Government launches “Immigrants, go home” campaign

[Hrothgar]

alanjjohnstone wrote:

Nope, i am not very bright… 

You're free to hold that view, but when I suggested you are not very bright, I was specific in my evaluation and explained why with reference to a dissection of one of your contributions to this thread.  So, I back-up my views – a didactic habit of mine – I don't just go round calling people names like a silly teenage girl.[quote-alanjjohnstone]Narcissist – Reacts to criticism with anger, [/quote]OK, when have I reacted to criticism with anger?  I'm also curious to know how you could surmise when I am angry, just from sitting behind a computer screen?  Are you telepathic?  No, so you must be able to point to specific posts where I have overtly conveyed anger, right?  So let's see the evidence, or we might conclude you're just throwing a hissy fit.The only point in this discussion when I have actually become angry is when you referred to Anders Breivik and made a highly-dubious connection between him and anyone who has racial views.  I think my anger at that point was quite understandable.  You were just being silly.But I have not responded with anger to any criticism on here.  I have replied equiniminously to criticism when put.

alanjjohnstone wrote:

exaggerates own importance, 

Tell me where.  Cite the relevant posts.

alanjjohnstone wrote:

fantasies about  intelligence, 

What I have said about intelligence as a concept is that blacks measure significantly lower IQs than other racial groups.  This is a fact, not a fantasy.  

alanjjohnstone wrote:

lacks empathy

This is a bit vague.  We can all say that someone else that we disagree with lacks 'empathy'.  I could say that you lack empathy with the genuine concerns of millions of people whom you denounce, variously, as 'stupid' or 'racist' or whatever.  When you say I lack empathy, what you really mean is that I have decided not to take your point of view, which is something you find irritating.  Hence, in your limited mental world, I lack 'empathy'.  The issue here is yours, in that like a child, you can't handle disagreement. 

alanjjohstone wrote:

But i do know that the existing segration is mostly not by race but by wealth…

So there is racial segregation (albeit informal) and there are races?  You admit this?  If so, at least I've got some honesty out of you.  I happen to agree with you that the wealth disparity is the most significant for people in their day-to-day lives and the more the ruling class goes down this road of increasing the wealth gap, the more obvious its contradictions will seem to ordinary people.  However, the point I think you miss or choose to overlook is that there is an interaction between racial and class questions.

alanjjohnstone wrote:

in fact more and more gated communities are being created all over the world to keep out the great unwashed. Class not race or ethnicity. The Arab "ghettoisation " of Mayfair, the Russianfication of Belgravia.

To my mind, these trends suggest that people will organise themselves on both class and racial/cultural lines and that there is an interaction between the two aspects of identity.  What's wrong with people understanding their social relationship to the ruling class and being class consciousness while at the same time having an affinity and pride with their racial and cultural group?  These are not contradictory positions.

alanjjohnstone wrote:

Without looking back to the posts i think i was specifically referring to integrating migrant labour within the labour movement and the class struggle. That was supported by historical/empirical evidence provided by earlier posts.

That's fine, but it was not my intention to misrepresent you.  I was really referring to the more general position you take and I was trying to make the point that integration is not some soft, fluffy word that absolves you of responsibility because you want to have modish views and impress people with your 'empathy'.  If you call for integration, then you are calling for the eradication of indigenous cultures, for the genetic displacement of a unique people, and for people to be generally pushed around.  How's that for 'empathy'?

alanjjohnstone wrote:

We have had immigration for a lot more than 60yrs and if we take the example of the Irish it appears to be quite a success. Erm…the Irish used to be called Black Irish, so racism is sometimes that does not actually involve skin colour nor IQs , or genetics – it gets invented.

The Irish are a bad example for your argument.  They first started arriving in Great Britain in significant numbers during the Early Victorian era.  Initially, they formed a distinct community but by the end of the nineteenth century they were fully integrated.  The Irish were of course civically British during the entirety of this period.  They were not racially alien and over one or two generations, found it relatively easy to meld into the greater mass of the population. The stock reference to 'Black Irish' had nothing to do with race.  It was just a reference to the distinct 'Iberian' look of some Irish people.  Do you have any evidence of widespread discrimination of people seen as 'Black Irish'?  I am sure there was some, just as there is discrimination against working class people generally, or people from Yorkshire, or women, or whatever…the list is endless.  But what we're discussing here is integration.  It's apparent that the Irish integrated successfully, while other ethnic and racial groups have not.  There are reasons for this, which you are in denial about.  The more you keep bringing up these stock examples referenced by your limited, pop understanding of things, the more exposed are the flaws in your viewpoint.But keep going – I'm enjoying myself.

[Hrothgar]

LBird wrote:

Hrothgar wrote:

Maybe you shold speak to Alan Johnstone about it – he knows a lot about mental disorders.

Nah, 'e just sez I'm a fuckin' nutter!'Takes one to know one', I just shout back, when I grab 'im by the froat!

Threats of violence now?  So you're a lout as well as a bigot?I know your arguments are lousy, but do you really have to stoop that low?Seriously, it's important that we don't make fun of people with 'special needs', so let me offer some solid advice.If you do suffer from 'anger management' issues, Alan will help you.  He knows a thing or two about mental disorders and throwing hissy fits.Or you could just go to the annual Summer School – I hear they have punch-ups there.  Being a bigoted lout, you should fit in.

[PJShannon]

MODERATION REMINDER:Rule 7. You are free to express your views candidly and forcefully provided you remain civil. Do not use the forums to send abuse, threats, personal insults or attacks, or purposely inflammatory remarks (trolling). Do not respond to such messages.Any further posts in breach of this rule will be removed. Posters who repeatedly breach forum rules may have posting rights removed or suspended.

[Hrothgar]

admin wrote:

MODERATION REMINDER:Rule 7. You are free to express your views candidly and forcefully provided you remain civil. Do not use the forums to send abuse, threats, personal insults or attacks, or purposely inflammatory remarks (trolling). Do not respond to such messages.Any further posts in breach of this rule will be removed. Posters who repeatedly breach forum rules may have posting rights removed or suspended.

If this is directed at me, then I have no problem with the remonstration and I accept the 'telling off'.  However I will NOT apologise to the people concerned – they asked for it and they deserve it.  I will abide by the Forum rules, but I am also entitled to expect the same from others who ought to know better but who repeatedly show contempt for others of differing views and who seem to think that this Forum is a place where they can abuse and insult unpopular contributors at will.

[LBird]

Hrothgar wrote:

…this is directed at me, … I have no problem with the remonstration and I accept the 'telling off'.

Tut, tut, Hrothy! Caught out by the mod, naughty boy!Try and keep your cool, though – we don't want any displays of 'Aryan Superiority' [sic] on here. We all know just where that leads!

[PJShannon]

MODERATION NOTICE:Post removed. ALL forum users are reminded to abide by the forum rules, particuarly rule 7 as mentioned and in this case:Rule 13. Rule enforcement is the responsibility of the moderators, not of the contributors. If you believe a post or private message violates a rule, report it to the moderators. Do not take it upon yourself to chastise others for perceived violations of the rules.

[alanjjohnstone]

I believe LBird was violence was directed at myself and was accepted in the humourous spirit it was posted in. i don’t believe LBird has any anger management issues, but if you read his posts on other threads ypou may find his pschological problem is OCD  “people will organise themselves on both class and racial/cultural lines and that there is an interaction between the two aspects of identity. ” i think if you ask ant real estate agent for the motive the answer will be property investment potential.  it was not my intention to misrepresent you. .. you want to have modish views and impress people with your ’empathy’.  If you call for integration, then you are calling for the eradication of indigenous cultures, for the genetic displacement of a unique people, and for people to be generally pushed around. ” Of course its not misrepresentation of my views to impose your own interpretation on them! “but by the end of the nineteenth century they [the Irish]were fully integrated” Not from Scotland , are you? Yes, mostly integrated except in a few towns, but your not aware of the official Church of Scotland propsal to deport the Irish back to Irealnd in the 1930s , are you? http://socialist-courier.blogspot.com/2012/06/give-orange-lodge-their-marching-orders.html?q=church+o+scotland+irish+catholics  Q: You point out that at one point the Irish were known as “white Negroes” and black people were referred to as “smoked Irish.” What did those terms reflect?A: They reflected the scorn and disdain with which both were regarded by the better situated, by the leading elements of American society. There was speculation that there would be some “amalgamation,” that is, that Irish and black would blend into each other and become one common people. That didn’t happen; in fact, the opposite happened. How the Irish Became White by Noel Ignatiev Black Irish, a term similar to Bog Irish, used in a derogatory and racist manner. There is also leprecoon and shanty Irish. In America’s class system pecking order that saw some Irish labelled as ‘black’.  http://www.pitt.edu/~hirtle/uujec/white.html “Irish and Africans Americans had lots in common and lots of contact during this period; they lived side by side and shared work spaces. In the early years of immigration the poor Irish and blacks were thrown together, very much part of the same class competing for the same jobs. In the census of 1850, the term mulatto appears for the first time due primarily to inter-marriage between Irish and African Americans. The Irish were often referred to as “Negroes turned inside out and Negroes as smoked Irish.” A famous quip of the time attributed to a black man went something like this: “My master is a great tyrant, he treats me like a common Irishman.” Free blacks and Irish were viewed by the Nativists as related, somehow similar, performing the same tasks in society. It was felt that if amalgamation between the races was to happen, it would happen between Irish and blacks. But, ultimately, the Irish made the decision to embrace whiteness, thus becoming part of the system which dominated and oppressed blacks. Although it contradicted their experience back home, it meant freedom here since blackness meant slavery.” i also refer you to a post on the party blog http://www.socialismoryourmoneyback.blogspot.com/2013/10/one-world-one-people.html#more A racist white union leaders’ testimony before the Louisiana state legislature following a 1907 strike:‘I guess before long you’ll call us nigger-lovers, too. Maybe you want to know next how I would like it if my sister married a nigger? I wasn’t always a nigger-lover. I fought in every strike to keep black labour off the dock. I fought until in the white-supremacy strike your white-supremacy governor sent his white-supremacy militia and shot us white-supremacy strikers full of holes. You talk about us conspiring with niggers. But let me tell you and your gang, there was a time when I wouldn’t even work beside a nigger. You made me work with niggers, eat with niggers, sleep with niggers, drink out of the same water bucket with niggers, and finally got me to the point where if one of them blubbers something about more pay, I say, ‘Come on, nigger, let’s go after the white bastards.’”Quoted here During a 1910 strike by the Brotherhood of Timberworkers (BTW), the lumber operators’ association tried to use blacks as strike breakers and baited the BTW for violating the norms of Southern society with its 50 percent black membership‘The BTW takes the Negro and protects him and his family along with the white wage worker and his family on an industrial basis. As far as we, the workers of the South, are concerned, the only “supremacy” and “equality” they [the employers] have ever granted us is the supremacy of misery and the equality of rags … No longer will we allow the Southern oligarchy to divide and weaken us on lines or race, craft, religion, and nationality.’ As always argued by the SPGB, class…not race…It takes the capitalist  propagandists and thier useful idiots like yourself to endeavour to thwart workers uniting and keep us divided.  Take a look at the Roma thread i posted, while you are at it , how assumptions were so easily made that were turned out false…and how the real problem is submerged by racial stereotyping.   http://www.worldsocialism.org/spgb/forum/general-discussion/roma    

[LBird]

alanjjohnstone wrote:

I believe LBird was violence was directed at myself and was accepted in the humourous spirit it was posted in. i don't believe LBird has any anger management issues, but if you read his posts on other threads ypou may find his pschological problem is OCD

Yeah, you're spot on, aj, I'm afflicted with Obsessive Communist Disorder!The good news is that it confers an evolutionary advantage, so one day we'll all 'have it', and it 'affects' all skin colours!

[Hrothgar]

alanjjohnstone wrote:

 “people will organise themselves on both class and racial/cultural lines and that there is an interaction between the two aspects of identity. ” i think if you ask ant real estate agent for the motive the answer will be property investment potential.

 And on what basis are judgements about ‘property investment potential’ made?  What is the root of this?  

alanjjohnstone wrote:

it was not my intention to misrepresent you. .. you want to have modish views and impress people with your ’empathy’.  If you call for integration, then you are calling for the eradication of indigenous cultures, for the genetic displacement of a unique people, and for people to be generally pushed around. ” Of course its not misrepresentation of my views to impose your own interpretation on them!

 You think people should integrate, don’t you?  If not, then deny it.  But if that’s what you do think, then what have you to complain about?  There is no misrepresentation here. 

alanjjohnstone wrote:

“but by the end of the nineteenth century they [the Irish]were fully integrated” Not from Scotland , are you? Yes, mostly integrated except in a few towns, but your not aware of the official Church of Scotland propsal to deport the Irish back to Irealnd in the 1930s , are you? http://socialist-courier.blogspot.com/2012/06/give-orange-lodge-their-marching-orders.html?q=church+o+scotland+irish+catholics

 Right, so you admit that they ARE integrated.  So you basically admit that I am right about this point, but you can’t admit it explicitly.  You don’t have the honesty to do that, so you try and muddy the waters and keep banging on about fringe Irish issues.  Ok, fair enough, but they are largely integrated, so I am correct that the Irish are a bad example for this discussion.  The reason you keep mentioning them is because you don’t want to discuss the obvious fact that alien immigrants into Britain in the last sixty years have largely NOT integrated.  That’s empiracal evidence of your wrongness, so it’s a no-go area in this discussion. 

alanjohnstone wrote:

Q: You point out that at one point the Irish were known as “white Negroes” and black people were referred to as “smoked Irish.” What did those terms reflect?A: They reflected the scorn and disdain with which both were regarded by the better situated, by the leading elements of American society. There was speculation that there would be some “amalgamation,” that is, that Irish and black would blend into each other and become one common people. That didn’t happen; in fact, the opposite happened. How the Irish Became White by Noel Ignatiev

 Yes, this is what I mean by the interaction between class and identity, and the persistence of tribalism and ‘divisionism’ as a natural impulse.  There are examples of this all over the case.  Another example would be the reference in the present-day United States to poor English (and other Anglophones) as ‘white Mexicans’.  The term is superficially racial in nature, but in reality it refers to socio-economic status. 

alanjjohnstone wrote:

Black Irish, a term similar to Bog Irish, used in a derogatory and racist manner. There is also leprecoon and shanty Irish. In America’s class system pecking order that saw some Irish labelled as ‘black’.  http://www.pitt.edu/~hirtle/uujec/white.html “Irish and Africans Americans had lots in common and lots of contact during this period; they lived side by side and shared work spaces. In the early years of immigration the poor Irish and blacks were thrown together, very much part of the same class competing for the same jobs. In the census of 1850, the term mulatto appears for the first time due primarily to inter-marriage between Irish and African Americans. The Irish were often referred to as “Negroes turned inside out and Negroes as smoked Irish.” A famous quip of the time attributed to a black man went something like this: “My master is a great tyrant, he treats me like a common Irishman.” Free blacks and Irish were viewed by the Nativists as related, somehow similar, performing the same tasks in society. It was felt that if amalgamation between the races was to happen, it would happen between Irish and blacks. But, ultimately, the Irish made the decision to embrace whiteness, thus becoming part of the system which dominated and oppressed blacks. Although it contradicted their experience back home, it meant freedom here since blackness meant slavery.”

 Why do you think it is that, in spite of this, the Irish were, in time, able to integrate into American society while ordinary blacks largely remain segregated to this day?  It would be nice to have an explanation from you about this other than just that you think people are racist. 

alanjjohnstone wrote:

i also refer you to a post on the party blog http://www.socialismoryourmoneyback.blogspot.com/2013/10/one-world-one-people.html#more A racist white union leaders’ testimony before the Louisiana state legislature following a 1907 strike:‘I guess before long you’ll call us nigger-lovers, too. Maybe you want to know next how I would like it if my sister married a nigger? I wasn’t always a nigger-lover. I fought in every strike to keep black labour off the dock. I fought until in the white-supremacy strike your white-supremacy governor sent his white-supremacy militia and shot us white-supremacy strikers full of holes. You talk about us conspiring with niggers. But let me tell you and your gang, there was a time when I wouldn’t even work beside a nigger. You made me work with niggers, eat with niggers, sleep with niggers, drink out of the same water bucket with niggers, and finally got me to the point where if one of them blubbers something about more pay, I say, ‘Come on, nigger, let’s go after the white bastards.’”

 It seems that integration didn’t work very well in this case.  Do you think it will work better in Britain?

alanjjohnstone wrote:

During a 1910 strike by the Brotherhood of Timberworkers (BTW), the lumber operators’ association tried to use blacks as strike breakers and baited the BTW for violating the norms of Southern society with its 50 percent black membership‘The BTW takes the Negro and protects him and his family along with the white wage worker and his family on an industrial basis. As far as we, the workers of the South, are concerned, the only “supremacy” and “equality” they [the employers] have ever granted us is the supremacy of misery and the equality of rags … No longer will we allow the Southern oligarchy to divide and weaken us on lines or race, craft, religion, and nationality.’

 Moving back to Britain, and the present day, I have a few questions for you that arise from the theme in the above passage.   Do you think that ordinary British workers (or workers in Britain, if you prefer) benefit from mass immigration?  If so, please explain how. Do you think that mass immigration, and with it the displacement of white people, assists in building class consciousness?  If so, please explain how this happens. I’m referring here not to your pet theories, but to what happens in the real world and to real people. The migrants who move here are not class conscious and have no regard for the interests of the working class in the international sense. I accept that what is called ‘racism’ is often really just the expression of alienation among workers as to their plight in being denied jobs in a particularly fluid form of capitalism.  That being the case, why does this alienation not lead  workers in larger numbers to enlightenment about capitalism and consciousness about their class interests?  You think it is because of ‘racism’, and that racial propaganda (and other forms of capitalist propaganda) keeps people from seeing their own interests.  It divides the working class into artificial categories, so on.   On the face of it, this seems cogent.  However, we have just spent a large part of this discussion considering whether race exists at all.  It seems to me, whatever the truth of the matter, in the real world you have won that argument resoundingly.  I would maintain that people are impulsively tribal, hence the phenomenon of ‘white flight’ and the soft apartheid I refer to whereby large swathes of ethnic minority groups live in their own distinct ghettoes and communities and are not integrated.  I raise these points not because I doubt the socialist argument that reactionary racism divides the working class – to the contrary, I accept it and I consider it to be truth – but because I question the wisdom of giving support, as you do, to social forces that divide workers rather than unite them. I also accept people are not race conscious in considerable numbers.  There is a propaganda campaign in operation: in the workplace, in public spaces, in schools and so on, which supports mixed-racial integration.  That campaign is working.  Very few people articulate themselves in racial terms now, even in private conversations, and even in the sanctity of their own homes – even in their own heads.   This is what you wanted, isn’t it?  Well, you’ve got it – but that leaves us with a puzzle.  People still will not integrate fully, despite all your bullying, threats and assaults to make them.  Maybe this is because mixed-racialism is a regressive rather than a progressive social phenomenon, its true purpose being to promote the fluidity of capital regardless of human nature, and so (as I explained above) it can only worsen alienation among the working class while leading nowhere in the revolutionary sense.   You think it will, but I doubt it.   ‘False consciousness’ will not disappear just because human races disappear.  The capitalists will just find other ways to divide people, and if anything, it will be easier.  Having accepted the repressive measures of mixed-racialism, people will be all the softer and more pliable the next time round.  I would argue that a mass of people who have no auchtonomous identity will be much easier to manipulate and control than a coherent , homogenous group.  Conversely, it will also be harder to spread socialist consciousness among a group with no sense of identity or strong cultural reference points.  

alanjjohnstone wrote:

Take a look at the Roma thread i posted, while you are at it , how assumptions were so easily made that were turned out false…and how the real problem is submerged by racial stereotyping.   http://www.worldsocialism.org/spgb/forum/general-discussion/roma

 I haven’t been following the story – I just assumed it was an extension of the Madeleine McCann carnival and ignored it.  Having reviewed the news stories (albeit superficially), it seems to me my initial suspicions were correct.  What these idiots are looking for is a little blonde girl.  It’s an extension of a Zeitgeist story.  In the case of the girl in Ireland, as soon as they realised their mistake, she was handed back.  In the case of the girl in Greece, there is no explanation at the moment for the fact that the parents have a child with whom they are not biologically-related.  Personally, I’m not very interested in any of it as I know it’s all driven by the silly media – but you’re wetting your pants about it all, so here’s a question for you: The idea of swarthy gypsies kidnapping nice white children is age-old folklore.  Why do you think that might be?

[Hrothgar]

Note to Moderators – there may be an issue with formatting of posts into paragraphs.  It's evident in my most recent post and also that of another contributor.

[alanjjohnstone]

My issue if you wish to re-cap on my posts is to do with the present class struggle and also the for socialism and what would hasten that. I insist that class trumps race/xenophobia. My post 9 linked to two stories from labour movements history “The Lanarkshire County Miners’ Union, in the space of some 15 years, went from offering support to miners willing to strike against Lithuanian workers to demanding that Lithuanian miners in Lanarkshire should not be kicked out of the country.” http://www.socialismoryourmoneyback.blogspot.com/2013/08/same-old-labour-party-story.html http://mailstrom.blogspot.com/2007/04/voice-from-aliens.html In Post 49  i said “barriers that distinguish human groups—whether we rightly or wrongly refer to such groupings in terms of race, ethnicity, nationality, political party, etc.—are unquestionably socially-significant, however they are biologically insignificant”  In post i provided evidence that capitalist society brings us together and that conflict between groups are overcome through workers solidarity. In post 128 i linked to an article that read  “Socialism will give all men economic freedom, equal opportunity to work, and the full product of their labor. Their “social” relations will be free to regulate to suit themselves. Like religion this will be an individual matter and our Elgin Negro-hater can consider himself just as “superior” as he chooses, confine his social attentions exclusively to white folks, and enjoy his leisure time in hunting down the black spectre who is bent on asking his daughter’s hand in marriage.” An article that expresses the free choice of association Hrothgar so often claims to aspire to but of course  Debs is now dismissed as a satirist.  I accused you in Post 162  of “placing your racial theories in the forefront of your thinking process rather than than trying to achieve a world of mutual co-operation.” In Post i63, i paraphrased Debs that socialism is a society that cannot impose lifestyles and your reply did not satisfy me i was off the mark I’m accused of fuzzy thinking but i have so far been reluctant to discuss my personal experince but you should know that my late wife of 12 years was Asian , we fostered for two years two girls and a boy of  Chinese/Pakistani mix. Since 2007 i have been living in Asia and for the last two years with an Asian partner and her two children.  In reply to you last post  “Property experts now believe that it is wealthy foreign buyers, and their demand for the multi-million pound homes in the capital, that are fuelling a property bubble here.  London is becoming more and more attractive to foreign investors and it is the high-end properties that they are most interested in.  They view London as a safe haven for their money, especially when many other parts of the world are suffering from economic and political instability.” – http://www.rightmove.co.uk/news/articles/london-property-bubble-created-by-foreign-buyers Assimilation is inevitable. The timetable for immigrant groups to become indistinguishable to the the “native” varies. One of my points was to challenge your 60yrs by describing how the Irish immigration problem still has ramifications even today in Scotland – or have you not heard that the Scottish legal system passed special laws on the singing of  pro- and anti- Irish bigoted songs. I used the examples of America to show that the division that is created by the competition for jobs is overcome through class consciousness and not by segregation. Yet again you failed to follow the link i supplied.  “Once the Irish secured themselves in those jobs, they made sure blacks were kept out. They realized that as long as they continued to work alongside blacks, they would be considered no different. Later, as Irish became prominent in the labor movement, African Americans were excluded from participation.”  No doubt you have seen how Irish came to dominate some cities Tammany Halls and police forces. ..we have the tragic story of how one oppressed “race,” Irish Catholics, learned how to collaborate in the oppression of another “race,” Africans in America, in order to secure their place in the white republic. Becoming white meant losing their greenness, i.e., their Irish cultural heritage and the legacy of oppression and discrimination back home. Imagine if the Irish had remained green after their arrival and formed an alliance with their fellow oppressed co-workers, the free blacks of the North. Imagine if they had chosen to include their black brothers and sisters in the union movement to wage a class battle against the dominant white culture which ruthlessly pitted them against one another.” No worker benefits from job competition, regardless who it is with.”Damn these English coming up to Scotland stealing our jobs “ Damn these teuchters coming down from the glen” “Damn these youngsters willing to work for the minimum wage” “Damn these old codgers not retiring to give us younger folk a chance” “Damn these women working for pin-money”  …Should i go on? We want to end this dog-eat-dog society I have asnwered the above…the socialist case is not about loving your neighbour but creating the basis of a society where  there is no social conflict, and the first step is to have an economic system that permits that and to achieve that means uniting and putting aside petty differences. I showed it i possible despite the protestations of your fellow-travellers and bed-fellows. Your interpretation of the Roma persecution was indeed fromvery superficial reading…and out of date. She was indeed a blonde haired blue eyed Roma child, willingly given up. I think i referred to the fact of political impotence on the side of the Roma…the Jews have an age old blood libel but lo and behold any media that tried to take one case of child murder by a Jew and make it a case against the whole of Jewry.  And just to finish with a comment by the Independent newspaper “The real problem, the unspoken fear, may be that the Roma, if not actively discouraged, could be perfectly capable of integration.” http://www.independent.co.uk/news/world/europe/roma–the-unwanted-europeans-8906382.html

[alanjjohnstone]

http://www.theguardian.com/world/2013/oct/27/thailand-racism-unilever-skin-whitening-cream-citra Over the years i have raised the topic of skin-lightening and how lighter-skinned individuals, male and female, are viewed as more attractive and subsequently an industry is built on providing various treatments. Not only Thailand as this article concentrates on but all Asia, Africa, and Americas, even "socialist" Cuba recognises that light skin = success.  No doubt this will be put down to the race by some but it is actually class (in India its more caste-based stemming from origins of invaders v indigenous) . Fair skin means no manual outdoor work to be weather beaten by sun, wind and rain – the pale blue-blood aristocrats.  It is an attitude that is being kept alive by advertising. All the skin products such as Nivea adverts do get a colour twist added to promote their sale.  In the USA we had Black is Beautiful. Today in India we see a similar reaction to a cultural hang-over from our past, – Dark is Beautifulhttp://dawn.com/news/1051765/dark-is-beautiful-movement-takes-on-unfair-india

[Young Master Smeet]

Arrrrr!!

Quote:

I think that's just playing with words, but I understand what you are saying.  To draw an analogy, the difference between 'male' and 'female' is essentialist.  What you are arguing here is that, while there are differences between different regional groups, those differences are not of fundamental importance.

Yes.  And no.  What I am saying is that the packages that constitute different "regional groups" are not integral.  Now, a ham sandwich must contain bread and ham to be a ham sandwich.  But whether there is lettuce, the bread is brown or white, whether you use mayonaise or margerine or butter, or (indeed) the type of Ham involved is entirely incidental, it remains a ham sandwich.  Just so the historical traits that mark apparent races.  They are features that fit together more or less accidentally, with at most the glue of history putting them together.

Quote:

  I would add that tribal identification is a human impulse and any attempt to integrate different peoples together on a large scale can only be harmful and result in strife.

Peasants were turned into Frenchmen, as the book put it, quite well.

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That's just a reference to the scaleability of the methodology and doesn't refute the notion there are races (or meta-groupings) among human beings.  The general point that comes out of the study is that tiny genetic differences are not a refutation of racial categorisation (a point you are now honest enough to acknowledge – good) and that regional and continental differences can be patterned into the genome.

  It's not about the scaleability of the method, but that increasing interbreeding between formerly distinct geographic areas can jigger it.  A similar study, btw, can be done of radioactive isotopes found in bones of the dead: we can trace quite accurately where a human being grew up many thousands of years ago: that doesn't mean that we can categorise people according to radioactvie isotopes.  The association is accidental, not essential.

[Anonymous]

“but by the end of the nineteenth century they [the Irish] were fully integrated” Not from Scotland, are you? Yes, mostly integrated except in a few towns, but you’re not aware of the official Church of Scotland proposal to deport the Irish back to Ireland in the 1930s, are you? http://socialist-courier.blogspot.com/2012/06/give-orange-lodge-their-marching-orders.html?q=church+o+scotland+irish+catholics  Q: You point out that at one point the Irish were known as “white Negroes” and black people were referred to as “smoked Irish.” What did those terms reflect?A: They reflected the scorn and disdain with which both were regarded by the better situated, by the leading elements of American society. There was speculation that there would be some “amalgamation,” that is, that Irish and black would blend into each other and become one common people. That didn’t happen; in fact, the opposite happened.

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  Looking out of my window, the only problem re.integration amongst my neighbours is a hangover from the religious rubbish.i.e. Not  the colour of skin at all, as the street is mixed and we enjoy harmonious neighbourly relations, barbecues etc shared, but what football team we support, Celtic or Rangers. This posturing has spilled over into Asian/ West Indian and mixed ethnicity children often with quite hilarious results as the original reasons for this antipathy is buried.  The place I live in was intially a part of what was termed an “ecumenical experiment”  to overcome these pre-existing prejudices of Orange versus Green. While the experiment was abandoned, eventually falling on the school question, some of it remains, shared religious spots and services in some places.  There is also a reduction of the previously mentioned sectarian hosility but this  is not the same outwith the boundaries of the New Town. The question asked of house buyers in Harthil and places is not, ” where do you come from ” but rather “what school will you be looking to put the bairns into”.

[alanjjohnstone]

Where England and Wales have faith schools, Scotland has segregated schools. If i recollect my reading of history this arrangement was part of a deal made with John Wheatley and the Catholic Church/Irish Community. The Irish immigrants were not Labour Party supporters but voted Liberal for Ireland's home rule. Wheatley, a leading light in Glasgow's Catholic Socialist Society, to wean the Irish catholic vote away from the Liberals apparently promised a future Labour Government would introduce state-funded but Catholic church-controlled schools. Also to be noted that the worse extremes of religious bigotry is not Glasgow but Lanarkshire and West Lothian and Ayrshire. The roots was in the introduction of cheaper Irish workers for the mines and factories in those regions by the bosses and then the exercise of divide and rule. The estabishment of the paramilitary Orange Lodge who operated like the KKK ensured segregation was maintained.  In Northern Ireland there has been a number of non-sectarian workers struggles and each one  faced the wrath of the bosses determined to have the catholic/protestant division to continue. Let not the poor man hate the richNor rich on poor look downBut each join each true Orange OrderFor God and the Crown.2006- In a defiant show of opposition to sectarianism, striking trade unionists marched from Belfast’s Protestant heartland, the Shankill Road, to the Catholic Falls Road . Postal workers were immensely proud of this demonstration which was applauded by working-class members of both communities. Protestant workers walked off the job at in January 2002 when Catholic postman was murdered by pro-British Loyalists. 

[Author]

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