to many immigrants bbc one

[FalconFN]

You ask 'so what'? The so what is the fact that colour and heredity are such poor arbiters for the complex issues surrounding immigration and mixing the two is not only woefully missing the point but a dangerous and divisive tool for hate-mongers. Excess immigration has consequences no matter what colour, creed and culture the immigrant is from and using 'indigenous white' as a description of supposed proper English is insulting to the many, many English people in this country that do not fit the narrow demographic.

[henry d]

white indigenous English will be rare, white immigrant ethnics will not, perhaps that is his concern.as well you know?

 

KW

 

No they won`t, I even did the sums for you.

[overandunder2012]

You ask 'so what'? The so what is the fact that colour and heredity are such poor arbiters for the complex issues surrounding immigration and mixing the two is not only woefully missing the point but a dangerous and divisive tool for hate-mongers. Excess immigration has consequences no matter what colour, creed and culture the immigrant is from and using 'indigenous white' as a description of supposed proper English is insulting to the many, many English people in this country that do not fit the narrow demographic.

interesting point but if i live in africa it wouldnt make me african it just means i settled there maybe a few generations down the line my kids or kids kids maybe able to make that claim got me wondering how many generations does a family have to stay in a country to become native to that country? and how long would you have to stay before others saw you as native to that country? is it possible for people of one colour to see people of another colour as natives of the country? for example you hear the term african american it sort of suggests to me people who are from america but not actually americans is what the white americans mean when they use this term.

Edited July 18, 2014 by overandunder2012

[amateur]

interesting point but if i live in africa it wouldnt make me african it just means i settled there maybe a few generations down the line my kids or kids kids maybe able to make that claim got me wondering how many generations does a family have to stay in a country to become native to that country? and how long would you have to stay before others saw you as native to that country? is it possible for people of one colour to see people of another colour as natives of the country?

 

Afrikaners - the white tribe of Africa.

 

Been there for centuries, and hard to argue that they are still immigrants.

 

There has also been a centuries old black population in Liverpool, London and Bristol

Edited July 18, 2014 by amateur

[overandunder2012]

 

Afrikaners - the white tribe of Africa.

 

Been there for centuries, and hard to argue that they are still immigrants.

 

There has also been a centuries old black population in Liverpool, London and Bristol

interesting points but even after all that time do the natives of those countries truly see these guys as natives or will there always be differences in their minds.

 

will there be british roma or chinese austrailian like african american or will they become british, austrailian and american?

 

another point would be how will the 10th generation immigrant family's view themselves.

Edited July 18, 2014 by overandunder2012

[Thunderbird]

These topics always go the same way.

 

The usual split between rational thought, fluffy multiculturalists (not that there are many here), and and the people who are obsessed with writing "English" down on forms that ask nationality. Presumably this goes alongside growing a beer gut, wearing an England T-shirt, and hoisting the flag of St George in the front garden on a massive pole at the slightest opportunity.

 

Maybe if the extremists kept their gobs shut we might have the opportunity to deal with the real issues of too much uncontrolled immigration without the debate being hijacked both by out and out racists versus out and out utopian delusionists.

[Gimlet]

interesting points but even after all that time do the natives of those countries truly see these guys as natives or will there always be differences in their minds.

 

 

 

Go into a black South African township and ask the locals whether they think of Afrikaners as a native white Africans. Theirs is the only answer that matters. However much we might wish it otherwise for the sake of harmony and convenience, there is more to blood, belonging and indigeneity than just turning up and staying put for long enough. That's not intended as a political or antagonistic statement its just a fact of life which we can't change by wishful thinking. Humans are tribal, its in our DNA. the entrenched political/ideological differences we see in these discussions are essentially tribalism. We should try to work with this fact not condemn it as undesirable and pretend that it doesn't exist.

Edited July 18, 2014 by Gimlet

[Hamster]

Go into a black South African township and ask the locals whether they think of Afrikaners as a native white Africans. Theirs is the only answer that matters. However much we might wish it otherwise for the sake of harmony and convenience, there is more to blood, belonging and indigeneity than just turning up and staying put for long enough. That's not intended as a political or antagonistic statement its just a fact of life which we can't change by wishful thinking. Humans are tribal, its in our DNA. the entrenched political/ideological differences we see in these discussions are essentially tribalism. We should try to work with this fact not condemn it as undesirable and pretend that it doesn't exist.

 

By and large people descended from Europe who have emigrated and settled in America have zero trouble referring to themselves as American, same for ex Europeans who are now Australian. Now I agree it would be hard for a first or even second gen Asian to court the term English, but some smirk if they're even referred to as British, I'm sure you've read or heard the usual put downs.

[Gimlet]

By and large people descended from Europe who have emigrated and settled in America have zero trouble referring to themselves as American, same for ex Europeans who are now Australian. Now I agree it would be hard for a first or even second gen Asian to court the term English, but some smirk if they're even referred to as British, I'm sure you've read or heard the usual put downs.

 

I think you'd get a very different view if you asked Aboriginals or native Americans what they thought about foreign integration. Many native peoples in both countries do not identify themselves as Australian or American. A lot of them do not even accept the name of the country they live in. Neither Australia nor the USA are multicultural success stories of the kind naively idealised by Britain and the EU, they are colonial frontier nations formed by implanted populations who confiscated lands already under hereditary ownership, displacing established peoples who were there long before them.

America was founded on the principle of inward migration. It needed immigration to settle the land by weight of numbers. Immigration is in the American DNA and has always been encouraged. Australia is a more contradictory society to my mind. It is vehemently against any but the strictest immigration controls because, entirely sensibly, it recognises the need to keep population levels under control, yet it is itself a nation founded on colonial settlement which still struggles to accept its own abhorrent record of cultural annihilation which it inflicted and continues to inflict on the country's original inhabitants. As recently as the 1960's Australian Aboriginals were not even recognised as human beings by the white Australian government. They were officially listed under flora and fauna. The plight of Aboriginal people today is appalling. They are internally displaced refugees, an embarrassment hidden from view and slowly dying out in a state of cultural limbo. Appreciating the multicultural, racial "diversity" of modern America and Australia depends entirely on whether you are part of the new order who "discovered" a brand new country to live in, or the old population who had their ancestral country stolen from them.

Edited July 19, 2014 by Gimlet