Was it multicultural the place where you grew up?

[Spion]

I have three images for you that perfectly sum up the place I grew up in.

Which may lend itself as to why I a) left and b) am bitter and angry:

It's why I'm right wing and hate pikeys and criminals, and why I am also left wing and hate arrogant, narrow minded, selfish racists and greedy money hoarders.

An insight into the PtG psyche! How you doing mate?

 

[Tank Girl]

not in the slightest, from 9 - 15 I lived in rural dorset and there was one black kid at my school of 1000 pupils.

last couple of school years living in the new forest, no black kids at that school.

religion mostly c of e, a couple of jehovahs.

 

[Pete the Greek]

not bad thanks mate!

what about you?

I ought to be out and about doing stuff - arrgh, Urban and its will-power sapping ways!

it's all good. Weather getting better. I don't need to hire a narrowboat to get to work this week.

 

[dash_two]

Early years lived in a part of town with mainly English but also Italian, Chinese and Maltese people.

Teenage years spent in an area with English, Irish, Caribbean and some Cypriot people.

 

[trashpony]

There were about 10 kids who weren't white in my year at school out of about 80 so not really

 

[ska invita]

One of only two white boys in my primary school class, and I wasnt even born in Britain! (school in the stamford hill/tottenham area)

Kids love multiculturalism - they just couldnt give a shit about "race" - all this identity crap really kicks in in secondary school. If only we could never grow up and just keep playing in the sand pit!

Edit: That said, if you go to a mono-culture primary school I think other races do get "Mistified" or whatever the word is, and suspition and fetishisation creep in for kids, who have no experience to draw on except rumours, hearsay and what nuggets fall off the table from the scum-media.

 

[Spion]

not bad thanks mate!

what about you?

Yeah, doin OK, (considering Mrs S left me recently - see nobbing and sobbing thread for details)

Hopefully catch up at a meet soon

 

[Spion]

Where I grew up was 99% white (outer city S Birmingham), tho we did have a Jewish family 2 doors away (I remember being invited round to take part in their Passover evening thing when i was about 7). Later on when I was about 13 we had Indian neighbours, and similarly they brought curry round for me. Strange the newcomers had to be the ones making the gesture, but that probably says a lot about Britain.

All the time of my childhood I went to school in a very multicultural area - large no.s of black and Asian kids (Moseley).

Since leaving home I've always lived in multicultural areas (Balsall Heath, Handsworth, Streatham, Tottenham, Elephant, Bradford), and much prefer it that way. Outer city 'white' pubs give me the shudders, probably remembering all the violence in the ones near where I grew up

 

[Pete the Greek]

Yeah, doin OK, (considering Mrs S left me recently - see nobbing and sobbing thread for details)

Hopefully catch up at a meet soon

Sorry to hear your news dude, and indeedy, I look forward to the next meet up where a beer shall be on't me.

take is easy fella

 

[nino_savatte]

I grew up on military bases, so while some of them were multicultural, others were not. We were the only mixed family on our base in Germany (Bavaria) for instance.

 

[hiccup]

My high school in west London was roughly 50% white, 50% everything else. Which I'd guess isn't too far off the mix in the borough (Ealing) as a whole.

 

[glenquagmire]

Edit: That said, if you go to a mono-culture primary school I think other races do get "Mistified" or whatever the word is, and suspition and fetishisation creep in for kids, who have no experience to draw on except rumours, hearsay and what nuggets fall off the table from the scum-media.

Agreed. When I was 10 and we moved out to white home counties heartland and all of a sudden there were no ethnic minorities in the school, it was very noticeable that I heard jokes about "pakis" etc for the first time. I don't think it had occurred to any of us in inner London at that age to define people by skin colour. Obviously a case of ignorance breeding prejudice.

 

[madzone]

My primary school in Aberdeen was totally white until we had a sikh family move to the catchment area. I vivdly remember being told they were dirty and not to play with them

 

[sojourner]

No, there was one black family who lived over the back from us, and two Indian families round the corner. That was it til about 80/81, when several Vietnamese families moved into the village - they then got slagged something chronic for 'fucking boat people, taking our houses'

 

[ATOMIC SUPLEX]

Not at all.

Westbury.

One black family in the whole town. When I was about 12 a chinese family opened a chip shop on the edge of town.

 

[ViolentPanda]

I have three images for you that perfectly sum up the place I grew up in.

It's why I'm right wing and hate pikeys and criminals, and why I am also left wing and hate arrogant, narrow minded, selfish racists and greedy money hoarders.

You're about as left-wing as a monkey's right testicle, Pete.

BTW, what do Eltham's lowest scumbags have to do with Harry Enfield's plastering tosser from Tottenham?

 

[northernhord]

Yep.
Inner city council estates often were in the late 1960s and early 70s.
Grew up alongside (and went to school with) Ghanaians, Nigerians, Poles, Jamaicans, Mauritians, Trinidadians, Portugese, Indians, Pakistanis, HK Chinese, Greek Cypriots and Maltese.

Most people got on with one another.

Yeah same where I grew up, most people werent mithered by skin colour and Ethnicity.

 

[bluestreak]

reasonably so. gants hill in the late 80s and early 90s was approximately 33% white aspirant middle classes... you know the type, working class peolpe with half decent incomes (generally through building and trades during the 80s boom), about 33% jewish aspirant and middle classes (most of my jewish friends' dads were cabbies, the rest were doctors and dentists), and about 33% second generation indian, pakistani and bangladeshi from a mixture of social classes. so while it was multicultural enough that i had a smattering of yiddish and knew how to swear and say please and thanks in urdu there were still less than ten black kids in our year, inlcuding a kid called adewale ojosipe (or something like that) who was often called zulu because of his name (and because when he joined the school he claimed his dad was a zulu warrior) - all the other black kids having normal british-style names.

 

[In Bloom]

It's hideously white

 

[Stigmata]

In my secondary school of 1000 students, there were maybe three asians and five chinese. So no, not astonishingly diverse. It's changed a lot in the last five or six years though, in part because the local poly got university status and has started attracting people from all over.

It's probably why I find women from ethnic minorities so fascinating.

 

[Idaho]

Brighton in the 70s and 80s was pretty homogenous.

 

[Pete the Greek]

You're about as left-wing as a monkey's right testicle, Pete.

BTW, what do Eltham's lowest scumbags have to do with Harry Enfield's plastering tosser from Tottenham?

You haven't quite made the correct link to location. Geographically very near, but not quite.

 

[chymaera]

100% white where I was born, (and as far as I am aware it still is), the nearest town was VERY multicultural/multic ethnic and still is, (with very poor race relations).

 

[felixthecat]

Not at all.

Westbury.

One black family in the whole town. When I was about 12 a chinese family opened a chip shop on the edge of town.

Similar area, a few miles away in Bradford-on-Avon. Lilywhite until a Ugandan family moved in with 4 kids, all of whom were frighteningly clever and went on to study medicine. I wouldn't have managed to get my chemistry o-level if it weren't for the help of my mate Alka .