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Thread: Racism

  1. #1
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    Yes, Peerzy.....I do so love the bold function.

    I hate racism. Sounds like the US is not alone in this, though. I was quite surpised to read that there is racism in the UK, by the judgement pronounced against the US by the people on this board in this matter.

    What can be done to stop this in our world? Individual responsibility? It is a start, and a major one, but what other things can be done?






    Racism in the UK
    Archive Recent Editions 2002 Editions Jul 20, 2002
    Author: Nick Wright
    People's Weekly World Newspaper, 07/20/02 00:00


    Racism is the most poisonous element in a witches’ brew of reactionary and ruling-class ideas that block a clear-sighted understanding of British political reality. But for the non-white ethnic minorities – who now make up 7.1 percent of the population – racism is an inescapable fact of life.

    Black unemployment, at 13 percent, is double the rate for white people. More than one in five people of Pakistani and Bangladeshi origin are out of work.

    Race multiplies the effect of class divisions. Forty percent of the population as a whole live in the areas of worst housing but these same working-class areas house seven out of ten of Black people.

    Infant mortality is 100 percent higher for the children of African, Caribbean or Pakistani mothers. Diabetes rates for Pakistani and Bangladeshi people are five times greater and coronary heart disease double.

    It is in their dealing with the criminal justice system that Black people’s encounter with racism is most pronounced and most sharply experienced.

    Racial harassment is widespread and, because Black people have good reason to lack confidence in the police, only one in 20 incidents is reported. Black youth are five or six times more likely to be stopped and searched. Black people are two-and-a-half times more likely to go to jail. They get longer prison sentences and make up 12 percent of the male and 18 percent of the female prison population.

    These bare facts show just how deeply rooted racist practices are in British life.

    The killing of Stephen Lawrence set in train a series of events that both changed the way racism is seen and dealt with in British politics but also highlighted the remarkable flexibility of the British ruling class in meeting assaults on its entrenched power.

    Several factors transformed his murder from a deep tragedy affecting his family, friends and community into a turning point.

    Firstly, the remarkable courage, dignity and fortitude of his family. When the Communist Party in its forthcoming congress resolution “salutes the brave actions of the families of victims of racist violence and repression in fighting for justice; the thousands of anti-racist, community and trade union activists fighting against racist immigration and asylum laws and the mass organisations of Black and ethnic minority workers in Britain” it is emphasizing the importance of these forces in changing British society.

    Secondly, the role played by the labor movement, in unity with the Black community, in campaigning. It was the individual unions, and remarkably the TUC, which pioneered the campaign and made justice for Stephen Lawrence the pivot for a major shift in consciousness. Official Britain took note only when compelled.

    Independently of how working people think of themselves, always a contradictory feature of life in class society, the fact is that class and race are inextricably bound up. The big majority of people in Britain find paid work to live, or must survive on benefits. And the overwhelming majority of Black people are in the same situation. But all of us must deal with the burden that a colonial past and the new imperialism imposes.

    We expect the monopoly media to fuel the government’s rush to reactionary immigration and asylum policies. These policies are the flipside of the new imperialism, which projects the U.S. and EU as global cops. Gordon Brown devises and defends global policies which lower producer prices for third world countries, deepen their indebtedness, and ties trade and aid to privatization and the sale of state assets.

    New Labour’s enthusiastic leadership in European and U.S. military adventures displaces refugees by the millions and breeds a climate of chauvinism and racist suspicion.

    This finds an echo in the disreputable “new Labour” policy speculation around faith schools and citizenship tests which give ground to Tory and ultra-right propaganda. When a Labour Home Secretary talks of “mono-cultural communities” he is blaming the victims of racism for the plight they find themselves in.

    The Communist Party argues in its congress resolution that “the specific forms of racism in Britain are the inescapable product of our country’s pioneer role in the development of capitalism and the particular character of Britain’s colonial history. But contemporary racism is shaped by new factors including increasing integration into the coercive and repressive institutions of the EU, the increasing subordination of global markets to transnational monopoly and the institutions of imperialist domination, the World Bank, the IMF and the WTO.”

    The labor movement as a whole, particularly the trade unions, is beginning to tackle racism with some seriousness. The Communist Party, at its June Congress, will debate an important resolution which attempts to map out the next stages in the struggle to place the fight against racism at the centre of a working-class agenda. The Communist Party will mark 82 years of anti-imperialist activity with a new resolve to assault the system of exploitation and oppression on which racism feeds and which it serves.

    It does this in the understanding that unless the working-class movement makes the fight against racism an integral part of its approach to both daily bargaining within the capitalist system and its strategy to win working-class power, it will never become the ruling class.



    Nick Wright is a member of the Communist Party of Britain’s (www.communist-party.org.uk) executive committee. This is an abridged version of his article originally published in the Morning Star (www.poptel.org.uk/morning-star) as part of the discussion leading to the CPB’s 46th Congress.

  2. The Drawing Room   -   #2
    Cool another news article, from the Peopls Weekly World Paper, lets check out their site about 'World News' (http://www.pww.org/)

    8 American articles on the front page.
    0 British
    0 European
    0 African
    0 Aisan

    Only one of the articles is not about Ameirca and thats about Venezuela.


    Nice 'World' News


  3. The Drawing Room   -   #3
    DanB's Avatar Smoke weed everyday
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    and its over 3 years old

    Racism in the UK
    Archive Recent Editions 2002 Editions Jul 20, 2002
    Author: Nick Wright
    People's Weekly World Newspaper, 07/20/02 00:00

  4. The Drawing Room   -   #4
    Virtualbody1234's Avatar Forum Star BT Rep: +2
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    Quote Originally Posted by Peerzy
    Cool another news article, from the Peopls Weekly World Paper, lets check out their site about 'World News' (http://www.pww.org/)

    8 American articles on the front page.
    0 British
    0 European
    0 African
    0 Aisan

    Only one of the articles is not about Ameirca and thats about Venezuela.


    Nice 'World' News
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  5. The Drawing Room   -   #5
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    Quote Originally Posted by Everose
    Yes, Peerzy.....I do so love the bold function.

    I hate racism. Sounds like the US is not alone in this, though. I was quite surpised to read that there is racism in the UK, by the judgement pronounced against the US by the people on this board in this matter.

    What can be done to stop this in our world? Individual responsibility? It is a start, and a major one, but what other things can be done?
    Hmm ... yes, racism is bad. I think we can all agree on that. The fact it exists in the UK is hardly news.

    However, there is another thread about hypocrisy. Which is rather ironic.

    You seem to be digging around the interweb to find articles to make the UK look bad -- this particular article, as DanB pointed out, is over 3 years old!

    Would I be wrong in assuming that you'd discourage others to do a similar thing to portray the US, or indeed any country, in a bad light.

    If I'm correct in that assumption then isn't what you're doing a little ... hypocritical.
    I plan on beating him to death with his kids. I'll use them as a bludgeon on his face. -

    --Good for them if they survive.

  6. The Drawing Room   -   #6
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    Quote Originally Posted by manker
    Quote Originally Posted by Everose
    Yes, Peerzy.....I do so love the bold function.

    I hate racism. Sounds like the US is not alone in this, though. I was quite surpised to read that there is racism in the UK, by the judgement pronounced against the US by the people on this board in this matter.

    What can be done to stop this in our world? Individual responsibility? It is a start, and a major one, but what other things can be done?
    Hmm ... yes, racism is bad. I think we can all agree on that. The fact it exists in the UK is hardly news.

    However, there is another thread about hypocrisy. Which is rather ironic.

    You seem to be digging around the interweb to find articles to make the UK look bad -- this particular article, as DanB pointed out, is over 3 years old!

    Don't be paranoid, Manker. I guess you could say it has taken me awhile to learn the proper way to operate on this board. Googling to dig up stuff to make a country look bad? Shame on me.

    Would I be wrong in assuming that you'd discourage others to do a similar thing to portray the US, or indeed any country, in a bad light.

    No, you would not be wrong at all.

    If I'm correct in that assumption then isn't what you're doing a little ... hypocritical.
    Yes, very. And I do hate it so.

  7. The Drawing Room   -   #7
    manker's Avatar effendi
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    Well, you don't have to lower yourself to their level.
    I plan on beating him to death with his kids. I'll use them as a bludgeon on his face. -

    --Good for them if they survive.

  8. The Drawing Room   -   #8
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    Quote Originally Posted by Everose
    Quote Originally Posted by manker
    Hmm ... yes, racism is bad. I think we can all agree on that. The fact it exists in the UK is hardly news.

    However, there is another thread about hypocrisy. Which is rather ironic.

    You seem to be digging around the interweb to find articles to make the UK look bad -- this particular article, as DanB pointed out, is over 3 years old!

    Don't be paranoid, Manker. I guess you could say it has taken me awhile to learn the proper way to operate on this board. Googling to dig up stuff to make a country look bad? Shame on me.

    Would I be wrong in assuming that you'd discourage others to do a similar thing to portray the US, or indeed any country, in a bad light.

    No, you would not be wrong at all.

    If I'm correct in that assumption then isn't what you're doing a little ... hypocritical.
    Yes, very. And I do hate it so.
    would you like a Kleenex?

  9. The Drawing Room   -   #9
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    Quote Originally Posted by manker
    Well, you don't have to lower yourself to their level.
    I found it necessary. I care very much for people. I care for this board.

    I feel very strongly I have a choice here. I can continue to remain quiet when others lower theirselves to that 'level.' Is that the best way, Manker? Be a little follower like the boys in 'Lord of the Flies?' I can continue to watch people of all nations walk away from this drawing room without a word because they have had a belly full of the low levels of humanity that are displayed here. I suppose it would be much easier just to raise my head in arrogance, mumbling that I am 'better than the 'low levels' (your words, not mine), wash my hands of it and walk away.

    And for those of you who fire back and ask me why I don't? It is for the same reason that I detest seeing this (America....love it or leave it!) posted on the bumper of a vehicle in America. I am as loyal to this board as I am to my country. But I will be damned if I am quiet about the inequities I see in either. I will work to change instead of walk away.

    Call it 'lowering' myself if that is your will.

  10. The Drawing Room   -   #10
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    Quote Originally Posted by Everose
    Quote Originally Posted by manker
    Well, you don't have to lower yourself to their level.
    I found it necessary. I care very much for people. I care for this board.

    I feel very strongly I have a choice here. I can continue to remain quiet when others lower theirselves to that 'level.' Is that the best way, Manker? Be a little follower like the boys in 'Lord of the Flies?' I can continue to watch people of all nations walk away from this drawing room without a word because they have had a belly full of the low levels of humanity that are displayed here. I suppose it would be much easier just to raise my head in arrogance, mumbling that I am 'better than the 'low levels' (your words, not mine), wash my hands of it and walk away.

    And for those of you who fire back and ask me why I don't? It is for the same reason that I detest seeing this (America....love it or leave it!) posted on the bumper of a vehicle in America. I am as loyal to this board as I am to my country. But I will be damned if I am quiet about the inequities I see in either. I will work to change instead of walk away.

    Call it 'lowering' myself if that is your will.
    The right way to go about it, I think, would be to refute their suggestions in a proper manner each time they trouble you, without resorting to a tit-for-tat campaign.

    You do not have to remain quiet, you can voice discontent and paint the perceived aggressors in an unfavourable light with on point rebukes. I find that once a person is made to look quite foolish, he or she thinks twice before repeating the act.

    Well, that's what I'd try to do, anyway
    I plan on beating him to death with his kids. I'll use them as a bludgeon on his face. -

    --Good for them if they survive.

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