:hehe: He's clearly reached the 'No longer gives a fúck' stage of life, god bless him.
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:hehe: He's clearly reached the 'No longer gives a fúck' stage of life, god bless him.
He's not 'complaining', he's pointing out the fact that London is now by some distance a majority non-indigenous city. That is, quite simply, a fact. And it is a fact that those who can remember London as an English city have a right to feel rather ambivalent about.
And where he lives is irrelevant to all that.
It makes sense in so far as to say that someone who has benefited from freedom of movement by coming to London is more likely to support Remain than Leave. It also makes sense in that those with no history in this country are less likely to be affected by appeals to our traditions of independence, sovereignty and democratic representation.
So many triggered people on Twitter :clap:
The virtue signallers are the funniest.
:rolleyes:
Non-indigenous does not mean foreign-born.
And, by the way, 36.7% of your capital's population being foreign-born is an absolutely fúcking massive number. And, given our immigration rates over the last 8 years, plus white flight, plus the fact that the vast majority of migrants will gravitate to London because that's where the jobs are, a rate of 50% is by no means out of the question by the time of the next census in 2021.
It's not a tough concept to grasp. The indigenous peoples of this nation are white and speak English as a first language. Such people make up 87% of the country's population. That they should now be in a significant minority in their nation's capital is an extraordinary thing. That such change has occurred in just 60 or 70 years is mind-blowing. The tendency to try and dismiss people who express concern or disquiet at such staggering demographic change as racist or antiquated is dishonest. Cleese is correct. London is no longer predominantly inhabited by indigenous (ie white and speaking English as a first language) people. Thus, London is no longer an English city.
Being home to foreign settlers and them and their children being in the overwhelming majority are two very different things.
And this country's 'melting pot' history is largely balls, btw. Up until the mid-20th century, the ethnic make-up of this country was massively homogeneous.
Hang on, don't move the goalposts. We are talking about London. There were black immigrants in London in the 18th century. The 19th and early 20th century saw large scale immigration from Ireland and European Jewry, many of whom didn't speak English as a first language and were certainly not treated as homogenous arrivals.
If we are going to restrict it to skin colour then it is starting to feel a little 'race-based'
In terms of integration, yes, it would be preferable. Failing that, it would be better if it were white, Christian Europeans. The reason being that such groups for cultural and religious reasons tend to integrate more successfully into a white, Christian, European culture. In fact, such groups integrate so successfully that they are largely indistinguishable from the indigenous population within a generation.
Let's not pretend race is not a factor in emphasising difference. It is - indeed is encouraged as such by much of the woke left. So you can't really blame white British people if they feel alienated in the city in which their forebears have lived for hundreds of years because the ethnic and racial make-up of that city have changed so precipitously.
:nono: Plenty of furrins, like some of my ancestors, came to London in the 19th Century because of the trade links. Then the Huge Knots (probably another ancestor there) 150+ years before that seeking life & liberty free from savage persecution. :-)
That said, 36% foreign born is quite high. Probably more than that by now, in fact, judging by how surprised I sometimes am to hear English being spoken. NTTAWWT!
Let's not be naive. Because racial difference matters when it comes to integration and integration is the key to successful immigation. The child of white Euro immigrants is indistinguishable from the natives in a generation. The black guy is not. There is a clear visual clue that his forebears did not come from these islands and in a country that is still 87% white, that matters.
If you want to call it racism, fine. But switch the roles. Would a white person in Delhi be considered Indian by the rest of the population because he could trace his ancestry back a few generations?
I wouldn't restrict it to skin colour. There are very successful immigrant groups who are non-white - the Hindus being the best example. However, their success has been based on strenuous efforts to integrate with the indigenous culture.
And those 'large scale' immigrations you mention are nothing - NOTHING - on the scale of what has happened in London since 1997.
Also, it's worth noting that Irish people were actually British in the 19th and early 20th century - so not immigrants. You Brits forget that so easily. ;-)
I don't think it's racist to make the point you're making, actually. I would reserve the use of that term for something more significant.
I don't agree with your view that people might feel alienated because they live in a different looking world than their forebears. We have no idea how are ancestors felt as we didn't grow up with them, and in their circumstances. Alienation would have to be part of your own personal experience, I think. And I grew up in an entirely white town but when I moved to Toronto I loved it and felt in no way alienated. And I'm also not buying the land of immigrants theory. Canada was first settled in the 16th century and for over 400 years was almost entirely white European and the change in Toronto is relatively recent i.e the past 30-40 years.
Yes, but as I pointed out to p, those waves of immigration were tiny in comparison to the immigration that has taken place in the last 25 years.
And whether there is anything wrong with it is not the question. There is certainly something remarkable about it and it hardly seems unreasonable for someone to conclude that when English is customarily not being heard in a city, that that city may not be English anymore.
You are conceding that there is such a thing as a 'white country' - even after just a couple of hundred years - and are instinctively 'othering' those who don't fit that template. You may not be doing it negatively, but you are doing it. That instinct (in a larger form) is precisely what makes people feel alienated when the ethnicity of their city or country changes significantly.
Bøllocks. It's all about accent to me.
If someone speaks London, then are more London that someone who doesn't, irrespective of skin colour.
If you've got a black man with a cockney accent, a Sikh with a cockney accent and a white man with a Manc accent, which one should be sent to the camps? Not rocket science.
Some of us are bright enough to know that most of us have some non-native blood in us somewhere, and it's no different if that blood comes from Europe or a non-white place, as long as they speak and sound like the norm.
We are living in an increasingly globalised world and in 1,000 years most people will be coffee coloured.
Mum mum has some German blood. My beloved has some Italian. Why would a black Londoner be less English than us if he speaks with London accent?
And yes, the Anglo-Indian caste is considered Indian, by the public and by the constitution. But you can't really use India as an example for two reasons.
Firstly, they don't have as multicultural country as we do. And secondly, they are really racist against black people. I tried to go into a cheap bar with a Nigerian mate 20 years ago in Delhi. I was dressed like a crusty, he was dressed in shirt sleeves and suit trousers, looking smart. I could get in, he couldn't.
But who really thinks everyone here who's white is fully British? Aren't you a Paddy? Why is that better than a black man or a Sikh?
Blacks and Indians play proper sports. Yanks don't. So I know which one I wouldn't be able to integrate with.
I watched the 2011 CWC final in Guresh and Karla Patel's corner shop off Brixton Hill, with their family, another Indian and a West Indian. Any Septics there? No. So they don't make the effort to integrate and should fück off back where they came from.
But we didn't ask for a multicultural country. :shrug: We had one imposed on us.
And nobody said anything about 'better'.
By the way, I do love it when white people claim not to care about ethnicity. It's such a fúcking lie. :hehe: