Many people, particularly older white men (and indeed women) do find it difficult to imagine racism and misogyny are actually still a serious problem. Either because they haven’t been on the receiving end of these attitudes or because they are so internalised as to be unrecognisable without a fairly radical change of point of view.
No Peter I am certainly not oblivious to racism - it would be impossible to be that blind, or nauseated by it. Prticularly in The USA where it is so blatant. Yet we all know that racism is prolific all over the world - tribe against tribe.
We also know that ‘every man needs a dog to kick’ so he cannot be the bottom of the social heap, and that whilst White v Black is the most overt it is only part of the story albeit the biggest.
Nationalism is a form of racism that I also despise. That one race or country is better than another is so ludicrous as to defy belief - but it exists nonetheless.
Like most I grew up in an ignorant racist environment when most had never even seen a black person,and anything different was to be feared - we even felt the same towards the Irish, the Jews, and so it went on.
Some of us then went out into the wider world and or racism was chipped away bit by bit, until at least for me the whole idiocy of it was so clear I couldn’t relate to it.
Sad to say, recently I have been shocked by people I thought I knew well, friends even spouting racist claptrap.
Challenging them is a waste of time as these are obviously well-entrenched views, which now seem to have an openness brought about by scum like Trump, and The Daily Heil. i almost threw up when I read Roy Greenslade’s apologia for the latter.
My circle of friends has diminished greatly of late!
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I’ve always believed that if you give a name to a group of people they will always feel marginalised and treated differently to the rest of society. The current favourite ‘BAME’ is not universally liked within the Black and Asian communities themselves, it’s just a lazy ‘catch-all’ phrase us whites can use which basically covers anyone ‘non-white’.
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Many years ago I had to fill in a form for a US visa which included a question about skin colour. I put pink and got hauled in for a cosy chat for my pains, I still think unjustifiedly, as it is the truth.
I’d love to be an elegant shade of sandy beige like my mother, or golden like my greatgrandmother, or caramel like some of my cousins, or ground coffee like my other cousins, or ivory like yet more - but no, I’m pink in summer and blue and pink in winter.
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I can see why you think this Tim but another perspective is that “this group of people” aren’t stigmatised by being given a name, they are being given a name because they are stigmatised by the other group. And some of the stigmatisers have “woke up” to that fact.
I expect you hate that term, but it expresses exactly the difference between being asleep/oblivious to something, and having your eyes opened and alert to the obvious.
It’s entirely possible that some or even many members of the non-BAME group don’t stigmatise you for being BAME, but when ALL and ONLY the stigmatisers are indeed white, you begin to see their point, I think. I hope and trust.
Yet I see a lot of stigmatisation within BAME groups themselves
For most of the summer I have a “golden tan” that I call it - the rest of my family call it sunburnt as it is perhaps more of a glowing red rather than gold!
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Good that you recognise that. But two wrongs don’t make a right, do they @Eddie?
I didn’t say they did
No you didn’t, Eddie 
.
I think my point is that if BAME people stigmatise each other, it’s their problem to sort out their own bigotry. Not ours to point an accusatory finger at it.
Ours is to sort out our own. Beam in your own eye before mote in another’s sort of thing… 
So none BAME people should not be concerned about the young black males stabbing each other in London etc?
Of course they should. They are our compatriots. They merit our full institutional and comradely support. But I doubt they are fuelled by racial or ethnic bigotry, Eddie, if that is what you are proposing.
But alienation and lack of legitimate channels for youthful energy plays a part, as does heightened insecurity and existential anxiety in developing young minds.
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Oh I think there is a lot of racism and prejudice involved Peter
And so, to be consistent, black people shouldn’t point an accusatory finger at white racism, because it’s whites’ “problem to sort out their own bigotry”?
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And so, to be consistent, black people shouldn’t point an accusatory finger at white racism, because it’s whites’ “problem to sort out their own bigotry”?
You got it in one. Yes, it’s for us to get our house in order by recognising our racism towards BAME individuals, and doing so widely if unawarely.
Unless you believe this to be merely disgruntled blacks having a chip on their shoulders when they should be well satisfied with what they’ve been allowed to get away with so far.
If you are suggesting that BAME people are widely racist towards whites, déclare your evidence., if you have any.
If you have evidence that black youth is systematically carrying out racist knife on whites, state your evidence for generalising the claim.
Similarly if you have evidence that black-on-black youth stabbings are motivated by racism, declare it.
The topic has been endemic and widespread white racism against people of colour which is endemic and widespread. The disproportionate Covid mortality amongst BME NHS and care staff has evidenced that, as have innumerable worthy reports testified in very recent times.
One tires of banging this sorry drum, but drumming it in is still called for IMO.
@Peter, you’re answering a different question to the one I asked, which was
“… to be consistent, black people shouldn’t point an accusatory finger at white racism, because it’s whites’ “problem to sort out their own bigotry”?”
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@Flaneur ré consistency. Stevie,
my point is that, it is legitimate and appropriate for black people to call out white people for widespread racism towards people of colour, because black people are the object of white racism.
It is a generalisation by virtue of its preponderance in white society, such that it triggers a corresponding sensitivity in the typical BAME individual, shopper, job interviewee, intending student, patient in hospital, parent of young children, youth in the street, car driver.
It is neither consistent nor legitimate that white people accuse black people of racism towards white people. Legitimate resentment and frustration, yes. Racism no.
On grounds of injustice, black people can justify their anger and their call for change, because they are wronged. White people are not wronged by blacks: they are the wrong-doers who need to change their ways.
If people of colour wrong each other it is not for white people to tell them to change their black ways. Better, as saith the Preacher, that they concern themselves with the plank in their own eyes, than the speck in the other’s.
Your argument, it seems to me, is unsound. It is, to use a well-known expression, confusing apples with pears.
So by your reckoning,we should ignore honour killings,forced marriages,grooming etc as well as the increasing numbers of violent crimes between black males because it Is nothing to do with none BAME ?
I genuinely am amazed that you feel no BAME Person has ever shown prejudice or racism against a white person ever
@Peter, I think you’ve misunderstood.
I asked a question to clarify what you thought. You had said,
"my point is that if BAME people stigmatise each other, it’s their problem to sort out their own bigotry. Not ours to point an accusatory finger at it.
“Ours is to sort out our own. Beam in your own eye before mote in another’s sort of thing …”
On the face of it, you think that white people should concern themselves only with their own racism.
So I asked,
‘And so, to be consistent, black people shouldn’t point an accusatory finger at white racism, because it’s whites’ “problem to sort out their own bigotry”?’.
I asked because your assertion seemed to imply - for consistency - that movements like BLM were misconceived at best, because
if white people shouldn’t point accusatory fingers at black people
then
black people shouldn’t point accusatory fingers at white people.
If I were to express an opinion, I’d say that I am against anything which separates a society on any basis - skin colour, sex, sexual orientation - and imposes any sort of bar on those outside a group expressing an opinion on what is going on inside the group.
So I support BLM and their right to talk about institutional racism or any other sort of racism.
I would also consider it reasonable, if I saw a black member of the society I belong to (whether UK or France) behaving in a racist manner, to challenge her.
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