Culture wars

I can answer many of your questions being a white middle aged man. I will try not to stray into too much politics , or upset anybody. My political views are very mixed , right wing on immigration and net zero and left on economey and the rich. 

Basically change is the biggest issue. I grew up in the 70's and 80's in a 95% white society on a council estate. Back then everybody worked, being on benefits was shameful, Christianity was the norm(I am agnostic BTW) and people were basically all the same. If you were non white British you fitted in with everybody else. That situation really still existed into the laste 90's being slowley eroded. I have been to places in London that were 80% immigrant, thats not my country, but it has been allowed to happen all over the western world.

One of the tings that really annoys people like me is we are not supposed to have any prejudice and we are not supposed to have any opinions that are now main stream. To those on the left I am considered racist because I see color, its how my brain is wired, it wont change. I dont activley do anything related to that persons color but I notice it and may have stereo typical feelings about them. Millions of us are the same. Its like with the Trans stuff , you can identify as a chicken as far as I care, but you are still either a man or a woman. 

I have a big mistrust of relegion, I was baptised and went to a standard non religious school where we sang hyms and prayed. I believe in nothing, its just not for me. I am all for relegious freedom, but also the right to critizise relegion. This is why Islam is very much disliked by people like me. They are stuck in the 7th century, treat women and 'gays' apallingly and take no critisim.

Before Christmas we relocated 200 miles to a rural area. Its like stepping back 30 years. The only non white faces you see run the post office, and indian and Chinese restuarants. I think the last census showed about 4% ethnics out of 4000. Thats how it used to be, no mosques, no GP surgery translators like where I came from, its a reall community and I love it. 

I hope I have not upset anybody but the OP did ask the question. Sorry about any bad spelling too, not my strong point!

Rob

I can answer many of your questions being a white middle aged man. I will try not to stray into too much politics , or upset anybody. My political views are very mixed , right wing on immigration and net zero and left on economey and the rich. 

Basically change is the biggest issue. I grew up in the 70's and 80's in a 95% white society on a council estate. Back then everybody worked, being on benefits was shameful, Christianity was the norm(I am agnostic BTW) and people were basically all the same. If you were non white British you fitted in with everybody else. That situation really still existed into the laste 90's being slowley eroded. I have been to places in London that were 80% immigrant, thats not my country, but it has been allowed to happen all over the western world.

One of the tings that really annoys people like me is we are not supposed to have any prejudice and we are not supposed to have any opinions that are now main stream. To those on the left I am considered racist because I see color, its how my brain is wired, it wont change. I dont activley do anything related to that persons color but I notice it and may have stereo typical feelings about them. Millions of us are the same. Its like with the Trans stuff , you can identify as a chicken as far as I care, but you are still either a man or a woman. 

I have a big mistrust of relegion, I was baptised and went to a standard non religious school where we sang hyms and prayed. I believe in nothing, its just not for me. I am all for relegious freedom, but also the right to critizise relegion. This is why Islam is very much disliked by people like me. They are stuck in the 7th century, treat women and 'gays' apallingly and take no critisim.

Before Christmas we relocated 200 miles to a rural area. Its like stepping back 30 years. The only non white faces you see run the post office, and indian and Chinese restuarants. I think the last census showed about 4% ethnics out of 4000. Thats how it used to be, no mosques, no GP surgery translators like where I came from, its a reall community and I love it. 

I hope I have not upset anybody but the OP did ask the question. Sorry about any bad spelling too, not my strong point!

Rob

NAS65321 said:

To those on the left I am considered racist because I see color, its how my brain is wired, it wont change.

You see colour, as do most of the population in the UK and the world, and yes, in simplistic terminology, it’s how most of our brains are wired, autistic or non autistic. That does not prevent a person from treating others with the respect and dignity that every human being deserves.

I was brought up in a multi-cultural area that became more so as time went on, I liked it, I loved the variety of food, of music, the different colours of clothing, people experiences. The schools I went to were mostly white working class, council estate living pupils and I do remember the resentment towards imigrants, towards gay people and the cruelty towards anyone different. I also remember the outrage from male teachers in secondary school when equal pay and rights for women came in, of being told there was no point in educating us because we were girls and would work for a couple of years before getting married and having babies. It became a sort of self fufilling prophesy, we weren't educated enough to do much other that work in shops, the proverbial selling spuds in woollies, and as many of our age group and class did we had children young. I think what you describe and my experiences growing and the divides are as much about class as anything else, as working class people we weren't expected to get educated to more than a basic degree, leave school as soon as possible and go to work, to not rise above our allotted station in life. Did you know that when we had the 11 plus, it was skewed in favour of boy's and boys scores were bumped up and those of girls marked down to maintain the illusion of make superiority? Our post war governments chose to fill the post war labour shortages with migrants from the empire, rather than allow women to work? Women were removed from the workforce even though they'd gained the skill in things like welding and engineering during the war that we needed. The government actually paid for a study by psychlogist RIchard Bowlby to try and justify women staying at home with thier children, calling it The Attachment Theory.

Here in Wales we have translators for some medical staff, we are in an area where Welsh is the first language for many, especially older people, they have a poor understanding English, and need everything explained to them in Welsh.

If our governments hadn't been so short sighted we may have many more home grown doctors and other staff, but they consistently refused to increase places in medcal schools depite them being way over subscribed.

Iains right, some of our most beloved things like fish and chips arrived with Jewish immigrants after pogroms in Russia. Ice cream parlours, came with Italian migrants. Migration has for centuries enriched our economy and culture, the only real differece is that for the most of them were European. But, there's a long history of multi-culturalism in Britain going back centuries, especially in port cities, like Liverpool, Cardiff and Bristol.

I never want to see a return to times when landlords could legitimately put signs up saying 'No dogs, No Black, No Irish', not do I ever want to be bannished to the back room of pubs, or labeled a slag for exercising my right to choose who I express my sexuality with. I do not wish to see a return to times when being gay was a crime.

One of the odd things about gender, is I'm not actually sure we really know for sure how many genders there are, the more we can reach into our chromosome and our genome, the more it seem that a simple X and Y are not the whole picture. A minority are biologically of mixed gender, we see it more often in elite sport, but not so much in the general population, probably because its not looked for. If you look back into classical history there are a number of mentions of hermaphrodies, Emporer Tiberious was famaous for having them, whether these were true hermaphrodites or women with an unusually large and protuberant clitoris, or men with a lot of oestrogen we don't know and probably never will?

I do think biological women need women only spaces, unfortunately many women have been so badly abused by men that they will never trust any biological male again, even one who's fully transitioned to female. When we talk about trans people we only ever seem to talk about male to female, rarely about female to male, is this because of a fear of feminisation of men, whereas a woman wanting to be a man is seen as more natural or worthy?

Personally I don't care about people's sexual orrientation unless I want to have sex with them. When I engage a professional to do a job, I don't care about anything other than thier ability to do that job, race, religion, gender, sexual orrientation or even species don't matter as long as they can do the job properly.

NAS65321 said:

I have been to places in London that were 80% immigrant, thats not my country, but it has been allowed to happen all over the western world.

I'm afraid what this displays is your lack of knowledge. London has always had very large immigration populations that come in waves.

I came from a small, very white Scottish town to living in London and a number of other big cities internationally and the distory of these has been very interesting.

About 20,000 years ago there were no humans at all in the UK so we are all, ultimately, immigrant descendants. This is importany to remember.

About 100BC was the Roman Invasion that brought with it its own wave of support staff and services, resulting in a "modernisation" of many areas, increased access and the development of London.

I believe there are even claims that some arabic Jew from Bethlehem was her at some point by the name of Jesus something or another. Maybe this set a bad precedent by buying property and setting up their own places of worship - who knows (http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/uk_news/8380511.stm)

Later in the 5th century there was a wave of Irish settlers (mostly up North), and down South the Anglo Saxons (mostly Germanic in origin).

The Vikings made quite a scene in the late 8th century but stayed on to form many settlements but it was the Normans in the 11th century who made it their own after conquering large areas of the South.

After this there were sizable waves of Flemings (not the kind that run off cliffs) followed by the Romani in the 16th century.

Next in the 17th century were the Hugenots from France, fleeing religeous persecution.

Then the pace really stepped up with the British East India Company in the 17th century - the British Empire provided the means of mass transportation and as it conquered territory after territory around the world it broght back workers from places like India/Pakistan.

After losing the American War of Indendence many of the foreign troops Britain used were rehabilitated back to the UK resulting in many Africans arriving there.

The Irish Potato Famine producd the next big wave of Irish immigrants in the 19th century, followed by Russian Jews fleeing persecution.

Early 20th century UK experienced 2 world wars where empire & ally populations plus refugees caused significant short term changes in immigration but since then there have been many controls placed on the process of allowing people UK citzenship.

Labour shortages and empire ties brought many blacks and Indians/Pakistanis here to work then they quite naturally wanted to bring their families.

As international travel became more accessible and affordable, refugees became much more mobile and with Britain having a reputation as a safe haven we have seen many, many waves of refugees at least in my lifetime.

London certainly has been the focal point for the arriving waves of immigrants and they will often setup ghettos as they have very little cash to start with and seek the comfort of their own people, but as they gain a foothold many will move on to more affluent neighbouroods.

This was seen with the Jews in the East end - then as they moved on they were replaced by Indians / Pakistanis / Bangladeshis/ They have been moving on as well and are being replaced by, well workers mostly - due to the massive rise in house prices making peoperty in the UK out of the reach of the vast majority of immigrants.

I lived in one of these areas when working in London in 1990s up to the 2010s - they are nowhere near as densely populated by one ethnic group as it appears as the majority are city workers who are in employment for long hours so you never see them.

What you do see are the families, the recent arrivals and those who are not yet allowed to work. They are visible because they have time on their hands and their culture leads to them being much more social than the average Brit.

Society is changing but it has always changed. You just have a rose tinted glasses view back to a time when you didn't know more and your world felt it was "right". In reality you were just living in a white ghetto of immigrant origins itself.

Society is fluid and constantly evolving. Embrace the change or get washed away by it.