I saved these clips for when I wrote my UK summary. What I forgot to do was to save info to cite the authorship. Never mind. I found the clip below somewhere. The article said more, but what essentially the writer was talking about, was that in Thatcher's time, although her period as PM had ended in 1990, the media was very compliant with not reporting trouble. Interesting.
About the same time, extensive trouble on a Luton estate, 35 miles north of London, wasn't even mentioned until it had been quelled 5 days later. And so on. Of course, Newcastle in September '91 was so dramatic and big that everyone knew about it and the media gave up on its familiar blanking.
Now this one below is something many white working class people and not so working class I expect, would agree with. It sums up to me what many people told me. Their vitriol presently is towards to the Kosovans. They seem to have adjusted to having West Indians and those from the sub continent as neighbours and part of their lives. Not that there is a lot of co-mingling. But you have to be there to hear the way they spit out the word Kosovan. They have the privilege of seeing our own tv programme, the always very drawn out Border Security. Why can't England be like Australia, they say? Why can't we just stop people from coming in? It would seem, as explained to me, that refugees should request asylum in the first (western? euro?) country they get to. Instead countries like Germany, Italy, Netherlands etc push them on towards England by being very slack at immigration points. England is the refugee's ultimate destination where they know they will be treated softly.
What really disturbed me quite a lot was how critical English people were of their country. Gone to the dogs, was a great country, has so much potential if not for...., its ****ed. Quite sad really, because I saw it as being pretty marvellous. I suppose in some way we are not so different. We are all critical of our country, but we perhaps say, with the confidence that we know it is a very desirable place for many people, Australia would be better with just a bit of tinkering. Or Australia would be ok if we had decent politicians. Actually, perhaps we are not so different to to the English. It was very clear to me that that our antecedents are English and that while American culture is omnipresent here, English culture is strong here, except it is not as in you face as American culture is. It is just what we have grown up with. Maybe it will be different in the future.
As I always seem to get myself into trouble when talking about race and have lost blog mates, I will add the disclaimer that I am not expressing a view on the pasted in texts. But from many I spoke to in four areas of England, one a very middle class person (in the old sense of middle class), I think they would endorse the writing below.
Come on Brian, you would have some sympathy toward the view below, from the comfort of Hughes Castle in the monocultural town of Fleetwood. Dangerous area perhaps. What about you Pants, who is surely at least an honorary English person.
About the same time, extensive trouble on a Luton estate, 35 miles north of London, wasn't even mentioned until it had been quelled 5 days later. And so on. Of course, Newcastle in September '91 was so dramatic and big that everyone knew about it and the media gave up on its familiar blanking.
Now this one below is something many white working class people and not so working class I expect, would agree with. It sums up to me what many people told me. Their vitriol presently is towards to the Kosovans. They seem to have adjusted to having West Indians and those from the sub continent as neighbours and part of their lives. Not that there is a lot of co-mingling. But you have to be there to hear the way they spit out the word Kosovan. They have the privilege of seeing our own tv programme, the always very drawn out Border Security. Why can't England be like Australia, they say? Why can't we just stop people from coming in? It would seem, as explained to me, that refugees should request asylum in the first (western? euro?) country they get to. Instead countries like Germany, Italy, Netherlands etc push them on towards England by being very slack at immigration points. England is the refugee's ultimate destination where they know they will be treated softly.
What really disturbed me quite a lot was how critical English people were of their country. Gone to the dogs, was a great country, has so much potential if not for...., its ****ed. Quite sad really, because I saw it as being pretty marvellous. I suppose in some way we are not so different. We are all critical of our country, but we perhaps say, with the confidence that we know it is a very desirable place for many people, Australia would be better with just a bit of tinkering. Or Australia would be ok if we had decent politicians. Actually, perhaps we are not so different to to the English. It was very clear to me that that our antecedents are English and that while American culture is omnipresent here, English culture is strong here, except it is not as in you face as American culture is. It is just what we have grown up with. Maybe it will be different in the future.
As I always seem to get myself into trouble when talking about race and have lost blog mates, I will add the disclaimer that I am not expressing a view on the pasted in texts. But from many I spoke to in four areas of England, one a very middle class person (in the old sense of middle class), I think they would endorse the writing below.
Come on Brian, you would have some sympathy toward the view below, from the comfort of Hughes Castle in the monocultural town of Fleetwood. Dangerous area perhaps. What about you Pants, who is surely at least an honorary English person.
There is, of course, nothing that can be done now. England has become a multicultural society, though no large number of English people ever wanted it to be. Through the folly, arrogance and sentimentality of their well-insulated ruling class, and by their own inattention, deference, disorganization and reluctance to appear unkind, the English have given up large tracts of their country to foreign peoples, whom they dislike and who dislike them right back. The English have created their very own race problem from scratch — possibly the greatest act of self-destructive folly perpetrated by any civilized nation in the twentieth century.
