« Of Course, It's the Patriarchy | Main | That Old Roman Law Thing »
September 19, 2007
Can Both These Things Be True?
Not sure:
Three decades of multi-culturalism have left Britain an unequal and segregated nation that is in danger of breaking up, race watchdogs say in a report published today.
Things are terrible.
On the positive side, it says there has been significant progress since it was set up under the Race Relations Act in 1974.
Things have got better.
Logically, yes, it is poosible for both to be true. But I have a feeling that it's the headline claim which is a little off. Things are indeed better than they were which means that society is less likely to break up.
''Segregation - residentially, socially and in the workplace - is growing."
I'm not sure that's true either. Of course, we have to differentiate between first generation immigrants and second. An influx of new immigrants will clearly increase the amount of segregation. The interesting thing, though. the thing we might want to note, is what about the second generation? Does it remain segregated? Now I know that there are some examples where this is so, but in general, doesn't the UK have one of the world's highest racial (or cultural, if you prefer) intermarriage rates?
That would indicate that, absent any waves of new immigration, that the place it getting less segregated all the time.
September 19, 2007 in Idiotarians | Permalink
TrackBack
TrackBack URL for this entry:
https://www.typepad.com/services/trackback/6a00d8341c2d3e53ef00e54ee112e38833
Listed below are links to weblogs that reference Can Both These Things Be True?:
Comments
Rates of inter-racial marriage are difficult to find out but observation in the street suggests it is high, especially in some areas with a long-established Caribbean population. I promise this is true: I recently saw a young black man with a young black girl, plus baby, and thought - "Oh, how unusual - a non-mixed couple" !!
Posted by: Jim Winfield | Sep 19, 2007 8:49:52 AM
Rates of inter-racial marriage are difficult to find out but observation in the street suggests it is high, especially in some areas with a long-established Caribbean population. I promise this is true: I recently saw a young black man with a young black girl, plus baby, and thought - "Oh, how unusual - a non-mixed couple" !!
Posted by: Jim Winfield | Sep 19, 2007 8:50:15 AM
What Jim says.
When you're at my local Tesco, at least half the couples appear to be mixed race (any permutation you like) as are indeed me and her indoors and the majority of married couples we know.
The Pakistanis don't join in of course, oh no, they are far too busy plotting terror attacks and stuff.
Posted by: Mark Wadsworth | Sep 19, 2007 11:08:17 AM
What did you expect the final report of the race hustlers to say? It's so predictable: "things are getting better" ie we've done a superb job but, unfortunately, "things are getting worse" ie we (that is the new EHRC) is needed more than ever.
Posted by: Umbongo | Sep 19, 2007 5:40:09 PM
Maybe we "are" needed more than ever.
Posted by: Umbongo | Sep 19, 2007 5:41:13 PM
I'm not sure about Blacks as such, nor Sikhs and Hindus; they all seem to integrate fairly well.
The ghettoisation seems to be occuring with muslims, and not the older generation, but the young who seem to feel that the 'indiginous' owe them something for being unemployable.
Posted by: Robert the Biker | Sep 19, 2007 5:45:33 PM
Why not quote the actual interracial marriage / co habitation figures?
What we saw down the shops sounds rather like "everybody knows".
Posted by: john cramer | Sep 20, 2007 6:53:26 AM
