claims of sexual assault. 

These are issues of poverty and culture not race. Marxism not fascism. 

And of course we can go working people are being manipulated so that their class camaraderie is twisted into racial hatred. 

And definitely some racists are both involved and manipulating the situation but this is far more complicated than just racism and personally I think issues of poverty and culture are more important than issues of race. 

About the same number of Hong Kong Chinese have arrived as boat people but they can afford their own houses don't get concentrated into cheap hotels in poor areas and their Confucianism is a close cultural fit. 

In my view that is the reason mobs aren't baying against people with yellow skins. 

 

 

I can’t disagree with that analysis, much. And, historically, there have been attacks on white poor. Jews in the east end in the 1930’s ( as well as the progroms in York and Lincoln much, much,  earlier ). The Irish from the time of canal building through potato famine to the 1950’s. Catholics from the 1530’s.. There are lots of other examples.

They all share, generally, poverty, but, in my opinion, more importantly, being outsiders. It’s the same with race, religion, sexuality, gender, disabled, mentally ill, homeless. It’s fear of the unknown and different.

And it’s used by rulers, politicians, economic elites, to scapegoat, divert attention, by giving the native poor another group to fear, because they’re going to take jobs, accommodation, health services.

And the focus of scapegoating can change. Thatcher scapegoated young ( predominantly white ) young single mothers on benefits. They get demonised, become “folk devils”. That’s done by myths, falsehoods, fake news.

Im not sure we should be thinking that the end is nigh, civil war may ensue. Yes, it’s not good, but no worse than happens in many other countries. And it’s cyclical. It comes and goes.

My view is that governments have to stop the demonisation, the hostile regime for immigrants, scapegoating and demonising, and come up with real solutions.

Domestically they’ve got to provide much more housing, social and low cost. Improve availability of GP medical services, hospitals, schools.

On refugees, and the numbers are low by comparison to gross or net immigration, they’ve got to plug into joint operations and agreements with EU ( preferably with the EU rather than bilateral country by country agreements ). They’re facing the same issue but much larger scale. We’ve locked UK out of return agreements and information exchanges.

EU countries can’t agree, it’ll take time. But aid at increased levels to improve conditions in camps in the Middle East and North Africa is a start. Processing centres there. Safe routes. 

Then if people arrive in Europe they’ve got to be documented biometrically at first contact, eyes, prints, things like that, and distributed by reference to country population size or wealth. Then, if they turn up somewhere they shouldn’t, they can be returned to where they’ve been allocated.

If they’ve turned up on our shores without being documented they could then be sent to a Turkish or North African processing centre, and have to start again.

Freedom of movement worked reasonably well in the EU until the Central Europeans and, later the  Balkans joined the EU. Then there was the opportunity to phase in freedom of movement, Germany and others did, UK didn’t. UK opened the doors.

Thats where the pressures started. But in the view of some, they were white ( although the far right had unpleasant views about Poles, Baltics, Slavs and south Slavs ). 

The damage really came with the Brexit campaign, where immigration became an issue, but the leave  posters showed coloured people queuing to get in, not white Europeans.

Perhaps some of it came before, UK always had the ability to control non EU immigration, and with EU free movement the ability to limit relocation to temporary presence to look for work, then either find work or go home. UK didn’t, and there was certainly resentment and social unrest in East Anglia, in particular.

Of course, limiting EU freedom of movement, taken with economic downturn and COVID, resulted in an upsurge of legitimate non EU migrants from further afield, to replace the EU workers who went back home, an upswing in students, nurses, carers, fruit pickers, from countries with non white caucasian populations. An unintended consequence.

[The Voice of Reason]

3 minutes ago, P.K. said:

@The Voice of Reason

Dear me, talk about being "economical" with the truth...

A mob of ultra-right racists lay siege to accomodation housing asylum seekers and even try to burn the terrified occupants out and all you can see is the far too thin line of coppers coming under attack for trying to prevent something worse happening.

You should hang your head in shame...

Yes I saw that too. I was just giving my observations. I don’t know what you are trying to suggest here, but I imagine it’s not very nice and far wide of the truth.

[manxman1980]

@Chinahand you are right that austerity economics have created a lot of people who are reliant on food banks etc.  

You are right to point out the Immigration from Hong Kong.  

What you have missed is the Welcoming arms that greeted Ukrainians but is somehow missing for people from other war torn countries. 

Another factor is that both the Hong Kong Chinese and Ukrainians had specific safe routes set up.  This is something which many other asylum seekers have been denied.

You are right that it's not one thing but there has been a constant flow of things in the media particularly the Daily Mail, and also commentary from Farage, Tommy ten names, and others throughout Europe which has created the conditions for what we are seeing. 

[TheTeapot]

The last kid still in the hospital has gone home, so at least the news isn't all complete shit.

[P.K.]

31 minutes ago, The Voice of Reason said:

Yes I saw that too. I was just giving my observations. I don’t know what you are trying to suggest here, but I imagine it’s not very nice and far wide of the truth.

I'm not "trying to suggest" anything. Instead I'm stating, like a lot of folks have seen on this thread, that you are deliberately doing what you can to deny it's racism stoked up by the likes of Farage. Here is HeliX quite rightly pointing out to you that Farage's infamous "Breaking Point" poster is designed to stir up racism against desperate brown people fleeing a war zone:

20 hours ago, HeliX said:

But that poster IS Farage telling people the reason they have a shit job is brown people.

and your response:

20 hours ago, The Voice of Reason said:

Well that’s down to interpretation ( and it’s all in the eye of the beholder).  Just out of curiosity,  would you think any different if the poster featured some white people?

Anyway I think we both agree that poster is very distasteful.

It doesn’t though  negate the argument for voting leave to regain sovereignty for the UK. It has nothing to do with it. If I had had a vote it would not have influenced me at all.

Your "that's down to interpretation" is absolutely laughable and definitely puts you into this category:

18 hours ago, The Voice of Reason said:

....some knuckle dragging Neanderthal racist. 

Because your posts in this thread seem to be about trying to excuse the inexcusable.

"that's down to interpretation" Yeah, right...

1 hour ago, The Voice of Reason said:

From what I’ve seen on the TV the most attacked group in the streets are police officers. 
I would hazard a guess that most of those are non brown.

Then you’ve got the racists throwing stuff at the anti racists ( not much travel in the opposite direction). Again the majority of the anti racist protestors appear also not to be brown.

Just my observations from the reports I have seen and read.

QED

[P.K.]

2 hours ago, Chinahand said:

I'm quite behind in this thread and rather busy at work so maybe this has already been raised but my understanding is that there is more nuance in this than "they hate brown people". Much as that will shock HeliX. 

My understanding is that people are resentful of poor people. Poor people with a different culture who illegally arrive here and get given scarce resources while locals are told they have to do without. 

There is then even more anger at, mainly but not entirely false claims, that these people also do not respect local girls with claims of sexual assault. 

These are issues of poverty and culture not race. Marxism not fascism. 

And of course we can go working people are being manipulated so that their class camaraderie is twisted into racial hatred. 

And definitely some racists are both involved and manipulating the situation but this is far more complicated than just racism and personally I think issues of poverty and culture are more important than issues of race. 

About the same number of Hong Kong Chinese have arrived as boat people but they can afford their own houses don't get concentrated into cheap hotels in poor areas and their Confucianism is a close cultural fit. 

In my view that is the reason mobs aren't baying against people with yellow skins. 

There is some nuance but not a lot.

The mob are not resentful about Hong Kong Chinese coming here because like the Ukrainians they have a legal safe pathway and so they barely get a mention in the UK right wing press in thrall to the agenda of the owner. Which is to say pretty much all of it. It was also a useful tool for unscrupulous politicians to be able to say that "there are safe routes for asylum seekers to get into the UK" and thus brand those arriving in boats as "illegal" when it's obvious to the thickest tattooed wanker that they don't get arrested on arrival.

The right wing also frequently quote "Asian grooming gangs" as a tool to stir up racist feelings towards that section of the community. Naturally the white grooming gangs don't get a mention simply because they don't sell the same amount of copy. Plus there is no getting away from the fact that Rochdale's Finest really let the community down by not taking the victims seriously enough...

It's also easy to compare that those who arrive in boats are put up in "hotels", which gives a totally wrong view of easy living, when there are an increasing number of homeless living on our streets.

Our politicians have really let themselves down though. In the brext referendum some 9m folks voted Leave due to issues with "immigration". That's a lot of folks with issues that have been ignored since 2016. During which time the number entering the UK has reached record levels. Sunak would stand in front of the rostrum with "Stop The Boats" plastered on it when the boats are the fault of their policies. They made it so that you could only claim asylum when actually in the UK and then removed any safe way of getting here unless you were HK Chinese or Ukrainian. Hence the boats.

The obvious solution would be to set up a Home Office processing facility in the UK part of Coquelles. Then there would be no need for small boat crossings. Far too simple of course...

[John Wright]

6 minutes ago, P.K. said:

UK right wing press in thrall to the agenda of the owner. Which is to say pretty much all of it

Of course lots of the right wing rioters keep on parroting empty meaningless phrases as well.

7 minutes ago, P.K. said:

not taking the victims seriously enough...

That’s a common thing when the authorities deal with victims, doesn’t matter who the perpetrators are, victims are disbelieved.

7 minutes ago, P.K. said:

Home Office processing facility in the UK part of Coquelles. Then there would be no need for small boat crossings. Far too simple of course...

Processing needs to be in Turkey, Syria, North Africa, then Greece, Bulgaria, Italy, Southern France, Southern Spain. It’s too late if they’ve got to La manche.

[The Voice of Reason]

52 minutes ago, P.K. said:

I'm not "trying to suggest" anything. Instead I'm stating, like a lot of folks have seen on this thread, that you are deliberately doing what you can to deny it's racism stoked up by the likes of Farage. Here is HeliX quite rightly pointing out to you that Farage's infamous "Breaking Point" poster is designed to stir up racism against desperate brown people fleeing a war zone:

and your response:

Your "that's down to interpretation" is absolutely laughable and definitely puts you into this category:

Because your posts in this thread seem to be about trying to excuse the inexcusable.

"that's down to interpretation" Yeah, right...

QED

As predicted not nice and far from the truth (far far from the truth)

I am not trying to excuse anything.

At least three times now I have expressed my disgust at that poster so you can be in no doubt as to how I interpret it.

There is no harm though in exploring the issues around any particular subject. Hence  why I asked Helix if he would feel differently if a few white faces were shown.

It’s good to have such debates and exam the issues. This is a forum , right?

Unfortunately in your haste to demonstrate your ( admirable) anti racist credentials you ignore the wider issues and don’t pause to properly read or understand others comments.

 

Edited August 6 by The Voice of Reason
Deletion of last para