blonde poker forum

Don't really like the guy, but the man has a point, sometimes common sense is needed.........

http://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/uknews/immigration/9247835/Jeremy-Clarkson-claims-airport-delays-could-be-solved-with-a-bit-of-racism.html

Absolutely no doubt that many customs officers are racist.

Black travelers seem to be 100 times more likely to have their bags searched than white travelers.

My wife is Jamaican (with a US green card) and whenever we/she travel she is singled out for special security clearances and I have never been.  I don't really know what that can be other than racism because literally everything about us suggests I should be the target rather than her really.

Is there not a difference between racism and racial profiling, or for that matter nation profiling?

That's an interesting point and I've given it a bit of though, but basically, doesn't it amount to the same thing. i.e. attributing traits / behaviour patterns to someone because of their race?

I'm not saying you're wrong here, I'm just struggling to separate the two.

Think of it in poker terms.

When we sit at a new table with people we've never played before, the 'right' thing to do would be to not make any snap judgements about the other players, wait until we've seen enough of their play to be able to judge them on that.

But we get involved in the first hand, and we're three way with a young Swedish guy and an old Chinese man.

Do we assume they have default, neutral styles or do we assume they play differently?

I'm struggling also.

[ ] Most darkskinned people are terrorists.

[ ] There's ever been a convicted ginger-haired caucasian al-qaeda bomber.

Like a great many of these 'first world problems' it would also help greatly if people stopped being whiney little bitches about it. Years ago when it was much faster to get through the border so we had The Sun and various other snotrags screaming bloody murder about too many illegal immigrants and now that more checks are in place the queues are too long. Oh the inhumanity - what if the vending machines ran out of vitamin water too!

I guess my getting quizzed for 2 hours and having a full baggage search last time I went to the US can go down as a win for the liberals against racial profiling though. Clarkson would be livid.

As far as I'm aware anybody who has brought down a plane in recent times or anybody been caught trying to has had brown skin. As such placing special emphasis on people with brown skin is completely reasonable. Profiling is essential because getting through an airport would take all day if such measures weren't in place. I am fine with it because the person with brown skin isn't disadvantaged or less equal in the scheme of humanity, they are simply put within the boundaries of a profile for security and safety reasons, including their own.

Whilst I'm ok with brown skin profiling right now I think it will be less effective in the future because Al Qaeda are smart cookies and soon enough they will be using white people to combat it. Thus it must be organic and change with the times. Right now it is people with brown skin who are factually more likely to commit these crimes and hence why they are targeted more often. That is not racism or anything close to it imo.

If we look at people that have brought down planes then you are correct although the term brown skin is a convenient catch all because by no means have they all been from the same racial background.  The shoe bomber was from a mixed family none of whom were muslim and the underwear bomber was a black African from one of the richest families in the region.  Germaine Lesley was born in Jamaica and was black.  Of course using the tiny sample size of people that try and blow up planes is pretty unrepresentative.  In order to get a decent sample size you would need to extend the sample to all cases of terrorism for a decent period of time and then all of a sudden you need to include all people of Irish descent, Japanese descent, white American descent and even nice white boys from Surrey who have decided to blow up blacks, Asians and gays.  Do we really think if Anders Breivik or Timothy McVeigh had the wherewithal to take a plane and fly it into the white house or Norwegian parliament they might not have been tempted?

They've all been men too (I think), so why search women?

Muslims tend to be much more willing to kill themselves in the process though. Not that that means targeting brown skinned people. There are plenty of caucasian muslims. But you're kind of arguing against yourself, as we're specifically talking about security checks at airports here. When was the last time the IRA flew a plane into a building?

It would be quite ineffective to profile based upon historical conflict rather than current conflict. If the IRA were active today and a distinct terror threat to planes today undoubtedly they would be included within a profile today. Like I said profiling must be organic so it's a bit redundant to say eg Germans should be included in the profile because they bombed us in 1942. Any person from any ethnic group is equally capable of atrocity but because there are only so many hours in the day and there are millions of people to profile the security agencies will target the most likely first based on current conflict profiling. 

I thought this discussion was about people entering the country after they had got off the plane rather than about blowing up the plane or forcing it to crash.

Come on Mantis, that's a very trivial concept that you're endorsing. There's been more terrorist attacks in the UK caused by people of "Caucasian decent" then Brown skin if you want to put it in those terms.  Also I'm sure Jeremy Clarkson is talking about the queues of people waiting to get into the UK as opposed to out.  Take a look at the attempts to take planes down from the UK, "Redarmi" puts across the case well in saying that the sample size that you are going off is limited.  

We all know that the tabloids preach a lot of propaganda and sometimes the truth gets lost.. I don't want start talking about conspiracy theories and preaching my views on you all but come on, we spend £43 Billion a year on Defense, so threats foreign and domestic and only £23 Billion a year on Education, our border controls shouldn't just be quicker they should be more efficient in stopping threats before they even reach our shores..

Saying that and being a brown person myself I have had no issues with border control at any airport that I've visited in the last 30 years, maybe because I have an English name or maybe because I have a friendly face I don't know.  what I do know is that this country needs to start spending less on Welfare and more on Education, the root of all evil is lack of education and social integration because of it.  

Education and optimism is what made Britain Great.  We need start spending more on Education, instead trying to defend a country with a population of 62 million with Nuclear weapons and allowing people that live off the state to have a similar lifestyle to working class folk...

I think that is a fair point but it is very dangerous to assume that what has happened in the past is a good guide to the future.  Plenty of non Muslim extremists have been willing to die for their cause and you don't have to be brown to be a Muslim extremist as John Walker Lindh showed. 

Fair point well made but what you're talking about with profiling and with racism is judging people pejoratively based on skin colour and that is enough to conflate them in the minds of people who completely lack your faculty for more delicate judgement.

---
We're talking about people getting off planes here but the principle is exactly the same, there are concerns for security aroudn the olympics and who we let in. The arguments can also be applied to who we chose to stop and search after 7/7. Sure were loads of gingers.

The 'irish' comment made me think back a few years, was at St Andrews the same time as William (and security was tight, they had found 'credible threats' including detailed maps among terrorist groups). He stayed at St Salvador's Hall of Residence for a while. Total irish resident count there during that time: zero.

It's all very well chastising the current system of profiling and saying such and such isn't ideal. Sure thing. Who said it was ideal? But let's put you guys in charge of Heathrow for a second. You have close on 100 million people coming through your airport each year. Where would you guys start? Are you or your customers going to be satisfied with a 10 hour wait to enter/leave Britain so everybody can be searched/questioned equally? There needs to be an alternative. What is it? I find it very common for people to chastise a problem but not provide a solution.

If I was in government I would have listened to the people on the ground that said cutting staff so drastically was likely to lead to these kind of delays which is not the image we want to present to the world in the year when its entire focus is on us.  So my solution would be to employ more immigration staff.

Not all Islamic terrorists are brown.

There's been a good documentary on channel 4 on Sunday nights giving a good 'behind the scenes' account of one such would be ginger assassin.

whats the documentary called?

Oh no.....I cant believe I fell for that...very good

a) Profiling was in place before staffing was cut

b) More staff are being hired for the Olympics and profiling will still be in place

c) Employing more staff in the long term will mean cuts elsewhere. Where would you like to make those cuts Hospitals? Schools?

Oh I have plenty of ideas for that but I am not sure this thread is the place for them but just for a start I would not have allowed Vodafone to renegotiate their tax bill from £6bn to £1.2bn.....that £4.8bn might pay for a couple of immigration officers with enough change for some schools and hospitals.

For a start I wouldn't have wasted money on severance pay for staff that are going to be re-hired.  and the schools are fine for cuts.

You'll be pleased to hear education spending has nearly quadrupled since your post. 

If I remember correctly he said something along the lines of 'you have a bunch of middle class families that have just arrived on a flight from Sardinia, would make sense to just wave them through after checking 1 of their passports'. It's more about letting people through faster that are clearly low, low risk than picking on a particular group as such, like a bunch of old biddies on a flight from Tenerife etc.

I find it pretty hard to disagree with that really.

Wouldn't profiling by nationality be better than by skin colour?

Less subjective too.

Don't we already have that? One channel for EU nationals, another for non-EU nationals.

This was more my point, i think it was RedArmi who made reference to a Jamaican traveller. As i understand it Jamaican flights/passangers are the most likely to be carrying drugs, i remember seeing this in a documentary a while back. If i am border control i am probably going to be checking people from Jamaica.

+1

Having briefly worked in a ladies prison which a large proportion of the inmates were drug mules, the vast majority of those were Jamaican and the rest of them thought they were.

Page 3 of "The Times" today had this big banner headline.......

"Passport staff detain white people to avoid claims of bias"

Followed by this (extract).....


......John Vine, chief inspector of the UK Border Agency says in a report "this involved detaining white passengers purely to avoid potential race discrimination complaints when there was an intention to question black passengers".

Joseph Heller, God rest his soul, could have written a book about that sort of thing.

Wicked :)

Gypsies get stopped and searched more often that regular folk, which means that more crime is detected amongst Gypsies than regular folk, which means that Gypsies get stopped and searched more often than regular folk....

It's not quite that simple, but you can see my point.

Sure but the objective of any law abiding society is to detect crime. If the stopping and searching of Gypsies is successfully detecting crime then society is achieving that objective. But that's good news for everybody including Gypsies. Detection and eradication of crime in the society we all share is something we all should welcome. I think a lot of very serious issues like racism are diluted by sensitivity and other agendas that don't actually tackle the heart of the matter. If when stopped Gypsies are handled with less respect than other folk then that is racism. But if when more Gypsies are respectfully stopped more crime is detected then the act of stopping more Gypsies is justifiable isn't it? If no more crime is detected when more Gypsies are stopped then frequently stopping Gypsies would be pointless. It is solely dependant upon the integrity of the purpose and the validity of the results. Because I'm romantic about equality I don't really understand this ethnicity of crime and why it matters so long as crime is being detected.

It's funny thou because black guys I know complain about being stopped and searched more often than regular folk and Asian guys I know complain about being stopped and searched more often than regular folk. Makes you wonder who the regular folk are in 2012 Britain. Red do you get stopped and searched frequently or are you regular folk?

In the airport example the objective is to stop illegal immigration and to prevent planes getting blown up. That is a matter of concern for us all. So if it is true enough that stopping more people from Syria detects more terrorists then more people from Syria should be stopped. Yet we see the authorities are having to divert limited resources away from a profile group to pacify liberals who demand equality. That is bad news for everybody including the vast majority of innocent folk from Syria about to get on the plane. Let's be clear this is not ideal but if you only have limited resources what are you to do if you can't profile? If less crime is detected or more planes are blown up because of some equality strategy that's bad for everyone I think.

Two separate issues are getting mixed on this thread. With regard to planes being blown up, the main objective of airport security is to make the public feel better; make them believe that they are safer because something is being done, so that they continue to fly. We would be better to spend some of the money wasted on airport security educating the public that the risk of terrorism on a plane is miniscule.

+1

This this and this. Most of the airport security measures that have been introduced more recently are a facade. Not sure they're meant to reassure the public or perpetuate the fear of terrorism.

Can't really speak for anybody else but I'll take the security over the education please.

Yep. Limitation of liquid volumes....farce (split and recombine liquid explosives on board)
Metal detectors....farce (bombs/detonators don't need no metals)
No sharp objects/knives....farce (you can fashion a threatening weapon by melting a plastic fork)

They had all this in place and then let underpantbomber boy on a transatlantic flight, he was already on watch lists and his dad had formally expressed concerns. It's all just a giant bloody farce. I'm still waiting for a jihadist to be found with an RSQ on him, it's that farcical.

Seeing as smoking marijuana is an intrinsic part of the Rasta and jamaican belief system i dont think its unreasonable to target Jamaican flights for drugs..

Be careful mate, you might upset the liberals amongst us  8)

LoL

tbh you can't say anything these days referring to anyone non white without being branded instantly as a goose stepping racist no matter how relevant or sensible the point...its quite insulting to the intelligence really..

point is i wouldn't care if you were white black or sky blue pink..if your on a flight from Jamaica I'm gonna check you for drugs

I'm beyond pandering to the liberals who start crying racist or whatever about these sorts of issues. If checking one group more or less than another group is reasonable based on what the stats show or even what is just plain common sense, then so be it. Anyone complaining about it will get pretty short thrift from me I'm afraid.

Wholly disagree. We live in a multicultural-multiethnic-multireligiousbackground society. There are plenty of crimes that are either motivated by (eg) racial hatred or where such hatred plays a significant part. Some people are assaulted/shunned/etc because they are gypsy/black/gay/catholic/protestant/muslim and the perpetrator believes that this gypsy/black etc quality in them makes them a worse person/worthy of hatred/more prone to crime. If the authorities are seen to preferentially arrest members of these groups then it can reinforce or promote these erroneous and dangerous prejudices. This can lead to a societal breakdown with consequences more serious than the crime which you were initially seeking to address.

The more that people feel part of a group, the less likely they are to commit crimes against that group. Your message seeks to promote the treatment of Gypsies as a separate group. Good luck with that.

I think a lot of the time the so called ethnic minorities are the ones who do not wish to intergrate into our society.. they often choose to isolate themselves within their own community...

Integration works both ways as does racism I'm afraid... ignorance and stupidity is and always will be prevalent in all communities whatever race creed or colour and it is this that causes racism, for hating someone because of the colour of their skin can only be perpetrated by the ignorant and stupid.

It isn't security - that's the point. It's making people feel safer when they are not actually any safer. It's an illusion to pander to an irrational fear, and an expensive one. The cost of the airport nonsense isn't just the staff, etc on the enforcement side - it is also the considerable cost in time wasted by passengers going through the charade.

The main non-medical causes of death in the UK are transport accidents, suicide, accidental poisoning (incl drugs & alcohol) and falls. We would be better spending money trying to prevent those instead of wasting it on airport non-security.

Take motor accidents. Until recently, 3,000 people a year were being killed - the equivalent of terrorists blowing up an airliner every month. It has now come down to 2,000, which is a dramatic improvement, but it is still carnage out there on the roads and most people seem blissfully unafraid of the possibility of being in a motor accident. In 2010, the number of people killed by terrorism in the UK was zero, yet people are worried about it. It would take a hell of a lot of terrorism to approach the numbers being killed year after year on the roads; or the number of suicides (consistently about 3,400/yr).

We are worried about the wrong things. Worse than that, we are spending our money trying to counteract the wrong things.

What a load of old bollocks. If the security was a lot lower are you telling me that the risk of terrorism would not increase?

Mintrav id laugh but i think you're serious

I think perhaps you have misunderstood. My message sought to promote one society, the complete opposite of what you think I said.

Let's take Sicilian's Jamaican flight example. He says that Rastas have a culture of smoking ganja so flights from Jamaica should be more closely scrutinised. Yo, but just because Rastas smoke does that mean they are more likely to smuggle drugs across international borders than anyone else? Smoking and smuggling are nowhere near the same thing. Yet I would still agree with him.

If you had three flights landing from Belgium, Austria and Jamaica but only had the resources to check one for drugs which one would YOU choose and why? The Jamaicans could take offence and argue that the Austrians are equally likely to break the law and smuggle drugs and by checking the Jamaica flight you are insinuating they are a more likely race of people to smuggle drugs. They could also complain that by checking the Jamaica flight you send out a message to other travellers that Jamaicans are the most likely group to be criminals.

My point is that if all three plane loads of people are united in not wanting drugs to be smuggled what is the big deal about Jamaicans opening their bags at customs and assisting the authorities in achieving that objective? All the racial insinuations about why they are the ones being stopped is just bollocks imo. Nobody is saying the Jamaicans are less equal in the scheme of humanity or that they aren't welcome in the UK. Just in an imperfect system with limited resources they are the ones the authorities have plumped for. Trying to detect crime based on a hunch isn't racism and saying it is cheapens what is a serious issue.

+ 1 Better than I could have written, I'll just stick with the simple stuff like 'your talking a load of old bollocks'  :D

Do you believe that by preferentially stopping Gypsies over your average other group, that police crime detection will be greater? And by inference, that Gypsies are more likely to be criminals than your average other group? Because I cannot find any other way of reasonably interpreting your first paragraph. Do you have any evidence that Gypsies are more likely to be criminals? And if you do, would those that distrust/prejudge Gypsies more than your average other group have an objective basis for their discrimination, one that they presumably share with the police in this instance?

can we make a distinction between travellers and gypsies as they are not the same...

I think you would need to define what an 'average group' is as I'm not sure what that is. Even then I wouldn't have any data to answer your questions with any great accuracy, but I reckon stopping groups like OAPs would be less likely to improve crime detection figures. Just to be clear though I don't really view the world in terms of 'groups'. I think the world is full of one group of people, all of which are equal. Putting an individual into a 'group' and judging them that way makes little sense to me. However, our resident Gypsy elder Tom has brought to the table that more Gypsies are stopped by police than this average group. Why do YOU think that is so? Are you saying that another group, namely the police, are institutionally racist and pick on Gypsies just for kicks? If you said that I'm sure you'd offend plenty of police who'd say 99% of them are good honest people and the merri-go-round would continue. But Tom said crime is detected when Gypsies are stopped and hence why the police have their justification for their hunch to stop. But it's just a hunch to stop, it isn't a conviction crime has been committed.

I don't know why police have a mind to stop Gypsies more. Perhaps it's because they move around and are strangers in a community or perhaps they aren't in 9-5 office jobs so are out there in the world more. This is why I asked Tom if he got stopped and searched a lot. Tom is a Gypsy but he has resided in a community for some time and is trusted, although I do remember him being the subject of suspiscion when he first arrived. Hence is it really being a Gypsy that gets you stopped or is it the lifestyle that gets you stopped?

Back to the planes though. Which plane would you choose to target for the drug search Mum? And if you choose the Jamaican flight are you saying Jamaicans are more likely to be criminals?

See Swordpoker viewing........hi Mark, where you been?

Geo

Err...I've been around. Here and there, thanks. Been coaching poker more than playing lately.

Thoroughly enjoying this thread. Great open and rational arguments about a taboo subject without anything offensive. I'm proud of blonde.

Agree,

It's one of those subjects I could make so much comment about but others are doing it so much better that it allows me to enjoy it more

Geo

+1 - or is it +2? - to the last two Posts.

Great read.

worst thread on blonde this year

There is no doubt that Jamaicans are more likely to be drug smugglers than most other nations but I am not sure this is because of an intrinsic racial reason.  It is probably because its geographic location makes it an ideal transhipment point and economic profile means there are more desperate people willing to do something as stupid as take drugs through an airport.  In the States you also get a lot of smugglers from the Dominican Republic and Puerto Rico for similar reasons and neither of them have black majorities.  Incidentally it is a very lazy stereotype to describe smoking marijuana as an intrinsic part of the Jamaican belief system.  It is an intrinsic part of the Rastafarian belief system and I would be surprised if Rastas number more than about 5% of the population.  Of course there are other Jamaicans that smoke weed but they are nothing like as prevalent as popular culture would have you believe and it is considered a much worse thing in normal society there than it would be here generally.

I'm actually on the fence as to whether your bad beat moans either made your staking thread one of the funniest or worst threads of the year  :P

I'm in full agreement with the second paragraph, but puzzled by the first one.

Why do you say 'So called' ethnic minorities rather than just 'ethnic minorities'?

I'm intrigued by the term 'Our society'. What does it mean?

When my vehicles were registered to an address that ended in 'Caravan site', I used to get stopped two or three times a week, often by the same officers. Now that I have an inconspicuous address, it doesn't happen.

When I first came to live here, the local bobby came down and introduced himself to me. He was genuinely a nice chap, we chatted for ages. Just as he was leaving he said "By the way, if anything goes missing in the village, can I come and look in your sheds?".

Every one in the village objected to my being here. ten years later, everyone supported my application to stay. These days, they pat my shoulder and say with a knowing look, "You're OK you are Tom, but you're not really a Gypsy are you?".


Don't get me wrong. I don't blame the police, or the villagers. I blame the media. They have been inciting fear, suspicion and hatred for generations.

They still are.

Our society = WASPs?

(maybe?)

Probably why I was loath to get involved in this thread but felt compelled..because of the nature of this discussion mis phrasing can be constituted for possible racial overtones....

So called minorities because in truth they are not....numbers are rising and will even out...once again it sounds moody...I don't care your colour or creed as long as you contribute and add to the country..don't take..use and generally take the piss out of the uk's wonderfully liberal attitude..... society..well shall we say indigenous population..doesn't matter colour then.... If you come to our country integrate...appreciate the opportunity you have been given and work towards giving something back..don't hide in the cloak of your beliefs and ideals..sit and laugh as you continually take that what is freely given ..open  your eyes and hearts as the people whose country you now call home have..don't build Walls and then put on the sad face and scream racism ....

When people realise no matter what colour race etc there are always good and bad in all...we are all human beings we are all flawed and we are all capable of bad as well as good.. Sooner we get over that hump we might have a chance...

Rant over gonna go and get my swastika armband just in time to be called a racist moron...

You see a lot of bad arguments around stop and search, as people misuse the stats.  Black people a lot more likely than white people to be stopped and searched.  There is no doubt on this, but that doesn't stop the statistics been skewed a lot as much of the stop and searching happens in London, where black people are more common than they are in other parts of the UK.  

Black people are also over represented in the crime stats,  particularly street crime.   I think there was some statistic I read where not only was stop and search way more likely if you were black, but once you had chosen to search somebody, you were something like ten times more likely to find a gun/knife through searching a black person than searching a white person.  I realise that there is also a link to poverty, but it is not as strong as race.

So if you are a police force with limited resources, what proportion of stop and searches do you perfom on the black population?   Is it in line with the population differences, in line with the crime statistics, or do you forget the bad headlines and just target the set of people that is likely to lead to the biggest success?  

I know quite a bit about risk.  In the world of risk, your best use of resources is to target the biggest risks.  If I was to apply similar strategies to the customs lines, or deciding on stop and searches, I would not be concluding I should be stopping people in line with their representation in the general population.   I think you should lean your decision to the statistics rather than how your decision may look to the outside world.

It is clearly a devisive issue, and the Met have recently said they are going to cut down on stop and search.  I hope they made this decision solely because stop and search is a bad way of targetting crime.  

Believe it or not I'm also loath to get involved in this discussion, but it's all good honest debate and I think that benefits everyone.

For the record, I'm not accusing you or anyone else of racism, it's just that the 'Our society, and 'Our country' remarks seem a bit divisive to me.

For the sake of balance, I would like to point out that there are a lot of immigrants who are more than happy to work and contribute if they get half a chance, and by the same token there are a lot of indigenous people who don't want to work and are content to draw benefits.

You talk about people who come to your country, but a lot of the ethnic minorities are third, fourth and fifth generation British.

I'm from an ethnic minority, but I was born here. Your country is also my country.

Integration is often difficult no matter how hard you try. I'm 54 and so far I've managed to integrate into one small village and a poker forum.

Don't get me wrong I'm white, and reasonably well spoken, I can hide my ethnicity and pretend I'm just like everyone else, but that's not integration, that's assimilation.

See that intrigues me. Do you consider yourself less of a Gypsy these days? I would venture that you do not. But because you have put down roots you have acquired a status of trust and support from EVERYBODY around you. So if it were true that regular folk are anti-Gypsy you would STILL attract the same negative attitude that you had at the start, but you do not. You do not even though you are still 100% Gypsy. So if your Gypsiness hasn't changed what has? Quite simply your lifestyle has changed so you have become permanent, integrated and accepted. Before when you lived on a caravan site you got pulled a lot, but then again ANYBODY with a caravan site address would have been pulled a lot. So it's the lifestyle of living on a caravan site which is the negative issue.

The problem with a caravan site is the perception that it is both temporary and inhabited by strangers. This unknown entity will create suspicion and fear by it's very nature. Most regular people will be wary of a large group of temporary strangers because they are the outsiders. Outsiders only until they become integrated and part of the community and then the fear and suspicion subsides. If a hundred Jamaicans rocked up and pitched tents in the field next door how would you feel? Prob a sense of worry about what affect it will have on you and your family and your life. So outsiders can be from any ethnic background.

I could go and live on a caravan site tomorrow but the byproduct of that decision would be getting pulled a lot and people having this wary attitude towards me. Obv this is the Gypsy way of life and it is your right to do as you wish but choosing that lifestyle carries with it the sacrifice of problematic integration into settled communities. I think it's kinda unrealistic to ask people to put aside this fear of the unknown because it is natural and instinctive. As far as humanity goes I do hope this is the case because I'm more comfortable with the notion that people hate the unknown and change more than they hate a person's ethnic origins.

Oh God. Mantis post incoming.....    I'm always scared he'll tear me to pieces.

Integration. Why should that be a prerequisite of being an 'acceptable' citizen in this country?

EDIT: posted this 30 seconds too late.

Integration is not a prerequisite of being an 'acceptable citizen' it's a prerequisite of being accepted by a settled commuinty. It doesn't make you less equal it just means there will be challenges to overcome.

This is actually a very insightful post and you make a lot of excellent points.

For the record though, I didn't choose this lifestyle, I was born into it.  

Still don't understand why there's this clamour for immigrants (or anyone living here really)  to integrate.

What is 'integration' anyway?

 :kiss:

Integration is trust no?

So the immigrants need to trust people? Still don't understand, sorry.

My understanding of what Mantis is saying is trust between immigrants and indigenous aids integration................... :dontask:

Geo

Yeah, but I'm not sure what is meant by 'integration'?

If someone obeys the laws of the land, doesn't impede with anyone else's rights, how must they be integrated? That goes for people born here or those who have come to the country from elsewhere, and goes for all ethnicities.

I think learning the language of the country you're living in is the only element of integration that I think really gets in the way of good relations between immigrants and the wider community. If this was universal it would solve a lot of the problems which aren't actually caused by racism.

Didn't you live in Japan for a time Kin? Did you get off the plane and get snap accepted by everyone immediately. Or is it the case that as time went by you worked at relationships, picked up bits of language, immersed yourself into the food and culture? Thus is it fair to say KINBOSHI that by the time you left Japan you were a little bit more Japanese than when you first arrived? That is the process of integration.

I know when I lived in Hong Kong this is exactly what happened to me. At the end of my time there I was elbowing people out of my way getting onto the tube, degening with the best of them at Happy Valley, learning about Buddism, and eating grasshoppers on sticks for my tea. So by the time I left I was a bit more Chinese than when I arrived. That is the process of integration.

Sure, we both could have been law abiding and retained our complete Britishness. We could have demanded fish and chips for dinner and refused to try and learn the language. We could have wore bowler hats when we walked down the street. Do you think this would have made our experiences better and more fulfilling? Was the process of integration and acceptance easier because we tried? The term 'When in Rome' has a lot of validity when considering the subject of integration don't you think?

 

Lots of British ex-pats go and live in other countries (e.g. Spain or Dubai) without attempting to learn the native language, and they can function there perfectly well without a clamour for them to 'integrate'.Or am I wrong? I agree that learning the native language makes a lot of sense to make life easier for the immigrant, but it's not universally essential.

Sure, I agree. But I asked if that was your approach in Japan and whether your experience was more or less fulfilling because of it. And whether you found acceptance easier to come by because of it.

I went over to Japan to work in an international relations office, and the plan was to learn about Japan and improve my Japanese.

I definitely went out there to integrate to a degree. But it wasn't necessary or enforced. I know a lot of people over there who stayed within an ex-pat community and they got by perfectly well.


Not sure I've seen many Brits wearing bowler hats, and I'd say a curry is the most British food. That's been integrated into many people's way of life in Britain. But we don't force people to eat curries in order for them to live here.

I was going to say Brits are some of the worst for not integrating. Unfortunately in a lot of cases (and I'm not saying this about anyone posting here, it's been a good discussion) integration is what people say when they mean assimilation.

I know some Moroccan immigrants, they have integrated well in Glasgow, go to football, part of the pub crowd etc, one's wife is considered more foreign than him because she's a scouser :) . They still take shit sometimes because they have accents, or dare speak any of the 3 or 4 other languages they know ( not in our pub though), they still get stopped more by the cops than the rest of us (and our lot's a shady looking and in same cases behaving crowd). By being different, in some eyes they've not integrated.

Ah, but the integration seems to be a requirement/expectation of those who aren't the immigrants, not by the immigrants themselves?

This is my point.

If I move to Glasgow, do I have to start watching pub football, eat deep-fried mars bars, hate the English and wear a tartan skirt (I'm joking of course)? Or can I pretty much do what I want, and live like a hermit outside of work, and not try to 'integrate' with the strange natives and their funny customs? 

Kinboshi, so you do actually know what integration means and it is a strategy that you yourself employed when moving to a different country. There is no law which says that you must do it but isn't it fair to say that if you don't try you face greater challenges and more resistance? And actually your time spent in that country would have been less fulfilling?

Up to the individual. That's my point.  There's a clamour for immigrants to 'integrate', but it's not really anyone's business but the individual immigrant if they want to 'integrate' or not.

There are plenty of people born in the UK who don't bother 'integrating' with the rest of the community they live in.

Pretty sure Kin knows what integration means but what you are describing is conforming not integrating. Your argument is to have an integrated society those who are slightly different to the masses should conform to the norm. Whilst I am sure it would be a lot more peaceful if we were to follow that ideal it would also be incredibly dull.

As has been said, the British are generally pretty bad at integrating into communities when they go abroad.

Using Eck's description as a basis - integration such as learning the language helps you fit in and be accepted, it doesn't mean you have to conform to every habit and custom of your new community - you can bring your own customs and traditions to enrich the community and diversify it.

Integrating into the community just means you don't consciously make youself an outsider - the only example I can really think of is learning the language though; nothing else seems particularly important imo.

I moved house last Autumn.  Not done much to 'integrate' into my community.  If I was a Polish immigrant what would/should I be doing to integrate?  Learning the language makes life a lot easier of course, but if my English is already a decent standard how else do I integrate?  What should I be doing as an immigrant from Nottingham who's moved to Derbyshire?

Sorry, my bad.  I hadn't realised that immigrants that don't 'integrate' have caused the breakdown of British society:


http://www.guardian.co.uk/politics/2011/apr/14/immigrants-fail-integrate-discomfort-cameron

So the immigrants need to go to the pub?

If everybody chose to avoid integrating into the community in which they live there would be no such thing as a community. Then all the advantages that a community and community spirit brings to residents will be lost. Why would that be a good thing?

If I was Polish I would join a cricket team or football team, do volunteer work, take a class at college, stop and chat with the neighbours, help out with vulnerable residents, watch Coronation Street, join a local gym, have a BBQ and invite people round & yeah drink in the pub etc etc etc etc etc. Or I could stay indoors and do none of that and be the hermit Kin mentioned. If I moved to a foreign country I would be inclined to invest time and effort contributing to the local community in order to integrate and gain acceptance, but also because as a member of that community I would have a sense of obligation in preserving it. Moving to a society where we don't give a fuck about each other and we just do our own thing doesn't appeal so much to me.

You coming to the blonde Bash?

Why are you a tory then?

What is a blonde Bash? and why are we having one?

A blonde Bash is where people integrate with each other. And other things.

You get back what you put in. Just like integration.

Thatcher didn't think so....she thought there were only individuals and families.