Me and My Mates and Racism

There's a kind of mantra that it's wrong and suspicious to corroborate your own non-racism by citing your own life examples. Like "I'm not a racist cos I like the Kumars who live next door at no.42"

Sod that. Please use your own life examples. You need to remember hopefully what you've forgotten. Or perhaps done. Or not done.

In the mid eighties there were 2 Chinese guys going around Tarn on a Friday night. They weren't hard to spot. Very few, if any, blacks or Asians.

One of them (that sounds awful but I'd better not name him) went out with me and my other mate round Barnsley for at least 5 years. He got a few looks but no trouble at all really. Didn't pull much either. I've been abroad all around Europe with him and to the USA (worst place the old East Germany soon after the Wall came down where they seemed to be looking for anyone to blame for the collapse of their society). Diamond guy. Weird and witty. Met him via a friend - within a year me him and another mate were on holiday. We were 2 lawyers, he was a bookie.

Bully for me. Aren't I good?

Oh by the way, before that I went to Uni and then needed to hole up with 2 mates in a house near to Chester Law College the year after. Me, and two mates. A kid from Stoke (obsessed with Rush) and, a kid from Coventry - Sunil - Indian lad. I shared a house with them because they were kindred souls at Uni. There were 120 in our year. Sunil did better on the pulling front than the later Mr Coral bet.

That's two of them. What a multi cultural animal I'm trying to make myself out as.

My point is, until I continued to read all this divisive ideological ****** on this site, it had never even struck me to think about what the implications of the colour of my mates' skin was. Never. Largely because there was nothing to think about. There just isn't. Then after reading all the crap on here about whose a racist I just thought - what about me? Then it hit me. Look at my mates. But now it annoys me because none of this is necessary. This obsession is worse than nothing at all. Suspiciously so.

Well, you might think, you seemed to be having a great time with them but actually they were hiding their oppression by the white majority - you were just too stupid to spot it.

Well - I've put that to them and they treat it with the sense of humour that is the reason why they're mates with me and why the dreary drones on here could never be mates with them.

There are loads on here who are like pack animals. Barking on about discrimination. This wasn't the same 5 years ago. Maybe it's a form of comfort. It's as though the more mature in age poster has discovered something (more likely within themselves, or they wouldn't go on about it so much) that they need to cleanse themselves of i.e. the way they were before. They maybe thought and spoke in a certain way that they don't do now. Good.

Times have changed, in terms of what it seems necessary to say these days about discrimination. Fair enough. Don't think we all have to apologise for how we are. Or what we say.

Me and my mates (there are more), have spent 40 years without the need for hand wringing whites to guide us to their safety.

Be good.

 

There's an increasing uptake of self-flagellation and competition as to whom has the hairiest hair-shirt. There are endless examples of how modern identity politics is really more divisive than inclusive and this includes the trend to encourage feelings of shame for so-called privilege. In particular the recent rise in popularity of the term "flag ********" to condemn patriotism is especially shabby, given studies show that immigrants to this country are even more patriotic than the public in general. While this country isn't perfect its still okay to be proud of it, despite what the wokesters would like us all to believe.

 

Good for you and your experiences. I’m glad you’re happy with your life and feel theirs been no need to call out racism in your experience. At 61 I suppose I’m a ‘more mature in age poster’ I do bark on about Racism, sad, but it’s because it’s apparent in our society and sadly becoming more so. It’s not about ‘hand wringing whites’ guiding anyone to safety, It’s about the need to shout above the toxic mantra largely caused by the rise of the right in politics and even Brexit. Notice how you mention divisive ideological ******** on this site in a way that suggests it’s coming from from just those who call out racism.
Perhaps, it’s a thinly veiled anti-woke post.

 

There’s nothing to be proud of how this country is and has been run by a corrupt and incompetent govt. Shame should be on those who have a lot and want more at the expense of those that have little. Shame should be on the power grabbers and those that support them. Open your fekin eyes

 

I once had a Welsh girlfriend.

 

Reyt, I was going to reply to this with a couple of lines but it became an essay. It's bloody long, but I genuinely think it's worth reading.

I absolutely get what you're trying to say. The way you say you don't think about a person's race is exactly how people should be, and I absolutely don't think you come across as a racist person. So this isn't me having a go, just offering some alternative viewpoints/ideas/experiences.

Rather than go away, I think racism receeded gradually for a number of years, and changed form. In the 70s/80s it was rabid, and often violent. As we came into the 2000s and the digital age, with minority populations increasing and integrating, and a slightly more liberal demographic taking over, this frequent racist violence largely disappeared, though obviously not entirely. Minority ethnic groups felt a bit safer walking the streets, though they were still disproportionately attacked.

But a lot of deep-rooted cultural racism carried on unchecked. Indians were still the butt of curry jokes, a Chinese takeaway was still a Ch*nky to most, corner shops were still p*ki shops to many, and even blackface still made appearances on our televisions.

We had anti-racism initiatives, like Kick It Out in football, and most people were happy to go about their lives genuinely believing they weren't racist and that racism was only a niche problem caused by a few far-right nutters. All of this completely ignoring the genuine disadvantages those from other ethnic backgrounds faced throughout their lives: lower job application success, lower pay, harsher treatment by the justice system than their white peers, lack of political representation, casual 'friendly' racism from their peers, among other things.

What I'm going to say next is my opinion based on being a politics nerd, my own research, and what I've witnessed. Feel free to disagree. I promise the first bit re. economics is linked to the racism part.

The 2008 financial crash happened. The neoliberal capitalist establishment started in earnest by Thatcher/Reagan was rocked to its core. Ordinary people lost everything while those who were deemed 'too big to fail' were bailed out with our money. When people go to work every day and put their graft in, and then through no fault of their own have their earnings and savings mutilated because of the wrecklessness and greed of a privileged few, they begin to question our economic system and society at large.

I believe this 'culture war' has come about through the neoliberal establishment trying to protect itself. To understand my point, you have to understand that the Conservatives, New Labour (so excluding Corbyn), and the Lib Dems are three cheeks of the same mutant arse. Their primary goal is to protect capital, just in differing flavours. Their priorities are optics (how they appear to Joe Bloggs), ideological capitalism, and their own self-interest.

After the crash, you immediately have the Tories banging on about what a sh*t job New Labour have done with the economy. The message works, and the Tories are duly elected in 2010 with the Lib Dems as a coalition partner (the Lib Dems instantly go back on their manifesto promises, because power and capitalism).

The Tories and their yellow Tory brethren immediately start a process of harsh austerity to 'balance the books'. This message and intent is accepted by the public, because they see it in the simplistic terms of how they have to balance their own personal budget. People lose even more. Not only their wages, but their hospitals, public services, youth facilities, transport infrastructure, etc etc.

This wasn't to balance the budget, this was to benefit the capitalist elite. We privatised everything. You can look at many semi-functioning nations and see that privatisation is inherently bad for society, and the public purse. State ownership does have its downsides in beurocracy and some inefficiency, but it benefits by not literally giving away half of the sum of the workers' productivity to a few greedy hands.

As people lose more and more, they become further disillusioned. A disillusioned populace is key to a major political upheaval, or even uprising, which the neoliberal establishment cannot allow to happen.

Enter the neoliberal/right wing press, whose sole purpose (other than directly making money through sales and advertising) is, also, to protect capitalism. These media moguls have their finger on the pulse of the nation/world, and are no slouches in realising when certain collective thoughts need to be dealt with.

The more someone differs from you, the harder it is to relate with them. That's not inherently racism, that's human nature and can be seen in other areas even in groups comprising people of the same ethnicity, sexuality, gender, etc. However, race is one subtle way to create a divide. Throw in 'foreign' culture, different languages, and potentially different political beliefs, and you have the perfect storm.

The right-wing/neolib press use this perfect storm to create the ultimate 'us vs them' attitude. You see it in the papers all the time, and have done for years: "It's an invasion", "They're erasing our culture", "We can't do X anymore because of these people", "The asylum seekers are getting 20 foot plasma TVs", "YOUR money is paying for HIS housing" (picture of a brown man in a squalid, inadequate flat he's been forced to live in to survive). You get the gist.

The narrative works, because people are too busy in their own lives to really research the inner workings of politics and capitalism. All of a sudden, the problems that capitalism/neoliberalism have caused you, are actually caused by Mr Rafiq and his family of 5 down the street who are 'taking your taxes to live the dream work-free'. Mix in a couple of Islamist terror attacks (literally caused by neoliberalism decimating other societies and killing their citizens for profit through military force), and the faux point is hammered well home.

But the capitalists recognise that not everyone will fall for the "immigrants are increasing the size of spiders" line. So there has to be 'opposition'. But that opposition can't oppose capitalism: that's much too dangerous. Instead, they can oppose conservative social views. That's a bit uncomfortable, but a much safer option. If the others win an election, at least capital and their rich mates will be safe until they take power back in a couple of years.

The current battle between Starmer's Labour and Johnson's Tories is the equivelant of fans at Oakwell focusing on handbags between a centre-half and a centre-forward while two wingers break the offside trap and set up a tap-in.

This is where the culture war starts. The Tories/US Republicans do the heavy lifting for capitalism. They're the nasty party. They make your life hell while convincing you the foreigners did it. New Labour/US Democrats are still backed by billionaire lobbyists with capitalist interests, but they want to see kinder, more socially liberal rainbow capitalism. They still want the person in charge of the purse to shaft you, but they want that person to be a woman. They still want to bomb civilians in the Middle East for profit, but they want the bombs to be LGBT+ friendly bombs. They still want corporations to ultimately rule the way society functions, but they'd like to see more brown billionaires exploiting workers so it looks more fair.

This directly led to the astronomical rise of social liberalism/wokeism, with social media fuelling social justice efforts largely promoted by Millenials and Gen Z. But these are young people without much political understanding in many cases. They'll side with Labour/US Dems because they see the inherent social inequality being promoted by those further right. But they listen too much to their favoured politicians and media outlets. They become passionate about race, gender, sexuality, without even realising the core to all of this is classism.

They research everything they can about the most commonly mentioned forms of discrimination. They actually do a bloody good job at highlighting many issues society has inflicted on minorities over the preceeding decades and centuries. They stand up for their heartfelt beliefs, and often make a positive difference, but still miss half of the point.

In the meantime, the rise of the 'woke' is ammo for the nastier parties to take advantage of. Those who originally fell for the right-wing bait now see that there are "stupid, naive young people not respecting the value of work and traditional community, and want to see our enemies destroy us so they can climb their high horse because they don't understand the good old days".

This is the culture war. By deflecting from capitalism, the neoliberal establishment has had to push dissent toward social views and values. Between this and social media, you suddenly have a huge number of people who are seeing the discrimination minorities experience, and have experienced for literally hundreds of years. It's human nature for most that when you see/learn about something that is going on that is morally wrong, it is challenged. We're not allowed to see (en masse) the harm in capitalism, so they have to let us see this to relieve the pressure valve.

TL;DR:

Capitalism is awful, and woke vs patriot comes from capitalists being scared of us discussing capitalism. Liberal/woke social views are good, but many are missing the bigger picture that affects us all.

Related tweet from my friend which I think is accurate:

"Fascism is just capitalism in Safe Mode. It's the system's in-built defense mechanism, activated during times of crisis and class tension when the liberal democratic institutions - the pressure outlet - are no longer enough."

 

Blimey! I was feeling quite cheerful this morning till I read all of that!

Much truth in what you say, Captain. But how is all that going to be gotten over to your man in the street who just wants to "Get Brexit done!" and thinks the EU is responsible for allowing millions of Asians into the UK and taking their jobs and their benefits and clogging up their hospitals? And (with apologies that my shallow questions do insufficient justice to your deeper analysis) do you think there is an anthropological factor to humans being acquisitive (greedy), defensive and aspirational? I think there are primaeval urges from our time as hunter-gatherers which drive people to a more capitalist mindset if they can be persuaded that there is something they can aspire to.

 

Every animal has a self-defence instinct, and that includes humans. For that reason alone it's almost impossible to show what is really happening to the average bloke in the street without challenge. My post was less "this is how we fix things" and more "this is why we're all doomed", unfortunately.

Brexit is actually another example of Capitalism running rife. Ultimately what Brexit encompasses is the civil war between two different flavours of capitalism. One side is made up of 'disaster capitalists' (right wing Brexit politicians), who stand to make serious money through uncertainty and instability by gambling on currency/share fluctuations and insider knowledge on what happens next. The remain side is largely made up of more moderate capitalists who stand to gain more by the continuation of frictionless trade. This is elite politicians/gamblers vs elite businesspeople.

Genuine pro-EU arguments:

• Frictionless borders, increased personal freedom to travel and move
  
• Less red tape, easier trade
• Stability against rogue governments
• Solid European peace project

Bad pro-EU arguments:

• "It's the most powerful trading bloc" - Achieved through geopolitical bullying and violence
• "The EU is pro human rights" - See how 'outsiders' are dealt with in times of emergency (concentrated into what are essentially death camps)
• "It gives us a bigger seat at the international table" - It gives capitalism a bigger say

In terms of net benefit to its citizens, the EU is a good thing to have around. But it is problematic as an institution, and the benefits we got were often paid for by other, politically weaker nations. I voted remain passionately in 2016, and would do today, but my remain vote now would be on the proviso that the EU is hugely reformed. As it is, it's toxic.

 

If you have ever been to Oakwell you will have heard racism. Open. Sometimes vicious sometimes ‘amusing’ but every game I’ve been to since the early 80s I have heard at least one racist thing per match. If you.don’t then you aren’t listening but that’s ok. When I had a black girlfriend in the 80s and we went to oakwell the comments were more racist nan than threatening to her. We are still mates and she will come occasionally and the comments are fewer but still there.

 

Two tremendous and thought-provoking posts. Reform was of course one of Cameron's aims before allowing the referendum. But he either didn't know what he wanted from the EU, or (as your posts might suggest) he didn't really want anything to change much. There's an argument to say that he should have conducted his negotiations after the referendum (in the event of an indicative leave vote) but it's easy to see how our EU partners might have protested about being blackmailed.

 

Baaaabara by any chance.

 

Cameron was more in the elite businessman camp, but was surrounded by those in the elite gamblers camp. Both were bad. I think he underestimated the numbers of and profit to be made in the diaster capitalist camp. He called the referendum to make the issue go away, and it backfired spectacularly. I think Cameron was caught in the human trap between wanting to do something good (as in go down as a decent PM for putting the issue to bed, hence worth the risk), and wanting to promote his own interests, which were ultimately carved in capitalism. Another argument as to why classism is killing us.

(This isn't a Cameron defence, I hate the pig f*cker).

 

That is genuinely one of the best and most informative posts I've seen on here - although I've had to delete the main part in quoting it due to character limit!

It's sad and frustrating how easily people can be conned by a few privately educated dickheads who never remove their snouts from the trough.

 

In my own experience (20 years), I can probably count on one hand the number of racist things I've heard at Barnsley matches. The most recent was at Griffin Park in 2016, when someone behind me shouted "I'd rather be a p*ki than a ginger" at one of their players.

I'm not doubting your experiences - I've probably, to my shame, filtered much of it out rather than challenge it.

 

Moral Licensing…….did you know that white people who voted for Obama were more likely to exhibit racist opinions then those that didn’t?

 

I agree with your general interpretation, but largely disagree with you comments about capitalism and why the culture war has become a thing.

I’ll give you an example. I think as has been accepted on many threads, 99% of people are against racism. However, as with any social cause, there are a group of activists who push for particularly extreme solutions. I’m talking about, for example, the proponents of critical race theory, and others who believe the best way to tackle racism is to discriminate against white people. People like Sasha Johnson and her peers in the US.

The press pick up on the extreme comments made by a small handful of activists, because they are ‘news’ in a sense (reporting a largely accepted viewpoint is not). The reaction of many white working class people is that they don’t see themselves are being privileged and would be vehemently opposed to any policy that would discriminate against them. Thus the culture war begins.

Of course, the fans are flamed by the likes of the Daily Mail, but the spark was caused by activists pushing extreme views that the majority reject. This sort of identity politics is incredibly divisive and causes more harm than good.

I do have some sympathy with extreme activism in general (though I get why people find XR particularly annoying). Because without those noisy, extreme views you could argue that change would happen more slowly. However, activists need to find the right balance to ensure they are not causing more harm than good. I think that balance has been lacking recently.

 

It really doesn't say that though. It suggests SOME might have. I'd say that some is a tiny percentage. The vast, overwhelming majority that voted for Obama would have voted for Clinton and the percentage that switched their vote are far more likely to have done so for economic reasons.

 

Agree, but perhaps the balance has been lacking because, or partly because, increasingly any opposing view from anywhere with this govt is either, not reported, turned into an anti- woke rhetoric, by the govt themselves or their press and media controlled friends and supporters.
Staff at DVLC have been on strike and probably still are on strike, I’ve seen nothing in the National media about this.

 

There’s no answer to this other than - it’s utter utter nonsense.