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Ironduke
offlineMember
I cannot imagine in this country anyone talking about the 'black' or 'hispanic' or 'white' vote any more than 'muslim' or 'roman catholic' or 'gay vote'...but the interpretation of the American polls is harping on about it as a category of where latinos are and how 'they' vote.
Seems wierd to me.
rikkor
offlineMember
Weird, I assume you mean.
I think the issue is that Britain has such a long and storied history of institutionalized racism, that you've all decided just to pretend it never happened. You all think just the same way as that nice Mr. Panjdhub next door who came from Islamabad three weeks ago, don't you? (Of course we all think alike, except we don't like Irish people, that's different.)
Face it, the US has 320 million people of all sorts of different races, religions and experiences. At least we're not afraid to admit that.
Gerontius
offlineMember
Rikkor makes a valid point.
We suffer from inverted racism here in the UK
The government would like to portray us as one big happy multi-cultural family where skin colour and ethnic background are not used to identify a person.
Whereas in the USA they embrace it.
If we don’t refer to skin colour or ethnic background then that somehow makes us all equal. - or less burdened by our colonial past.
Or put another way, if we do use skin colour or ethnic background to identify a person then it implies we are not equal.
Referring to someone using their ethnic or cultural background doesn’t automatically mean it is being used in a negative sense?
Certain elections in the UK will be won by the muslim vote, just as they will the white vote...or middle-class vote, maybe in marginal seats by the gay vote or green vote.
Surely we are grown up enough to talk about it without being accused of racism or bigotry.
I will have absolutely nothing in common with Mr.Panjduhub from Islamabad and probably never will.
But neither of us should be made to feel guilty about it.
I’ll bet he makes a better curry than me.
Sinnick
offlineMember
I don't think there's a huge difference in institutionalised racism between the US and the UK.
Go to just about any US state, ask yourself: who runs the companies; who runs the government & states; who serves in shops; who flips burgers; who cleans up ?
These things, unfortunately but inevitably, take time to pan out. And those "with" are generally happy to keep it that way.
I agree that many people in the US embrace multi-culturalism, but so do many in the UK. But not all.
rikkor
offlineMember
Sinnick, who is president, who owns her own TV network (Oprah)? Every major company in the US trips over themselves to have minority representation in the top and middle ranks.
In other words, puh-leeze. I love England, but, it has a much longer colonial and racist history than the US. You've all got collective amnesia about it, that's all. Very much like "Vut? Me ein nazi?" in Germany and Austria after WWII.
And ID's original thesis is not valid, as there is no such thing as a vote for Prime Minister in England. It's a vote for a party member in order to have a majority in Parliament. Very different.
rikkor
offlineMember
Sinnick, who is president, who owns her own TV network (Oprah)? Every major company in the US trips over themselves to have minority representation in the top and middle ranks.
In other words, puh-leeze. I love England, but, it has a much longer colonial and racist history than the US. You've all got collective amnesia about it, that's all. Very much like "Vut? Me ein nazi?" in Germany and Austria after WWII.
And ID's original thesis is not valid, as there is no such thing as a vote for Prime Minister in England. It's a vote for a party member in order to have a majority in Parliament. Very different.
Sinnick
offlineMember
It's easy to pick out exceptions when throwing around statistics. And, I fully agree that there are plenty of differences between our mixed cultures.
However, I don't think we're so far different. The population of US is 72% European-white. Can you state that anything approaching 28% of top admin jobs go to non-European whites ? Can you state that 72% of burger-flippers & cleaners are indeed European-whites ?
We have the same imbalance here, as you rightly point out. It needs time.
And you don't have a vote for president, either. You vote for your state to vote for president. Is there any point whatsoever in a Texas resident voting for a Democrat president, for example ?
Maybe I shouldn't have made a sweeping statement about cleaners, though.
Ironduke
offlineMember
My point is I wouldn't presume that all black people or all women or all gay people have the same politics, or would all act in a smiilar way, defined or categorised by their race or religion or sexuality. Perhaps I'm mightily naive in that; but a lot of the comments seemed to be along the lines of the blacks will vote for the black guy and the whites will vote for the white guy (so presumably if either strapped a gay latino woman on for vice-president, then they'd be laughing?).
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