How To Fight Racism

[Mercury]

When you flood a nation with millions of people of a totally different culture, resentment will inevitably emerge. This is normally not because of the fact that they are brown, but the fact that people see their communities changing for the worse.

A very good point. Cultural differences can truly cause negative issues ...

Hmmm ... another very difficult issue with no real clear answers ...

 

[HK]

I don't subscribe to the notion of a national "identity", I don't think anyone can accurately describe what it means to be English, American, Armenian, Turkish, French, Italian etc without resorting to cliché, the actions of long dead generals and politicians, or the misconstrued belief that you are God's preferred people.

This is interesting. Are you saying you don't believe there is such a thing as a cultural identity?

As much as I believe that a national identity can be adopted and isn't a fixed thing, I still think it exists. It's bound up in the common values of society and what we find acceptable. I know I'm not American or Iranian or French, and although I hesitate to say I'm proud to be British, the fact that I feel like that is also a terribly British trait I think cliches have some truth to them, even if they are exaggerations.

 

[Zorak]

This is interesting. Are you saying you don't believe there is such a thing as a cultural identity?

As much as I believe that a national identity can be adopted and isn't a fixed thing, I still think it exists. It's bound up in the common values of society and what we find acceptable. I know I'm not American or Iranian or French, and although I hesitate to say I'm proud to be British, the fact that I feel like that is also a terribly British trait I think cliches have some truth to them, even if they are exaggerations.

Not quite, I'm saying I personally don't believe I have a national identity. The nation of England is useful for three things to me:

a) Something to stand on
b) A general way to tell people where abouts I am from
c) Competing in global sports competitions

It's too abstract for me. England has the advantage of being more or less unified for nigh 1000 years, has been seperated from the continent for 30,000 years (I think, I could be wrong as to when the North Sea rose) and has had some equally noisy neighbours in terms of identity. If you're bordered by France and Scotland, the bit between stands a good chance of sticking together.
But there's no hard and fast rules. Italy is a pretty easy area to define in geographical terms, but is still a young country that struggles with identity. Fascism was one of their solutions to that. But it didn't work in the long run, they solved the Papacy problem, but afterwards the country has always been split in two: North and south, rich and poor, capitalist and socialist. There is still a strong royalist\independent sentiment in Naples and Palermo today for example.

 

[BleedingBull]

I havent seen this, but it made me smile The rev sounds like the sweetest person, and I shamefully could learn from his attitude. :ninja

 

[MainerMikeBrown]

I'm a white guy who grew up in the whitest state in America, Maine. However, when I was in high school, racist comments about minorities weren't tolerated by not only the teachers, but by the students as well, even though literally all of us were white. I think that's good.