The inference though is that its always about 'white' prejudice when in fact the same applies in the inner cities amongst 'immigrant' and 'non white' communities.

The simplified position tends to be that to be of a non white / non British background automatically puts you into some kind of homogenised utopian melting pot where everyone has some kind of common culture, experience, heritage, aspiration and outlook.

Its patently bollocks and is actually hugely patronising and insulting to those concerned.

Totally agree about environment and exposure though - especially when like yourself I was brought up in a time when all Asians talked like Dino Shafeeq in Mind Your Language and wobbled their head from side to side, all gay men looked, walked and sounded like Honky Tonks in Dick Emery...

Edited by The Sash (03 Jun 2015 1.16pm)

What a great couple of posts. Prejudice is indeed often unconscious. Some fight tooth and claw to ignore that reality but others come around.

I agree about it being foolish to lump everyone who is non-white into one category but again that often harks back to the mentality of people who mourn in advance the idea that one day 'white people might be a minority here'. It's a lumping in, a false them vs us simplification.

Edited by Steptoe (03 Jun 2015 1.22pm)

Even Joe Bananas used to turn me away!

On the subject of previous posts, Doc Brown's take on racism is excellent (though not quite as good as his take on making tea)

I saw that earlier and did smirk - If I had a pound for everywhere I have been refused entry to I would be a pretty rich man

Very often that categorisation happens from within those groups themselves or white 'right-on' types...

When people talk about 'the black community' for example it makes the hairs on my neck stand up...so every single black person, regardless of age, nationality or country of origin, generation, sexual orientation, class, religion, gender, education, experience all think the same thing at the same time about the same issue...its as insulting as those imbeciles like the dopey tart at Goldmsiths who perceive all white men and racially intolerant would be rapists....

My tuppence worth...

We are complicit in suffering, be it Chinese workers who make ur electronics, the bombing of Libya influencing the price of our oil, even the repression of local farmers in South America so our middle classes can eat quinoa.

We relieve ourselves of guilt in many ways. We point to everyone else doing likewise, the improvements being made in helping these people. But a fundamental justification for our actions remains an idea of racial or national dominance which is pervasive in our very language and customs. Look at how the government are currently promoting 'British values' in schools, whatever they are. Look at the willing ignorance of Islamic culture and its infinite diversity, yet the widespread belief that Islam promotes hatred/extremism. Look at the reaction to the London riots, with even one of our most prominent historians on national television claiming it was due to 'white people becoming black'.

The results of this underlying racial understanding is clear for all to see (look at the police's stop and search numbers, the colour of British prisons etc.), but the idea that Britain remains a country which is built upon racism is far more difficult.