Race, immigration and cultural diversity in the UK

[annwfyn]

This comes from a discussion on someone else’s LJ, in which I found myself feeling quite surprised by some of the views that were being expressed about race, immigration, and cultural diversity in the UK.

I am, therefore, offering up a poll for your interest.


[Poll #974234]

One thing I've realised is that my views have changed over the last year or so, and slightly weirdly it is mostly down to LJ. A while ago I got into the habit of drifting around various LJ communities, and peering at them with a kind of fascination. Amongst those communities, I came across debunkingwhite and ap_racism, which I read for a while.

When I first starting reading them I found half the entries to be absurd, and bordering on the offensive. I mean, white people weren't like that. All these people were being ridiculous, and seeing race demons where they didn't exist. Or maybe things were like that in America, but they weren't like that in the UK.

I think I may actually have started refusing to read those communities, because they annoyed me so much. To a certain extent, I do think some of the things I've read there are ridiculous. I still vehemently disagree with the lunatic who wrote that "I've come to believe that White interferance in PoC communities will never be a positive thing, and the only thing we can hope for in America is peaceful segregation". When the hell did segregation become something that the anti-racist movement should aspire towards?

Yet reading these communities and just opening my eyes did begin to make me notice things a little bit more. I noticed the woman at Cancer Research UK, who bitched about 'all these foreign doctors' who were apparently the problem with the NHS these days because 'well, dear, these people just don't understand cleanliness, do they?' and the way no one in an office of five people even tried to correct her. I noticed the number of people who said things like 'well, there are a lot of black people in my area, and I just don't feel safe walking the streets at night'. Why on earth does that have to do with the black people? Say there's a high crime rate. Say you live in a pretty poor area. Why on earth is someone predisposed to mug you due to the pigment in your skin?

These days, I do think that maybe racism is more of a problem than I think we like to admit, and I think it is also something that lurks a lot closer to home than we realise. My final awakening came when I was sitting on a bus in America. A big black guy in baggy jeans, covered in bling, got on and sat down next to me. I tensed up. God knows why, but on some level I was nervous about this guy sitting next to me.

I think I kept glancing at him nervously for about five or ten minutes before he turned to me and said "am I making you uncomfortable?"

The minute he said that, I realised what a completely unreasonable cow I was being. Why on earth was I glancing suspiciously at a random stranger who had done nothing to deserve it. I said "oh, I'm sorry...no...of course not" (which was a lie) and he (bless his kindness) said "oh! You're British" and we wound up chatting for the rest of the journey, with my ignorance apparently being forgiven as some kind of odd cultural thang. He was a lovely guy. But I'd been afraid of him for no good reason other than my own prejudice.

Since then I've done my level best to watch my own stupid thought processes, and I've tried to prod and poke others. But I do think it's there, and I think although we wrap it up in a lot of different words and phrases, we are still carrying a couple of centuries worth of prejudice and preconception around in our heads most of the time.

Comments

[annwfyn.livejournal.com]

Hmmmm...

The one thing I do think about positive discrimination and the objections to it is that saying something should be done on 'pure ability' is a very disingeneous comment.

Say an exam is sat. Say it is an English Literature exam, which means writing an essay. Two people both get A grades.

One person has gotten an A grade because he has been coached carefully in exactly the right kind of things to say in this essay. He's been given a list of 'buzz words' that the examiners tend to look for, by professionals who have been working in this area for years. He's been taught essay writing techniques, to get his point across more clearly. He's had extra classes to prepare him for this exam after school, and he's been able to devote his full attention to this.

The other person never had this. He's been working a part time job after school to buy his books for school. No one from his school has ever taken this exam before, so no one really has a clue what he should be doing. He's done the basic course which leads up to this exam, but big chunks of his time in class have been taken up by his teacher having to explain the real basics of the subject to some of the kids who just don't get the subject at all. In fact, half the time he's wound up just teaching himself from books because the class is too chaotic for his teacher to really teach. He just walked into the exam room, and tried to explain his points as best he possibly could, without any of the preparation and support that the first guy received.

Who has actually done better on that exam?

[silver-blue.livejournal.com]

Nobody has done better on the exam. The second person has greater overall potential.

[annwfyn.livejournal.com]

To my mind, that's sort of where positive discrimination/affirmative action comes from. It's saying that for some, achieving an A grade at A level means a bit more than it does for others, and that it is expressing a greater level of potential that should be encouraged.

Or, in some cases, achieving a B grade at A level means a lot more than achieving an A grade at A level does for others, and that the kid from the inner city sink school, who's parents don't speak English, and who has had to work his own way through sixth form to get ABB, probably has a lot more potential to really do amazing things, than the middle class white kid who was pushed snd prodded and pretty much lifted through the hoops of the education system by Eton, or Wycombe Abbey.

[silver-blue.livejournal.com]

That's not actually positive discrimination though. You *are* allowed to take potential into account - and that's something that you'd judge through interview and further assessment. It's not something you'd judge on the basis of "well, they're black and they come from the inner city". That universities and companies don't perhaps do that is an issue - and is in fact their loss - but that's very different from the quote systems or lesser scrutiny of minorities that positive discrimination involves.

[annwfyn.livejournal.com]

I guess maybe positive discrimination, and what I think it should entail, just differs to your perception of it. I know far too little to really debate the mechanics of how it works in places where such systems do exist.

To me, positive discrimination is something like a university having the capacity to say "OK - Frederick Fossington-Smythe got 5 A grades at A level, and Abasi Mkimbi got an A and two B grades at A level. We think that that means that Abasi actually has a lot more potential than Frederick, as he's had to work a lot harder to get this far, and is clearly a lot more motivated, so we're going to give this place to Abasi"

And I think when making that judgement it is reasonable to say "he comes from an inner city school where the majority of kids aren't getting the basic number of passes at GCSE" because getting good grades in that environment does mean something quite different to getting good grades in a much more pressured academic environment.

So, maybe I don't think saying "black guys don't have to get good grades" is reasonable, but I do think that looking at the bigger picture, where people come from, and the social environment that they are working in is reasonable, especially at university level time.

[portilis.livejournal.com]

Slightly off topic here, but I would disagree with the concept of the private schools tutoring specifically to pass the exams.

I know from my own experience that the first time that I really came across the principle of "this is what the examiner wants to see" was during my driving lessons, then at uni. It wasn't something that ever came up at school, mostly I suspect due to the fact that discipline is so heavily drilled in at private schools that the staff can keep a lot more control over the class, so more gets done. Add in supervised homework periods, longer school day, smaller classes, etc, and you just end up with more intense tuition that is, obviously, going to provide an advantage.

On the other side of the coin though, the majority of the students in the top classes were scholarship students. Yes, they were getting the top schooling, but at the same time they were the pupils who had proven their exceptional abilities and therefore were already a cut above even a lot of those getting the intense tuition.

The biggest difference I think is opportunity. One of my friends from Bryanston has six a-levels and two as-levels, as well as a plethora of other qualifications from there. How many schools would that even be possible at? I have an S-level in Physics - most employers and other people who see my CV don't even know what that is, since they're virtually unknown outside the private sector.

I think what I'm trying to get at is that the public perception of the private sector is often somewhat warped. Most private schools now have a quite high percentage of foreign or foreign-descent students, partially because Britain's private schools have a good rep, partially because foreign-descent kids often have a much, much better work ethic. As an example, one of my friends from Winchester was half-Russian. His father (the british parent) worked out in russia for 11 months of the year, whilst his mother cared for the four kids (all of whom went through boarding school). I remember the shock I had when staying with him, discovering that this kid, at the time 14, had to do two hours each day of musical practice and an hour of academic work, and this was considered a special treat of reduced time due to having a friend staying.

I'm not quite sure where this is going at this point...there's a vague quantity of ramble occuring.

In the end though, I personally think that a public sector school is far more likely to tutor people to pass exams rather than to know the subject - the private sector doesn't have to worry so much about getting perfect grades since the funding isn't quite so dependant on it and there isn't as much of the constant worry with OFSTED and the plethora of other agencies, plus they have more time and resources to provide a rounded education.

[annwfyn.livejournal.com]

Fair point. I was mostly thinking about the contrast between my ex-grammar school, where Oxbridge candidates were all given extra lessons in order to do well on the Oxford entrance exam, and do well at interview, and were really heavily coached on what to do and how to behave, and the experience of others I know, who just didn't get that.

I was also vaguely thinking about Oxford Girls High, where the mother of a friend of mine taught, where I know they also had extra classes for brighter candidates to up their Oxbridge statistics.

I've got an S level too, by the way. I've got a distinction in History. I don't think anyone has ever asked about it, and I keep forgetting to put it on my CV now. Must add it again at some point.

[lilitufire.livejournal.com]

I think it's worth putting an S level on a CV (well I put mine in Biology on) as it was a good selling point, certainly when I was in my twenties anyway.