But it goes much further than that. The statement that UK is 92% white is misleading because 'white' is a blanket statement for a much more varied demographic. Because in Europe there is a great freedom of movement between EU member states. So in UK, for example, there may be racism against the white man, because that particular white man is white Polish, or white Romanian. It may well be that white Poles are statistically more prone to racial attack in UK, but because we lump them in with all 'white' people that statistic is lost. And there is a difference between someone who is white English and white Scottish or white Northern Irish or Welsh. And it goes even further than that. So, for example, someone might be discriminated against because they are white Geordie or white Scouser because they don't have a BBC accent and people, quite wrongly, have a certain perception of people from those regions. They are still white, but to say as a blanket statement that as a result of being white they are less prone to racial discrimination is patently untrue. It is much more subtle than that. And that doesn't mean to say that it is not true that racial minorities are not more likely to suffer racial attack than the indiginous population (if there is such a thing these days). The statistics certainly seem to indicate that there is a problem, but what they don't give us are the subtleties or the reasons, for those you need to dig deeper. So, for example, it may be that hate crime is more common against minority groups or it may be that the minority groups are more likely to report hate crime and that such crimes are more likely to be taken seriously by the police if reported by a black person than a white person. Just to give a similar example of where statistics are simply the tip of the iceberg, take this report which makes for quite interesting reading:
http://www.justice.gov.uk/stats-race...08-revised.pdf and I'll quote a passage here:
which tells us that there is a greater proportion of black prisoners, per head of population, than white prisoners. Does this mean that blacks have a greater tendency towards offending behaviour, which is one interpretation, or does this tell us that blacks are more likely to be living in poverty (which is a key driver of criminal behaviour), targeted by the police and more likely to receive a severe sentence than their white compatriots? Both could be true, and neither could be true. The number is disturbing, actually I found the whole report a little disturbing, but in itself it doesn't tell me what's really happening, or what's the right thing to do to change it.
Of course the only way to defeat racism, or any other 'ism', for that matter is to stop putting people into groups and stop considering people as a group entity. So you do not battle racism by arguing that blacks are more discriminated against whites, because this argument inherently relies on the
idea of a group experience which in itself becomes a cultivator of isms.
Because people who are white then feel the need to defend themselves as a group even though they do not really share a group experience. And so it goes on. And when it comes down to it isms are just an expression of power, the idea that 'I have power over you due to circumstances over which you have no control and can therefore do nothing about'. It is an excuse, rather than a reason. If we are to break it, we must all start to think in terms of the individual, rather than the group, and we must all think in terms of what we can and can't control individually. Until we break the group mentality, this will just go on and on and on and on. Ad infinitum. And it is right that we should have laws which make it illegal to deny someone opportunities on the basis of race, sex, religious or sexual persuasion. But those laws should be applied universally, so it should be equally illegal to deny someone an opportunity because they are a white male as it is to deny someone an opportunity because they are a black female. Only by taking race
entirely out of consideration do you have a hope of achieving true equality.
