I had a YouGov survey today that asked about voting intentions and issues that would affect my vote. One of the questions caused me some difficulty, a question about whether "immigration" is an important factor in the way I vote; it is, but not in the way that a British polling company like YouGov could appreciate.
Immigration is a huge factor in my political outlook, the immigration of English people into Wales; many of whom import their racist policies with them, and make UKIP and its intolerance of indigenous Welsh people and our acceptance of others into part of their political diatribe.
There are so many of these White Flight English Racists living in Wales now, that they may get a foothold in the Senedd. They already represent English intolerance, on behalf of Wales, in the European Parliament.
English racism colonising Wales is an issue that no party is willing to tackle, despite the fact that it is a major problem and one that Labour the Lib Dems and Plaid, if they had any conscious, should attack head on; it's a sad fact of modern Welsh political cowardice that none of these parties will make the case for Wales, until it is too late!
Referring to people as "White Flight English" is also totally unacceptable and I think says more about you as a person.
ReplyDelete"White flight" is not a racist term, it is a term that has been used in sociology since at least the 1940s, and has regularly appeared in academic treaties about the social sciences. If you know of a prettier name for the phenomenon, let me know and I'll be happy to use your euphemism; but changing terminology isn't a response to the problems facing Welsh culture by people moving out of areas where they feel "English Culture" is being threatened and then trying to superimpose that English culture onto the Welsh communities into which they move. Pretending that the issue doesn't exist isn't a valid response either.
DeleteWhy is referring to people as "White Flight English" unacceptable? "White Flight" is a well-documented phenomenon which has existed for decades in the US and UK. As dark-skinned people moved into neighbourhoods, white people moved out. Detroit and Bradford are extant examples of the process of White Flight. Those "White Flighters" may have been racist, or they may have been people looking to get out of areas where social change and falling property prices caused them to take fright.
ReplyDeleteThis knee-jerk, politically correct response to the mention of potentially racist behavior - casting the "mention" as racist - is as preposterous as it is damaging.
The fact is that white people in Britain move out of areas which non-white people are moving into. Those areas tend to be in English cities, and many of those fleeing - many of whom are racist - are settling in rural Wales
A study by WISERD in 2012 actually showed that a larger percentage of people in Wales had negative views on immigration than Scotland, Northern Ireland areas and some parts of England...... So it doesn't actually stand that racism is being brought in to Wales by the English.
ReplyDeleteErrrrr no. Some racism is being imported, and some is indigenous. Guess what? Some Indians, Poles, Chinese, Moroccans and Canadians are bringing racism to Wales, because racism exists all around the world! Fancy that?!
DeleteSome people are racist, and some are not. What is most racist is the way that certain governments repeatedly set their military attack dogs against weak, impoverished countries that are chock-full of non-white people. While all the time braying about "inclusivity" and "equality" in their own sordid realms.
Now THAT'S racist!
Well with the greatest of respect the article only referred to English people importing racism in to Wales and not Indians, Polish, etc etc so the author was actually singling out one particular group of people, which is discrimination. Heaven forbid could it actually be that people who move out of areas populated by multi cultural populations may be doing so for reasons due to employment, lifestyle change, studies actually show that people who remain in such areas are more racist than those who move out.
DeleteA census in 2011 showed that 1/3rd of people living in Wales, were people born in England. It didn't note how many of their children, born in Wales, considered themselves English. It is probable that the Welsh are now a minority in Wales. During the last election all four major Unionist parties mentioned that immigration into Britain was a problem. Immigrants not having British Values was a problem. Immigrants not speaking English was a problem; convert the same issues into a Welsh context and mention them in a blog post and then one is a racist, a xenophobe, an anti English extremist of the worst kind; rather than one who sees a bloody big elephant in the room! Double standards of the worst kind.
DeleteThe 2011 Census showed that 73% of residents were born in Wales so I don't think you can say that the Welsh are a minority. It's quite interesting to see the stats on how many of those people actually speak Welsh as well because the vast majority do not.
DeleteThere are large swathes of the north Wales coast, including where I live, where Welsh born are a minority.
DeleteThere is still a welsh identity, it may not be via the language, but still there, and is adopted by people who come to live in Wales too. The basis has simply changed with the times, but few people call us English, even when that is the majority language used. Sport e.g. is a major area where a welsh ID is very obvious and fiercely defended...
ReplyDeleteEnglish immigration is a smokescreen anyway...it's not 'immigration' it's the continuation of colonisation!
ReplyDelete