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Racism in football ... stop it now!

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  • PosyPosy Posts: 3,601
    Oh dear. I am having to suppress a rant, now. I think there is a lot of truth in what @steveTu says and immigrants were first brought here to provide cheap labour, thus holding down wages. Britain has a long history of abusing the working class.
    But I also see a factor of 'otherness'. I, too, live in a very white area but we do get Eastern European agricultural workers each year. They are regularly subject to abuse and occasionally violence by local louts, often full of alcohol. The paper calls it racism, but they are the same race as us. They are just outsiders, so available for rough treatment. When I discussed this with teenage pupils, I could get no sense out of them. It was just a laugh, a bit of legitimate bullying.
    And no, I don't know how to change things.
  • punkdocpunkdoc Posts: 15,039
    Is anti Semitism racism, and if it isn't, is it any better, or, any worse than racism?
    Surely religious persecution, is just as bad as racism; hatred of Eastern Europeans etc?
    How can you lie there and think of England
    When you don't even know who's in the team

    S.Yorkshire/Derbyshire border
  • LoxleyLoxley Posts: 5,698
    Anti-semitism is definitely racism in my eyes. A lot of overt racists seem to be avowed anti-semites, blaming Jews for non-white immigration (not sure how that works but it gives them two ways to hate for the price of one).
    "What is hateful to you, do not do to your neighbour". 
  • steveTusteveTu Posts: 3,219
    I think that's what pee'd me off with the Terry case. His actions were semi condoned. We have the PM saying what they will do when people break the rules from now on, but we had Terry actually say what he said and the man still works in a top job in football. What signal does that send?

    I never quite followed what anti-Semitism was exactly. Racism is wrong - fine - but to me racism has its grey areas (is the racist a racist or just a thug who hurts anyone?). But I have a serious issue with the State of Israel. Does that make me anti-Semitic? Or is that a grey area?
    UK - South Coast Retirement Campus (East)
  • raisingirlraisingirl Posts: 7,093
    punkdoc said:
    Is anti Semitism racism, and if it isn't, is it any better, or, any worse than racism?
    Surely religious persecution, is just as bad as racism; hatred of Eastern Europeans etc?
    Yes except that it is possible for some groups to pass for 'us' and not 'them' if they are careful. Whilst it seems deplorable that anyone should have to hide who they are at any time, people who wear their 'otherness' on their faces or in their mode of dress can never be 'us', even temporarily, even when they just want to buy a pint of milk and get home for dinner and have no desire whatsoever to make a political statement. I imagine - from my acknowledged pov of no direct experience - that some people always feel like they've gone to the wedding in the wrong suit, even when they are just walking down the street on an ordinary day.

    That communal shock of Sarah Everard - 'she was just walking home' - hit a much wider audience who suddenly were confronted by their own vulnerability. But how many children who were 'just walking home' from school, say, have ended up in the hospital or worse without vigils or protests to mark what happened to them? Stephen Lawrence put a name to the issue. All that has changed, fundamentally, in the 30 years since he was murdered is that the Brexit effect has made it worse. As was said at the time, "it is not true to say that 52% of the population are racist, but the racists now think that 52% of the population agree with them". 

    I don't see that we're making progress - it feels like we're going backwards. Tolerance is diminishing, not advancing.
    Gardening on the edge of Exmoor, in Devon

    “It's still magic even if you know how it's done.” 
  • DovefromaboveDovefromabove Posts: 88,147
    Many Eastern Europeans are from other ethnicities and religions; the Romanian Roma who form a large part of the Romanians who've moved to this part of the UK, are not ethnically European ... historically they're from central Asia and the subcontinent ... they are despised by many Romanians and that racism has followed them here. 

    My former daughter in law is Russian ... but ethnically she's a Tatar which is one of the Turkic races, and culturally Moslem.  

    The State of Israel is a political entity ... there are plenty of Jews who are unhappy with its current government.  



    Gardening in Central Norfolk on improved gritty moraine over chalk ... free-draining.





  • punkdocpunkdoc Posts: 15,039
    Totally agree that the whole world seems to be becoming less tolerant, fuelled imo by the rise in right wing populist governments.

    On a brighter note, isn't it nice not to be hearing incessant tweeting from the orange one, I love having no idea what the President is thinking every moment.
    How can you lie there and think of England
    When you don't even know who's in the team

    S.Yorkshire/Derbyshire border
  • raisingirlraisingirl Posts: 7,093
    steveTu said:
    But I have a serious issue with the State of Israel. Does that make me anti-Semitic? Or is that a grey area?
    I object to what my Government does. It doesn't mean I hate all British people. Some of them are quite nice. Many of them also don't condone what Bojo does, didn't even vote for him. One shouldn't condemn a whole race for the actions of their government.

    Gardening on the edge of Exmoor, in Devon

    “It's still magic even if you know how it's done.” 
  • steveTusteveTu Posts: 3,219
    I don't think the effect was in the wages. The social deprivation of the areas the migrants were settled in was already present. Poor areas to settle poor migrants. Fine.
    Imagine - you live in a house and you have neighbours you like and dislike  - you know you like and dislike because you share language, values and culture. Now imagine that one neighbour leaves and you have a new neighbour who only speaks gobbledegook and even if you could understand him (Shaun), you don't share the same values/culture. OK, you carry on. Then say another neighbour leaves and another new neighbour moves in. This new neighbour also speaks gobbledegook - and he (Shaun) shares values/culture with your other new neighbour. So they develop a closer bond than you with them - they may not like each other - but they share the same language, culture and values. This repeats 'n' times. Soon, you are a stranger in a neighbourhood that you've lived in all your life. How do you feel?
    The migrants have done nothing wrong in the slightest. You've done nothing wrong. But they feel your resentment, and you feel resentful because you are now a stranger in your own neighbourhood. You shouldn't feel resentment for them should you? But, I don't know many humans who wouldn't.
    And irrespective of whether you're Blue or Red, this is class related in as much as this hit the poorer neighbourhoods more  as that is the 'resource' - the working class - that was primarily being replaced. It's a simple volume thing isn't it? Higher up the chain you need fewer people - so fewer doctors compared to nurses or whatever. So where, at the lower end, whole communities changed, at the upper end a few houses changed occupants. The effect is so different isn't it? You may have quite liked living next to the first new neighbour after they had picked up the language and you go to know them. You may have found it interesting learning about their culture and background. The problem you had in my scenario was when the balance tipped.

    UK - South Coast Retirement Campus (East)
  • LoxleyLoxley Posts: 5,698
    The 'they are taking our jobs' argument got a bit exposed when we hit a shortage of 'low skilled' workers due to Brexit/Covid, and the home grown workers didn't materialise to replace them. Pitting home grown vs immigrant workers is the no. 1 favourite misdirection trick pulled against the working class IMO.
    "What is hateful to you, do not do to your neighbour". 
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