AnnO'Neemus
Is so vanilla
Tbh, I think the way that New Labour and other political parties and also the media, tend to treat issues like this as 'the elephant in the room' actually increases support for the BNP.
Issues such as this *are* issues in working class communities. I was in Blackburn during the last general election campaign, and the communities up there are quite segregated and divided.
There was a lot of white working class resentment on the doorsteps. Many white people (albeit not all) in the council estates up there were quite resentful about resources being diverted (as they saw it), to improve facilities and homes on the estates that were majority populated by Asian families.
It seems that there's a perception that local authorities such as Blackburn (and this can apply to other councils with large asian populations), concentrate a lot of resources on areas with a high asian population. This is possibly for a number of reasons: More effective lobbying and community groups making demands (whoever shouts loudest gets the most); local authorities perhaps overcompensating for previous disparities in income and deprivation levels -- a fear of being portrayed as racist or anti-asian that means the local authority sinks more resources into asian areas (a positive action kind of thing); and then also, in places like Blackburn, there is a lot of voting on community lines, so it's perhaps viewed as politically expedient by the council not to piss off the asian community/to curry favour with them, so as to benefit from the bloc voting.
And the resentment in Blackburn isn't just confined to white people, I spoke with one asian woman, living with her family on a small newbuild estate, her husband had been made redundant nine months previously. She complained about newly arrived asians, who come over following marriage to a British asian, and she was complaining that they were taking jobs from the likes of her husband (British born Asian), because they depressed wages and also expected to be housed and stuff, whereas she and her husband had bought their property and were now struggling to pay the mortgage while he was jobless.
I think that mainstream parties and the media's unwillingness to discuss this kind of thing plays into the hands of racists and the BNP. It is really difficult to discuss these kinds of things while exercising restraint...
I think a lot of the time it isn't so much based on race, it's more a matter of scarce resources having to be stretched beyond breaking point, and people will be resentful of any incomer who's competing for *their* resources.
In rural areas, where there's an issue with second home owners coming along and pricing out the locals, that issue can be discussed sensibly and rationally and logically... but in an urban community where the incomers are more likely to have a different skin colour, then the real issue, the real debate -- of limited resources -- can easily be skewed by playing the race card.
If the mainstream political parties and the media could address these issues, then they would lose their recruiting power for the likes of the BNP. In Blackburn I was really shocked and appalled at the number of homes displaying BNP posters, and the number of people on the doorsteps who would unashamedly admit they were going to be voting for the BNP. But that's because those white working classes are feeling very disempowered -- they can't raise the issue of fairer distribution of resources with their local Labour councillors, many of whom are asian, because they risk being accused of being racist, and they feel, therefore, that the only people supporting them and addressing their concerns are the BNP.
The way to combat the likes of the BNP is to address the issue of the fair distribution of limited and falling resources.
Issues such as this *are* issues in working class communities. I was in Blackburn during the last general election campaign, and the communities up there are quite segregated and divided.
There was a lot of white working class resentment on the doorsteps. Many white people (albeit not all) in the council estates up there were quite resentful about resources being diverted (as they saw it), to improve facilities and homes on the estates that were majority populated by Asian families.
It seems that there's a perception that local authorities such as Blackburn (and this can apply to other councils with large asian populations), concentrate a lot of resources on areas with a high asian population. This is possibly for a number of reasons: More effective lobbying and community groups making demands (whoever shouts loudest gets the most); local authorities perhaps overcompensating for previous disparities in income and deprivation levels -- a fear of being portrayed as racist or anti-asian that means the local authority sinks more resources into asian areas (a positive action kind of thing); and then also, in places like Blackburn, there is a lot of voting on community lines, so it's perhaps viewed as politically expedient by the council not to piss off the asian community/to curry favour with them, so as to benefit from the bloc voting.
And the resentment in Blackburn isn't just confined to white people, I spoke with one asian woman, living with her family on a small newbuild estate, her husband had been made redundant nine months previously. She complained about newly arrived asians, who come over following marriage to a British asian, and she was complaining that they were taking jobs from the likes of her husband (British born Asian), because they depressed wages and also expected to be housed and stuff, whereas she and her husband had bought their property and were now struggling to pay the mortgage while he was jobless.
I think that mainstream parties and the media's unwillingness to discuss this kind of thing plays into the hands of racists and the BNP. It is really difficult to discuss these kinds of things while exercising restraint...
I think a lot of the time it isn't so much based on race, it's more a matter of scarce resources having to be stretched beyond breaking point, and people will be resentful of any incomer who's competing for *their* resources.
In rural areas, where there's an issue with second home owners coming along and pricing out the locals, that issue can be discussed sensibly and rationally and logically... but in an urban community where the incomers are more likely to have a different skin colour, then the real issue, the real debate -- of limited resources -- can easily be skewed by playing the race card.
If the mainstream political parties and the media could address these issues, then they would lose their recruiting power for the likes of the BNP. In Blackburn I was really shocked and appalled at the number of homes displaying BNP posters, and the number of people on the doorsteps who would unashamedly admit they were going to be voting for the BNP. But that's because those white working classes are feeling very disempowered -- they can't raise the issue of fairer distribution of resources with their local Labour councillors, many of whom are asian, because they risk being accused of being racist, and they feel, therefore, that the only people supporting them and addressing their concerns are the BNP.
The way to combat the likes of the BNP is to address the issue of the fair distribution of limited and falling resources.
