If you ever needed a reason to hate the BNP

[Jim]

wasp said:

I agree. I have had many arguements with him and to be fair he gives some valid points. One point he did make was that we have all these ethnic groups and ethnic community groups with the people who belong to these groups religion, colour or race named in the group. But as soon as the word British or white is used in any group then it is branded racist etc. I completley agree with this.

How do you determine a racist Jim, he has a few coloured friends, eats in chinese/Indian restaurants etc. So by that could he be classed racist because of his problems with immigrations or is it just because he buys bnp magazines.

I don't think eating chinese food has anything to do with racism and a few token black mates is hardly much better. If you discriminate against another because of their race, or believe that your race has more rights than another, you are taking part in racial politics.

If hes buying magazines from an openly racist party he's hardly pro-immigration and believing in the right of equality of races in Britain, is he? Thats like saying someone who buys into the DUP might not be a unionist.

[bearhunter]

I'm with Jim on this one, WASP. Your mate's a racist of some degree if he's buying into BNP literature, simple as that. For myself, I don't care if you're black, white, yellow, red, catholic, protestant, hindu or whatever. I've even got mates from Ballymena FFS. Now THAT'S tolerance....:-)

[Wasp]

I would agree he is a racist to some degree, but the funny thing is that one of his mates wants all the Poles etc kicked out and he's coloured.

There is no doubt whatsoever that many immigrants help our economy etc but would you agree that there should be some kind of limitation as our educational and health services are at breaking point. There are those who come here because Britain is an easy touch and they can enjoy benefits and perhaps a lifestyle that they could not have in their own country, whether it is housing, financial help, freedom of speech etc and then they whinge about things here.

IMO people like this should be kicked out to fuck as they are the sort who get all the immigrants a bad name. Now am I racist for thinking this?

Jim I never said the word black but because I said coloured friends you assumed they are black, you don't have to be black to be coloured.

BTW the mate that wants the Poles etc kicked out ORIGINATES or rather his family originate from Sri Lanka.

[Jim]

The problem in England is neither of those things, white working class people feel like they are being branded racists just for being white, by middle class white people on groups and committees that in reality mean and do fuck all, suffering from white guilt. It's a serious problem and I would certainly agree that the white working class person is being ignored to somehow keep the peace but the BNP is not the answer and it never will be which is why they have failed to implant themselves in the british system of politics.

Wasp, coloured is almost always used to say black. It doesnt matter what he is, hes not white is he? So automatically hes considered an ethnic minority and it becomes irrelevant what his skin colour is as long as its not white - at least thats the thinking of some of these pressure groups for ethnic minorities.

[earl]

Watch the film 'This is England'. Fantastic film about working class England and racism.

www.youtube.com/watch?v=H0jkv2bRFgQ

www.youtube.com/watch?v=BYjocO-l_Uo&feature=related

[Wasp]

I watched a documentary a while back about the white working class and I agree Jim it is a major problem. Undesireables amongst immigrants are creating more and more of this frustration.

One man lived in one place all his life with his kids. His daughter got married and split from her husband and was on a housing waiting list for her estate which she lived in all her life for just over 3 years. Yet people who only arrivedin the country got preference over a single mother born and bred in the area. Things like this fuel division.

[Wasp]

If you can show me an article or press release where McGeough said those type of things while a Sinn Féin Member then I'd accept your point. But it was his own personal opinions and they were kept to himself.
So your question is answered.

So he never made his personnal opinions known? What an excuse setanta.

www.searchlightmagazine.com/index.php?link=template&story=172

'It was during this period that McGeough, then acting as organiser of the Sinn Fein anti-Nice campaign, became involved with Barrett and his cohorts.'

WASP I was in A&E with my 5 month old for 7 hours the other day.

I hope the kid is ok mate.

There was East European, Roma Gypsies, East Africans and Middle Easterners there, some with their kids to. Not once did I blame them for me having to wait 7 hours. The arse-wipe piss-heads that started to arrive from the pubs after the Champions League Games with puke and blood all over them did some mouthing alright about foreigners making them wait but they were told to shut up quick smart.

Setanta that is not what I am saying, you are making a bad example here by not comparing like with like. Re-read my post about the mans daughter, no-one is blaming the immigrants. It is how they are being put above those who are born and bred here and that is leading to more and more resentment.

The extremal large security men being foreign and that helped and so did the fact that some of the doctors and nurses there were foreign as well.
I didn't see an immigrant, I saw a parent with a sick child being made wait alongside me because of Mary Harneys stupid policies and HSE Mis-Management.
I see government ministers seeing numbers instead of people! I see bureaucrats protecting their own cushy numbers instead of doing their bleedin job!
It's disingenuous, lazy and misleading to blame societies problems on immigrants.
anyone that espouses that an end to immigration will mean an end to socities problems are racist and stupid

Think you completely missed my point.

[earl]

I don't see immigrants either. I just see other human beings trying to get on. If there is a problem in a country, the people running it are generally to blame for it rather than the people who normally don't even have a vote there. When I look at an immigrant, I see our ancestors from the 1800's and think about the hardship and abuse they went through in their new homes. I'd never wish that on anyone, so will always treat my fellow man, no matter what accent, creed or colour with respect. It does warm the heart talking to some of these new Irish when they proudly proclaim their new nationality. The Nigerians seem to be the ones quickest to embrace their new identity.

[Wasp]

Earl if Ireland had the same problem as England then you may view things even slightly differently. I totally agree with you though that it is fantastic when immigrants can come and proudly proclaim their new nationality and call themseles the new Irish/English or whatever.

Saying that many Irish people seem to have the problem of not proudly proclaiming their new nationality etc. Take Irish Americans for example especially those who never set foot in Ireland, Maybe it is an Irish thing that makes people less than willing to accept there new nationality be they the new French, German, Chinese etc. Strange one that.

[Jim]

Hostility to Irish Americans is because they have this idea of Ireland that hasnt existed in about 60 years and get disappointed when they come to Ireland and don't see it.

[earl]

wasp said:

Saying that many Irish people seem to have the problem of not proudly proclaiming their new nationality etc. Take Irish Americans for example especially those who never set foot in Ireland, Maybe it is an Irish thing that makes people less than willing to accept there new nationality be they the new French, German, Chinese etc. Strange one that.

So, is it the same logic for African-Americans? How about Italian-Americans? How about Puerto Ricans or Hispanics, who don't even have the word 'American' in their identity? I'm genuinely shocked at how ill-informed you are about the diversity of modern American culture.
Couldn't the same claim be made about 'Ulster-Scots'? Aren't there some ulsterscots who have never set foot in Scotland? Does that give them any less right to call themselves that? Maybe it is a Scottish thing that makes people less than willing to accept there new nationality.
What's all this business of Scots-Irish in America too? and how many Ulster-Scots ancestors now proudly proclaim their Irish heritage, rightly or wrongly?
I'm afraid, you've got it all wrong WASP.
Hyphenated American = The hyphenated or compound term is most often used with pride or used respectfully; xenophobic and/or ethnocentric usages tend to drop everything after the hyphen or space.
I'm reading the latest copy of History Ireland, and there's an article in it about an Irish-American group called the 'Friends of Irish Freedom', and about how they fell out with Sinn Féin in the 1920's. The article states that one of the main reasons for the falling out was that FOIF were much more American biased, and much of their literature was based around demonstrating how the Irish in America were proud and hard working Americans. They used examples such as the fighting 69th to show how Irish Americans were defending America's interest. Does that fit in with your ill-informed post above?

Let's delve back further into the past to see why Irish-Americans retained a distinct difference to many other White Americans.

Here is an extract on an essay by Art MacDonald, on the book "How the Irish became white" by Noel Ignatiev.

It was a story of primarily Irish Catholic emigration before and after the potato famine - roughly 1840 to the Civil War - and that people's struggle to survive in this white, Protestant world. It's a sympathetic yet tragic story of how race has been a defining characteristic in U.S. culture and how the race question has also plagued the white working class in this country. One might say that it is a story of how the Irish exchanged their greenness for whiteness, and collaborated with the dominant white culture to continue the oppression of African Americans.

Ironically, Irish Catholics came to this country as an oppressed race yet quickly learned that to succeed they had to in turn oppress their closest social class competitors, free Northern blacks. Back home these "native Irish or papists" suffered something very similar to American slavery under English Penal Laws. Yet, despite their revolutionary roots as an oppressed group fighting for freedom and rights, and despite consistent pleas from the great Catholic emancipator, Daniel O'Connell, to support the abolitionists, the newly arrived Irish-Americans judged that the best way of gaining acceptance as good citizens and to counter the Nativist movement was to cooperate in the continued oppression of African Americans. Ironically, at the same time they were collaborating with the dominant culture to block abolition, they were garnering support from among Southern, slaveholding democrats for Repeal of the oppressive English Act of the Union back home. Some even convinced themselves that abolition was an English plot to weaken this country.

Upon hearing of this position on the part of so many of his fellow countrymen now residing in the United States, in 1843 O'Connell wrote: "Over the broad Atlantic I pour forth my voice, saying, come out of such a land, you Irishmen; or, if you remain, and dare countenance the system of slavery that is supported there, we will recognize you as Irishmen no longer." It's a tragic story. In a letter published in the Liberator in 1854, it was stated that "passage to the United States seems to produce the same effect upon the exile of Erin as the eating of the forbidden fruit did upon Adam and Eve. In the morning, they were pure, loving, and innocent; in the evening, guilty."

Irish and Africans Americans had lots in common and lots of contact during this period; they lived side by side and shared work spaces. In the early years of immigration the poor Irish and blacks were thrown together, very much part of the same class competing for the same jobs. In the census of 1850, the term mulatto appears for the first time due primarily to inter-marriage between Irish and African Americans. The Irish were often referred to as "Negroes turned inside out and Negroes as smoked Irish." A famous quip of the time attributed to a black man went something like this: "My master is a great tyrant, he treats me like a common Irishman." Free blacks and Irish were viewed by the Nativists as related, somehow similar, performing the same tasks in society. It was felt that if amalgamation between the races was to happen, it would happen between Irish and blacks. But, ultimately, the Irish made the decision to embrace whiteness, thus becoming part of the system which dominated and oppressed blacks. Although it contradicted their experience back home, it meant freedom here since blackness meant slavery.

An article by a black writer in an 1860 edition of the Liberator explained how the Irish ultimately attained their objectives: "Fifteen or twenty years ago, a Catholic priest in Philadelphia said to the Irish people in that city, 'You are all poor, and chiefly laborers, the blacks are poor laborers; many of the native whites are laborers; now, if you wish to succeed, you must do everything that they do, no matter how degrading, and do it for less than they can afford to do it for.' The Irish adopted this plan; they lived on less than the Americans could live upon, and worked for less, and the result is, that nearly all the menial employments are monopolized by the Irish, who now get as good prices as anybody. There were other avenues open to American white men, and though they have suffered much, the chief support of the Irish has come from the places from which we have been crowded."

Once the Irish secured themselves in those jobs, they made sure blacks were kept out. They realized that as long as they continued to work alongside blacks, they would be considered no different. Later, as Irish became prominent in the labor movement, African Americans were excluded from participation. In fact, one of the primary themes of How the Irish Became White is the way in which left labor historians, such as the highly acclaimed Herbert Gutman, have not paid sufficient attention to the problem of race in the development of the labor movement.

nd so, we have the tragic story of how one oppressed "race," Irish Catholics, learned how to collaborate in the oppression of another "race," Africans in America, in order to secure their place in the white republic. Becoming white meant losing their greenness, i.e., their Irish cultural heritage and the legacy of oppression and discrimination back home. Imagine if the Irish had remained green after their arrival and formed an alliance with their fellow oppressed co-workers, the free blacks of the North. Imagine if they had chosen to include their black brothers and sisters in the union movement to wage a class battle against the dominant white culture which ruthlessly pitted them against one another.

Oh that there had been other Irish Americans such as the soldiers from St. Patrick's Battalion who fought on the side of Mexico in the War of 1848, who did remain green and fought against oppression. So perhaps we Irish in America must reclaim our greenness and, perhaps, our anti-racism trainers are right that we all must reclaim our cultural heritage and bring it to the multicultural table. The only stipulation is that we do it in a decidedly anti-racist manner and in solidarity with oppressed classes of people. Maybe we can all share in the sentiment proclaimed in the 1991 movie about Dublin, "The Commitments," when it was stated that "The Irish are the blacks of Europe, so say it loud, I'm black and I'm proud."

AS is made quite clear from the extract, the Irish were not even considered 'white' in the first place. I was watching a programme on TG4 the other night, about an escaped southern slave called Fredrick Douglas. The programme stated that the difference between the African slave and the Irish immigrant was that the African slave was considered more valuable to society than the Irish immigrant because the slave was property with a monetary value, whereas the Irish were just seen as poor beggars. The programme showed a cartoon from the day where there was an African slave and and Irish immigrant sitting on each side of a weighing scales. Both are drawn with exaggerated simian features, prominent in style with many other anglo-based cartoons of the time. Underneath the slave is written 'Southern slave' while written underneath the immigrant is 'northern slave'.

Irish-Americans have earned the right to call themselves that and are equally as proud in their American heritage as they are in their Irish one. Remember one thing WASP before you decide to ignorantly shoot your mouth off again, Irish blood has been spilled in every single war that America has been involved in since it's inception as a free country.
How about these guys WASP, who made the ultimate sacrifice for their new homeland:
illyria.com/irishkor.html

How about these guys, do you think they were proud of their new country when they laid down their lives?
illyria.com/vn_irish_names.html

How about these guys WASP?
illyria.com/irish/irish_wwii.html

Would you consider one of the greatest Irish-Americans of all time, JFK, as a person not being proud of his American heritage? The man lead his country and the free world away from the brink of nuclear war, and started America on it's space race to the moon.

[Wasp]

Ah earl if you are going to shoot your mouth off about immigrants being proud of their new identity/nationality then sure you must see a bit of hypocricy in your posts concerning the Irish who live abroad or were born abroad. I do not see how an man born in England, France, America, China etc etc can claim to be Irish anything especially those who's parents and grand parents were born in the new country that they emigrated to. Maybe it is Irish confusion about identity, maybe not but it all ties in with your post about how these people who have come to live here have taken on their new nationality with pride.

Don't forget that I totally agreed with you that this is how it should be, but I am sure many will never forget their roots either. But why can't the Irish abroad adopt the same stance and be proud of their new identity no matter where it is?

[earl]

wasp said:

Maybe it is Irish confusion about identity

Ever heard of the phrase 'People in glass houses shouldn't throw stones'? How about Alanis Morrisette's song 'Isn't it ironic'?
Hilarious coming from a
British/Irish/Ulsterman/Uillish/Ulster-Scot/Anglo-Irish/Pict/Scots-Irish/etc person. Nevermind abroad, you guys have problems at home!

[Wasp]

Well maybe some have an identity problem but I don't. I am simply British, my family line has English, Scotch and Irish at least in its make up but that doesn't make me Irish, English etc.

[earl]

I wasn't talking about just you WASP. I was talking about your community. You only have to take a look on other sites as the the arguments and confusion this topic always brings. Seems to be a lot of Loyalists not all that comfortable in their skin. That's why I found your above posts hilarious. Either you are really bothered about this, or you thought you could score a few cheap points with your throw-away remark (it was a throw-away remark right? Don't tell me you put any actual thought into it!)
Simply British? The British identity is one of the most complex and multi-layered identities in Europe. There's nothing simple about it. You'll never here an English, Welsh or Scotsman saying that anyway.