It seems to me that people in the UK are comfortable with Pakistanis, Indians, Africans and Chinese people these days. The irony is that I remember "Paki's out" being sprayed all over my school when I was about 10 years old....They sprayed shit like that all over my home town in fact. By the time I moved out of that town, over a third of the people there were Pakistanis and it was a very pleasant place to live - I miss it there.

These days people seem to have an issue with people from East Europe. I know a lot of people who have no problem with multi-cultural Britain, until it comes to Polish, Latvian, Czech (insert Eastern European country here) etc etc. Then, they are totally racist! I reckon that a lot of people think that it's ok to be racist towards the Polish immigrants because they are white and they look like us. Idk, just my theory.

Anyway, there seems to be a lot of hostility directed to immigrants from East Europe who are here already. I personally think that our country is a damn site more tempting than other places. So, I am expecting to see a fair few Bulgarians and Romanians end up over here next year, gypsies too probably. I think this is going to really piss off a lot of people in this country. I think this immigration issue is a timebomb for all kinds of reasons and it needs to be addressed in very frank and grown up way.

There was a lot of racism in the 80's when a lot of Pakistanis were coming over. Could this happen again but with Eastern Europeans being the targets?

I think it's going to get hairy, just from a practical point of view, with job scarcity and the benefits system being what it is. Whether that translates into hostility against the incoming people remains to be seen. I expect it most probably will.

Gilly wrote:
I don't see how it can't get hairy from a practical point of view. What frightens me is the fact that you're not really allowed to express such concerns because it's not PC, but that's aside from the whole race issue. We'd have exactly the same problem if our birth rate suddenly increased.

Do you have a lot of immigrants near you? I could be looking at this in the wrong way, because I'm in a mainly white British area, but I have noticed a massive influx of East Europeans here. That's only in the last three years. A lot of people really don't like them and they are seen as criminals, trouble makers and piss-taking bastards who are over here to take jobs and milk the NHS. I don't see how matters will improve next year.

There are certain areas that have a high concentration of Asians such as Blackburn. And there are particular roads in Preston that are all Asian. There's still plenty of prejudice against them around here tbh.

I worked in Blackburn years ago, and will admit that I didn't like a lot of behaviour I witnessed from them - though I've since encountered a lot more who I've liked.

An example would be when I was managing a branch of Granada TV Rentals (I was about 20 though, so it was 30 years ago), and 2 young men came in together. One told me that the other wanted to rent a package, so naturally I began talking to him to try to determine what he wanted, but he wouldn't make eye contact with me or answer me, and his mate was repeating my questions to him. I asked if he didn't speak English, and his mate laughed and said, yes, but he wouldn't speak to me because of my being a woman, and beneath him.

And I did get an awful lot of them coming in the shop trying to pinch stuff - often groups, where one would keep you talking while the others would spread out & be using credit cards to loosen the old security stickers off videos ready to lift them. It was at least once a week that this would go on.

And there was an Asian technician who worked for us, who reported me for shouting, "You black bastard" at him - even though I hadn't said anything of the kind. I'd simply stopped him from stripping parts from a TV set that was in my charge for a customer repair, and told him he needed to go to the depot for parts (which he knew).

I was due for a disciplinary because of that, which was very serious indeed because of it being racism, but I traced the customer I'd been serving when the encounter took place. A senior manager went to see the customer for a statement, and he said I was wonderful, and he'd been shocked by the techie's unwarranted rudeness and aggression, and I'd not called him any names.

So they dropped the disciplinary. I said I wanted him on one - but they refused, saying it was a hot potato. I told them they were racist for treating the two complaints differently based purely on ethnicity . But they didn't give a toss.

So my opinion at the time was not very favourable. But like I said, I've no gripes these days as I've since had dealings with many excellent coloured bretheren.

But whichever way you look at it, while we may well be wealthier than other countries, we don't have the capacity to cater for more & more people without it having a negative impact on the those already here.

Romanians can already move within a lot of the EU already, including Ireland.

I guess it boils down to the other countries being in such a shit state more than anything else.
Again if we didn't have this stupid economy then we wouldn't be worrying about it.

I think Britain is a fairly tolerant place on the whole. We're no more racist than any other country, have a good attitude towards different sexualities, religions etc.

I think that's another reason why people head to the UK. My parents live in France and my dad did mention that they don't have the same political correctness that the UK does. oioioi and Mikey Mikey are living abroad at the moment. How is it over there with foreigners? Do you have Eastern European immigrants and what are the attitudes towards them? Is it more racist, less racist or the same out there?

LesleyPumpshaft wrote:
We do have a fair few eastern european migrants in Ireland, probably more as a percentage of the population than the UK.
The attitude towards them is pretty much the same as the brits have and they're in pretty much the same unskilled jobs for the most part although there are some who work in skilled jobs too.

As for the irish they seem to have no probs with me but then many irish also have british accents so they can't make any assumptions so to speak. I'm self employed, I don't take benefits so there's nothing to moan about tbh. I don't really consider it as being 'abroad' in the sense that it is for mikey and oi, although I do travel a lot as part of work etc.

Many of those eastern European countries are still recovering from their soviet days, many have hardly developed above a level where they have access to the money or tech, like the rest of us.

These people will probably do well here due to their adaptability of such ocupations and know how to make ends meet, still have vocational skills and will be able to make things from just about everything others throw away.

We can just about see where the paradigm is headed, so I am getting better skills together instead of moaning OR being worried about other people, who I might add any of us would do for our families if we were in the same situation.

Most undoubtedly there will be pollitical spin to inadvertantly gain non votes from all of this, leaving Europe refetendum votes etc, which.won't mean anything because a large proportion of Europe and Asia will already be here, lol.

What we may loose is our closeness with the earth, our practical spirit of how things could be, but you can bet these new cultures still have when the arrive here, we might even learn something from them to make our own lives better.

When I first came to Greece in 2000 there was an almost inherent hatred of Albanians, there was even a NaN type phrase you'd hear often "I'm not racist, they're Albanian" which was said as a 'joke'. Since then however, there has obviously been the rise of Golden Dawn to prominence and a return to the good old skin colour based prejudice that simplifies matters for simple folk.

theres so many beautiful eastern european women.
do you think the price will come down?

oioioi wrote:
One could always go in disguise

:uband:

Apprentice cunt?

mikey mikey wrote:


Your posts are like some cryptic punk crossword clues tonight.

LesleyPumpshaft wrote:
Its exactly the same here lesley. About 3 years ago there was an influx of Polish people and they are generally unliked for all sorts of reasons. My daughter informs me that the kids get a hard time at school too.
My grandad was Polish and as it happens and I kept his surname and passed it onto my kids too.... now and then when I have to give my name AFTER I've spoken first, I get the odd double glance as if to say "you don't sound like you're a recent incomer"

psketti wrote:
daily hate mail reasons

divide and conquer at work.

mikey mikey wrote:

Marvelous skills your displaying there.

Is this the "build your own library of mildly racist entertainment?

If so, you might want to add Ranji from i"It Ain't 'Alf hot Mum"


And something more current, just to show that some people are still amused by racist stereotypes: Two Broke Girls (2011)


Rest assured that the Asian boss is also asexual, work obsessed, speaks comedy broken "Ingrish" and doesn't "get" American culture apprently.

hilarious

Are there any jobs for them?

I know the wealthy like to have nanny's and cleaners and so on and pay shit wages,is thay what they are for?

Thinking about it I wonder if households with servants will make a come back?going off topic.

humanspirit wrote:
Haven't you been watching Downtown Abbey or the King's speech?

The last time the Tories regained power we had To The Manor Bor, Upstairs Downstairs and Brideshead Revisited.

Whaddaya THINK they'e pushing for?

I will teach them, if they asked me, how to make shoes/boots, change their cars cam belt, prepare a deer or sheep for the freezer, make tools like the ones below, basically anyone who wants to help themselves gain another kind of physical freedom, using their OWN hand to eye coordination, yellow, black, white or alien.

In the link below, others hands to eye coordination is staggering, they are people just like us.

lumberjocks.com/apprentice/blog/34214

All hands are capable of doing anything, once their mind is in the trim, we might learn to recognise how this can be, instead of mentally and verbally trying to bring anothers perception down to our level, lift thine eyes from the mobile phone, TV or PC, that one is staring into right now.

In time we might learn how to help ourselves and cease walking upon childerick, what else is there to say

Not prepaaring certain lines of thought is like mental cancer, it will metastasize, and then it will be too late.

humanspirit wrote: