Ariane Sherine recalls an incident I am very familiar with. Though I have to say, no one has asked me that question in the UK, perhaps for fear of being branded a racist. Instead, the people who tend to ask me that question happen to be fellow Muslims.
Latest Updates: race RSS
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thabet
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thabet
Richard Reddie, author of Black Muslims: Why are a Growing Number of Young Black Men Converting to Islam?, writes about what his research has found:
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thabet
Very good article on the way immigration is covered by the press in the UK.
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A white South African has been granted refugee status in Canada. The African National Congress (the ruling party in South Africa) has called this decision ‘racist’, while the Canadian government is challenging the decision by the Immigration and Refugee Board.
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A book review (from the left) of How Race Survived US History: From Settlement and Slavery to the Obama Phenomenon: From the American Revolution to the Present.
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thabet
I quite enjoyed this article on class and race:
Thus the primacy of anti-discrimination not only performs the economic function of making markets more efficient, it also performs the therapeutic function of making those of us who have benefited from those markets sleep better at night. And, perhaps more important, it has, ‘for a long time’, as Wendy Bottero says in her contribution to the recent Runnymede Trust collection Who Cares about the White Working Class?, also performed the intellectual function of focusing social analysis on what she calls ‘questions of racial or sexual identity’ and on ‘cultural differences’ instead of on ‘the way in which capitalist economies create large numbers of low-wage, low-skill jobs with poor job security’.
Race and socioeconomics intersect, and sometimes liberals don’t pay enough attention to this.
Life on the bottom of the pile is hard, no matter if you’re black, or white; Muslim or not (I mention Muslims because often reports like this on the state of Muslims unnecessarily ‘Islamise’ the problem).
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thabet
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yahya
Welcome to a long hot summer. The English and Welsh Defence Leagues alongside Casuals United are recruiting football supporters to join their street demos against “Islamic extremism”. As is the way of the world nowadays, they don’t claim to be racist, but they are having trouble recruiting Muslims and other efniks to their version of Englishness or whatever. Two of their previous demos in Luton and Birmingham have degenrated into chants of “Muslims out” and random attacks on “coloured” members of the public.
This lot are playing on the wafer-thin line that there is no Islamophobia between anti-Islamism and colour racism — but it keeps breaking down of course, much to the embarassment and consternation of those drawing room and blogosphere types who’ve lived off the distinction for years now.
[Trevor] Kelway [spokesperson for Casuals United] denied the league was racist. “We would march alongside Muslims and Jews who are against militant Islam,” he said. “There were none on Saturday and an all-white group doesn’t look good. But they can join the EDL as long as they accept an English way of life. It is the people who threaten with bombs and violence and threaten and bomb our troops – they don’t belong here.”Kelway said he had recently taken over as spokesman because the previous mouthpiece for the organisation was “Islamophobic”.
A spokesman for the anti-fascist organisation Searchlight said: “There are a number of fascist elements that have attached themselves to EDL and Casuals United, but these groups are not extreme rightwing organisations.”
Nick Griffin, leader of the BNP, has said the events in Birmingham were “nothing to do with us”. The clashes had reminded him “very much of the position just before the £20m riots in Bradford” in 2001 when whites and Asians fought over two nights. He accused the left and the UAF of trying to turn young Muslims “into stormtroopers for their leftist revolution”.
(Source: Guardian)
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johnpi
For the modern GOP, it’s a return to the “white voter strategy.”
With Republican party leaders so constrained by ideological blinders that none of their positions is likely to produce gains among non-white minorities, especially Hispanics, the GOP is finding it has no real alternative but to revert to a “white voter” strategy.
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thabet
Why do people who think it is ok to hate on Pakistani molvis for their lack of English language skills, at the same time big up Arab scholars who also speak no English?
(This is within the context of arguments and debates about ‘integration’, ‘citizenship’ and ‘radicalisation’.)
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thabet
Phil Woolas confirms he is an odious prick:
But, when it was pointed out that demonstrating was not illegal, Woolas suggested that an applicant could also lose points not just for breaking the law – but also for engaging in certain activities that were legal.
Sarah Montague, the presenter, asked: “Are you effectively saying to people who want to have a British passport, ‘You can have one, and when you’ve got one you can demonstrate as much as you like, but until then don’t'?”
Woolas replied: “In essence, yes. In essence we are saying that the test that applies to the citizen should be broader than the test that applies to the person who wants to be a citizen. I think that’s a fair point of view, to say that if you want to come to our country and settle, you should show that adherence.”
I cannot see this actually being made into law; this is simply another pathetic attempt by Woolas to stir a ‘national debate’ on immigration and try and gain a few votes for Labour at a time when the far right are active. As Labour’s attack dog on issues related to race, immigration and asylum, Woolas has a history of this sort of nationalistic bluster. Even when his ministerial brief was limited to the environment, he was passing comments on the sexual habits of Muslims.
And it goes without saying that a New Labour minister should think twice before lecturing others on “adherence” to the “democratic rule of law and the principle behind that”, given the government’s abysmal record on that front.
Still, Woolas has some way to go before he can compete with the likes of The Daily Wail reporter James Slack and the army of gormless Wail readers who moan about immigration into Britain… while residing in Australia (or Spain, or Thailand, or the UAE).
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thabet
Some numbers on Asian Muslim women and employment in the UK.
(Via Andrew Brown.)
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thabet
A mere 367 Muslim women may bring down the Fifth Republic.
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thabet
Defining ‘religion’ and ‘race’:
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thabet
Time has a feature on the rise of the far-right in culturally sophisticated and morally superior Europe.
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thabet
The state’s need to define the boundaries of ‘religion’ and ‘race’:
A London school, the [Jewish Free School], rejected a boy whose mother’s conversion to Judaism it did not recognise.
Faith schools may discriminate on religious grounds but the Court of Appeal held that this involved a test of ethnicity – which is unlawful.
More commentary from Simon Rocker and Ruth Gledhill.
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thabet
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French cosmetics company guilty of racism:
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fathima
The New York Times » Snapshots of a Muslim Artist
Yes, a practice of “multicultural art” that doesn’t romanticise culture — and that’s also, actually, amazing art (instead of the halfassed shit that passes because it’s So Colourful! And Exotic!).
But I have qualms about the line, “As a Muslim I feel it’s my responsibility to educate people.” No, the onus should not be on minoritised peoples to address or fix broadscale ignorance. It’s definitely something they/we are required to do on a daily basis, because that’s the part of the process of functioning as a minority in the world, but that shouldn’t be projected as our civic/moral/ethical obligation (there’s a difference between pragmatism and responsibility). Instead, it is the civic/moral/ethical obligation of others to learn about and address their own ignorance/investments, whether or not they’re prodded into it by people of colour. The implication, otherwise, is that those who don’t know Muslims, for instance, are off the hook for their ignorance. -
thabet
I was reading something, and it occurred to me it would interesting to compare the Zanj Rebellion with the Haitian Revolution.
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This is funny:
The party’s constitution, which says membership is “strictly defined within the terms of … ‘indigenous Caucasian’ and defined ethnic groups emanating from that Race” is a breach of the law against discriminating in membership organisations, according to legal experts.
“An unincorporated association like the BNP which has genuine screening for membership cannot unlawfully discriminate,” said Gavin Millar QC, who specialises in election and discrimination law. “There will inevitably now be legal challenges to this.
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thabet
Channel 4/YouGov has some numbers on the people who voted for the BNP. Interesting, but not too surprising. White people suffer from identity crises too.
One view that comes across from the poll is that people genuinely believe immigrants and/or ‘non-whites’ (‘Muslims’ is the current code word) receive more help than ‘white’ people from the state. This is no doubt fanned by the tabloid press (drip feeding stories about ‘Muslim demands’ on the state which are usually lies or non-controversial), and even picked up by Labour politicians like this odious prick.
I have taken a closer look at the poll. Page seven has the following question (answer split by voting EU poll voting intention: Total/Con/Lab/Lib Dem/Greens/UKIP/BNP):
Q: [W]hich if any of these groups do you often think benefit from UNFAIR ADVANTAGES in Britain these days?
[groups available to be selected as an answer:]
Muslims 39/44/27/26/22/61/70
Non-white people 36/41/25/26/22/53/62
People educated at public schools 32/19/43/40/50/27/25
Gay and lesbian men and women 23/27/16/15/13/39/36
Women 11/11/9/9/9/14/16
White people 7/6/10/8/12/5/8
Jews 6/5/5/5/5/6/12
People educated at state comprehensive schools 5/6/4/5/4/5/6
None of these 12/14/12/15/15/6/5
Don’t know 13/12/13/12/10/8/5 -
thabet
News from morally superior and culturally sophisticated Europe:
Geert Wilders and his far-Right anti-Islamic immigrant party shot to second place behind the ruling Christian Democrats by taking 17 per cent of the vote in the Netherlands.
In Austria too, two anti-immigrant far-Right parties took an unprecedented 17.7 per cent of the vote.
The far-Right Danish People’s Party won two seats and took 14.4 per cent of Denmark’s vote.
In Slovakia a low turnout of just 19.4 per cent propelled an anti-gipsy extremist ultra-nationalist into the parliament and Hungary’s far-Right Jobbik took three seats for the first time.
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thabet
Pickled Politics has a post on the recent spate of attacks on Indians in Australia.
