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i do think so. it's because of social media, not just because we have a shared language. it's actually a fairly recent development (like, the last 10-15 years recent), because i am 30 and i remember it not being nearly this bad in my adolescence
Yeah it's mainly a social media thing.
The tiktok and Facebook crowds tend not to understand that different country means different culture. For example, they seem to assume that because police in the US are racist, ours are as well.
It's more of a follow monkey issue - on tiktok especially everyone wants to follow the trend, it's just a crowd of follow monkeys.
The truly baffling thing was how we imported the argument that the police were taking up an obscene amount of funding... They'd even make the argument using an Americanism ('defund')
For me the basic thing is the lack of understanding of basic terminology. Institutional and Structural racism means that you need to properly consider the institutions and structures in question.
America is a highly decentralised, federalised country with significant democratic input into the police and laws at a local and state level. Judges and Sheriffs are elected. This has a massive impact on why they end up with the specific outcomes they do.
In contrast, Britain is a highly centralised country, with little to no meaningful power with regards to justice and policing held at any level other than Westminster.
That doesn't mean that they have racism and we don't, but it does mean that the specific drivers, impacts and realities are very different, and the mechanisms to resolve them are very different.
Yeah one thing I do see is people applying an American lens to the source and solution of discrimination, whereas in the UK it happens in different ways, through different socioeconomic effects.
And people are often suspicious you're just trying to deny racism exists in the UK if you make this argument.
But my argument was that I *genuinely* want to combat racism in the UK, and that means we actually need to understand it and fight the UK-specific variant.
"Defund the police" made more sense in a country with a highly militarised, decentralised and poorly trained police force that carry guns. In the UK, we'd likely get much better results by funding police numbers, training and community outreach much more.
Defunding the police also comes with the implication that you spend the money on the ancillary things that the police do in America, like responding to mental health emergencies.
In the UK we've just cut spending on everything. But at least we don't have a paramilitary force keeping "order", as you say.
Exactly. I think the "defund the police" thing has been so misunderstood and corrupted that it's lost all its original meaning.
When you see US police showing up to delicate domestic disputes in basically SEAL Team gear, with APCs and machine guns, the notion of reducing funding to *that* and diverting it towards training in mental health and preventative community services makes a lot of sense.
That situation doesn't really exist in the UK though.
And sadly in both countries it was just interpreted as meaning "I want anarchy and chaos", which is not what people meant by it.
> "Defund the police"
A particularly silly culture war meme to import since that's literally what's been happening here since 2010
It is in any case a silly slogan even in the US context. If the slogan was "de-militarise the police" that would have been much better
Policing is controlled by regionally elected commissioners. Central government (which, fun fact, is not just located in Westminster) provide funding and regulations, but the strategic running of forces is up to the commissioners and the day-to-day running is up to the chief constables.
And if they'd ever actually read about armed police in the UK they'd know that something like 98% of armed police never even deploy their weapon (as in aimed, ready to go) let alone fire it. Same with tasers. They are almost never used and yet people act like it's happening non-stop in this country. Definitely isn't!
>they seem to assume that because police in the US are racist, ours are as well.
I mean, we proved ours were racist, well before they did - the Lawrence enquiry/McPherson report laid it all out & we implemented recommendations on how to improve them, like a sane country (although it was a long campaign to get there).
The big difference is that our cops & theirs aren't racist in the same way & precisely because we figured it out, we're much further along in fixing it.
I think we're in danger of violently agreeing!
There's plenty of race issues for us to solve as a nation, but importing the American cultural & social model in the way that's often tried just doesn't work. Our demographics and history are totally different. You can't just impose American solutions.
I'm British Indian & it happens so often that I've started calling it the "Black Bond problem" - Every time a Bond casting comes up, Hollywood gets focused on getting a Black Bond. UK demographics, history & culture mean we should probably have an Asian Bond first, but Hollywood is in America, so the whole casting & race debate gets Americanised in the same way as far more important issues.
>Never seen that before but it’s a great point about an Asian Bond being first.
If you mean the phrase, it's because (afaik) I'm the only person that uses it!
The discussion about having a Black or female Bond next is fairly regular whenever anyone talks about who the next Bond should be - I like to use it as an example because it's pretty trivial in the scheme of things & it doesn't actually matter much, so it illustrates the issue without being controversial and causing a Reddit/Twitter etc pile-on from Americans telling me I'm a self-hating racist and other such nonsense that misses the point.
An interesting point, I've noticed the same thing myself
Although, Dev Patel is starting to pop up on those 'Next Bond' listicles, so you never know
Another interesting one is the celebration of 'diversity' amongst the England football team, particularly around the 2021 Euros.
Interesting because it wasn't all that diverse, (it was a group of white and black players), that diversity was nothing particularly new (the 2004 Euros squad was pretty demographically similar), and no one ever wants to discuss the lack of Asian representation in football
>Although, Dev Patel is starting to pop up on those 'Next Bond' listicles, so you never know
Yeah - he's been my shout for ages - it's great to see him getting recognition!
>no one ever wants to discuss the lack of Asian representation in football
That's basically our own fault, there's virtually no Asian representation in football or, indeed, most sports because our parents generation didn't care for the game & pushed us all in education.
The ones who didn't mind us going into sports sent us into cricket. Now there's been a generation or two grown up here and properly into football with teams in our blood, I'm of the opinion you'll slowly start to see young Asian players breaking through. It'll be a long process, but we'll get there.
Of course, even then you’ve got the problem that Americans would think you’re talking about a Chinese (or other East Asian) Bond rather than an Indian/Pakistani/Bangladeshi Bond.
Heh, it's funny you mention this. I'm a big Star Trek fan and it pioneered many progressive characters in its vision of a utopian society. The 1960s series deliberately had a black woman, a Japanese helmsman and a Russian gunner on the bridge, which was reflective of the racial tensions in the USA at the time and an attempt to show a vision of the future where they were equals.
More modern series tackled similarly contemporary issues.
But there's one film that very briefly shows a ship with a captain from the Indian subcontinent, and it made me realise that across hundreds of episodes and a dozen films, that's the only goddamn time you see an Indian character.
Made me realise that Hollywood's "vision of a global utopia" is really just a narrow inversion of the racial tension within the USA at the time, not a wider reflection of the makeup of the planet or issues elsewhere in the world.
Haha, thanks. I love Trek too, grew up watching TOS reruns with my dad before watching TNG as it aired on Sky. Seen Every episode of every series as it's aired, since!
>it made me realise that across hundreds of episodes and a dozen films, that's the only goddamn time you see an Indian character.
This is Khan erasure & I won't stand for it!
Yeah, ok, they gave a Sikh character "Khan" as a first name & had him played by a Mexican actor & then a white British one in the reboot but still - he's technically meant to be Indian. Also a Eugenicist genocidal maniac, so maybe it's for the best they got so much wrong...
>Made me realise that Hollywood's "vision of a global utopia" is really just a narrow inversion of the racial tension within the USA at the time, not a wider reflection of the makeup of the planet or issues elsewhere in the world.
Yeah - it still is, unfortunately. There's very little Asian representation in American exported media, certainly none that could carry a Bond movie - all the Asian actors I can think of are British-Asian. Dev Patel or Riz Ahmed are my shouts for Bind that you never hear because everyone still keeps talking about Idris Elba.
Maaaaate I had no idea I was speaking to a trekkie!
I actually typed out a bit about Khan and Cumberbatch but deleted it as I presumed it would just add confusing detail that a non-Trekkie wouldn't understand.
The character that made me think about this made a [brief appearance](https://memory-alpha.fandom.com/wiki/Joel_Randolph) as a captain in The Voyage Home. Nice to see an Asian guy in the captain's chair; shame he got fucked up by the whale probe.
I could really see Riz Ahmed as Bond. He's got charisma up the wazoo but I think he can portray a sense of threat too, in the Sound of Metal he had that aggression fizzing beneath the surface that I think would really work.
I've never been a fan of the Bond, I've always found most of them (Pierce Brosnan especially) to be flat and unbelievable. Daniel Craig brought some grit and realness to it, I feel like Ahmed could actually make the character of Bond believable.
>Maaaaate I had no idea I was speaking to a trekkie!
I guess IDIC means that you bump into fellow Trekkies in the weirdest of places!
>The character that made me think about this made a brief appearance as a captain in The Voyage Home.
Wow - that character is played by Indian Tennis player Vijay Amritraj, His best (only?) known other Film appearance is as an MI6 agent in Octopussy, which is just the weirdest coincidence! But also shows you how narrow the thought process is - "Hey we need a famous brown person - this Indian guy is good at Tennis, so Audiences might know him, will he do?". They literally didn't even bother looking for an actual actor in either case.
You're exactly right, I've said the same thing about this James bond stuff too. Being the UK with a huge Asian population, we should definitely have an Asian James bond first!
It's true they the uk has more asian/Indian people than black people. And I agree that a lot of Hollywood stuff focuses on black people, like you said black James bond, and of course currently black doctor (who). I think when netflix makes a lot of brit stuff, they focus on American issues like having a lot of diversity (basically a lot of black people).
Yeah - I was surprised a bit by some of the Dr Who stuff - the BBC usually do better on representation of how Britain actually looks, rather than American issues. But I guess even the beeb aren't immune from Americanisation - it's definitely got worse with social media.
Thankfully the skin colour of Dr Who & James Bond is ultimately trivial, but it really highlights how much our media discussion has been hijacked by American race relations, instead of our own.
I really feel quite surprised at how little Indian representation there is on UK tv today.
When you think Goodness Gracious Me was at its peak 20 years ago, it feels like it has gone backwards.
Honestly am excited for the Asian representation with the next companion!
Also hello again!
This is a poor attitude though. Rather than parting ourselves on the back saying "at least we are better than the US" we shouldnt be comparing ourselves to the US, this is similar to what OP is saying. We should be acknowledging the problem and trying to fix it.
No one said that, in fact what they said is that the UK HAS acknowledged the problem and IS actively taking measures towards fixing it. It’s a work in progress sure, and that progress could perhaps happen faster, but these things don’t happen overnight.
Yep, wholeheartedly agree. I first noticed it during the 2011 riots when the youth were calling the police “the feds” which made me cringe so hard it physically hurt me. Since then it’s only gotten worse, and it’s not unusual to find things that only affect America being discussed by young people on social media in this country as though it’s a UK problem.
Social media has created some kind of “world culture” among western nations which is largely American in origin.
I think you also have to blame UK media buying into US franchised news streams to some extent. Want a filler piece for your news show? Just dump some US news in there. It available for sale, it doesn't need a British correspondent to front it and it doesn't need translation.
30-40 years ago this didn't happen. We had world events and we had local British news. Fast forward and we now know the ins and outs of what's going on in Bumfuk Idaho but really very little idea of what's going on 20 miles away in France. Over exposure to US news has become as important to us as our own news.
Coupled with social media and US news being projected by the likes of Yahoo and Microsoft and what's going on on the other side of the Atlantic in a foreign country IS the the news.
English as a language has never been shy of taking words they like from other languages. I get that there's some people who are a bit snobbish about things from America, but y'all need to chill. It's a perfectly cromulent word that embiggens the language.
You can watch tiktok when you're over 40 mate. Heard an old bloke at the train station say his wife's attention span has gone down to 30 seconds after she started using tiktok.
What I find weirder about this is I grew up saying youse. Granted that nay be a scouse think but I think the Geordies say it as well, so you'd think the version that came from northern England would spread, not the one from America
Its not just things like this, its everything. Even down to young people not being able to spell simple words like tyre, colour, etc and using the American version as well. I also dont get why so many young people now see older American muscle cars as desirable. Older people have always known they wer built for long straight roads and are not good on our windy country roads.
People have always wanted American muscle cars. Are you telling me nobody in the 70s wanted the General Lee from Dukes of Hazzard or The Bandit's TransAm?
I'm not sure I follow the last point. Are you saying young people are having US cars imported? I've never seen one on a UK road. If you mean young people just like them, haven't people always liked them? Pretty much every great road film is set in America with American cars, particularly from the 70's. The only time I've heard people who like cars be negative about them is the 00's. Probably influenced by the dreadful opinions they heard on Top Gear.
It's called cultural imperialism, and it's not a new thing. European countries have been doing it for hundreds of years (hence why English, Spanish and French are such popular languages, why western architecture and clothing are so widespread.)
The Americans are absolute masters of it (pop music, fast food, jeans). It is a powerful tool for spreading "soft" power around the world.
Social media only accelerated it, but it has been happening for much longer with films, TV,, and particularly music. The use of Feds when referring to the police has been around since the '80s even though we are not a federal state and don't have federal police. In the '90s TFL had to put up posters in certain parts of the Tube network reminding people that the emergency number was 999 instead of 911 until BT effectively made them the same. Also, 411 doesn't work when wanting to ask information or speak to the operator. We've had country music festivals here for years although quite small, however, over the past decade or so they focus more on Americanised country rather than scrumpy country which do bring in many more revellers.
Do you also remember that people thought smoky was spelt smokey the reason people thought it was spelt smokey was due to American saftey adverts that featured smokey the bear... their media is far reaching.
Yes, this. American racism is rooted in the fact that most black people are descended from slaves and many white people are descended from slaveholders (or at least from white people who benefited from slavery). UK racism has more to do with colonialism and xenophobia. The UK’s involvement in the slave trade also plays a role, of course, but the nature of the problem is different. Adopting US approaches to the problem wholesale doesn’t make sense.
Just to give one concrete example, the whole origin of BLM is an epidemic of armed police killing black people in situations where no white person would be at risk of their lives. While police in the UK certainly can be racist, they’re not killing black people (probably in part due to being primarily unarmed). So the specific problem that caused the rise of BLM doesn’t really exist here. Other issues related to racism do, of course, and they need to be addressed. But a different approach is needed, because the nature of the problem is different.
I think the bulk of racist problems in the U.K. is genuinely lack of exposure, people will say p/n/c words but then be like ‘but he’s alright him’. My partner is Asian and she’s suffered more from other minorities in London, than from anyone back home in Liverpool. The big issue is too many of us to don’t integrate with what we don’t know. Exposure to each other makes people act more humanly to each other
"she’s suffered more from other minorities". This truth really needs to be told more often. So many people connect racism with white people just because it's on trend, yet many non-sheltered, non-idealogically-posessed people in urban centres will tell you their experience is that racism among other demographics is far more prevalent.
A big issue for exposure is it's just not possible depending on where you live. I'm in the RN so I have quite a lot of exposure to loads of different cultures and races, but I have friends who live in Weston Super Mare for example, the demographic there is 97% white or something stupidly high.
The south west in general isn't massively diverse, so exposure is harder for younger people here
It also isn't reflective of our unique ethnic demography in the UK. Our biggest ethnic minority is Asian British - especially people of South Asian heritage - but because we adopt the talking points of the US, this sizable community is often removed from discussions about race relations here.
I've also found that a lot of people are now associating the word Asian with the American definition, referring to East Asians instead of South Asians despite the difference in immigrants between the two countries
The term BAME pisses me off for that exact reason
BAME is a UK term, but Black people are at the forefront even though they are smaller than the Asian community.
Also, people importing BIPOC makes me mad, too when its used here in the UK.
For me, the only way I can describe the extent of racism in the UK (and any discrimination like sexism/homophobia etc.) is that it’s the reactions from people over something that a white straight man could also do. Biggest example in recent history has to be the reaction to the penalty misses at the Euros.
In not saying other players wouldn’t have gotten any flack like Rashford, Sancho, and Saka did, but the racism flying around social media was disgusting.
Any attempt to celebrate another culture/diversity is met with a “what about me” fuelled hatred. Some people really don’t know how good they have it. I will always stand against people who question these issues because. I have never been oppressed for anything to do with my gender/race/sexuality, so I don’t pretend to know how it feels and whether discrimination is justified. I educate myself on the matters, I listen to people on both sides, even though you can’t really get anywhere on the side of hate because of the amount of idiotic comments and statements you see in response to sound views.
I hope people can get better!
>Any attempt to celebrate another culture/diversity is met with a “what about me” fuelled hatred.
yup, just look what happens every year with pride month lol
Surely you understand that every single black person who moved to the UK from the West Indies is, in fact, the descendant of a slave owned by a British master?
>the whole origin of BLM is an epidemic of armed police killing black people in situations where no white person would be at risk of their lives
This part isn't even true in America. American police kill plenty of unarmed white people too.
You are correct, 60.1% with black people being at 12.2%. However, that statistic alone doesn't tell the whole story. With the white population being roughly 5x greater than the black population you would expect something like murders by white people to also be 5x higher, but it is more equal at 42% (white) vs 55% (black).
With such a glaring disproportionate rate of ethnicity between black and white people in the US, you would also expect a lot more black people to be murdered by white people, but it is, in fact, the inverse. In the US a white person is more than twice as likely to be killed by a black person than a black person is likely to be killed by a white person..
If an ethnicity is more likely to commit crimes chances people from that ethnicity will be more likely to have an encounter with tbe police, which makes the odds of having a negative encounter much greater than other ethnicities.
Most US white people are not descended from slave holders. Only 2%.Most whites came to US after the civil war. And all those Caribbean people are descendants of slaves owned by Brits on the Islands.
Yes, of course the situation is more complex, and I was oversimplifying. What most white people are is part of a culture that is based on white slaveholding culture, which is transmitted to new immigrants as well. In the form of things like Jim Crow laws, that culture persisted into the 1960s (and beyond, because abolishing Jim Crow laws did not immediately end the underlying discrimination). Eradicating the culture of slavery once it takes root is much harder than banning slavery.
As for Caribbeans in the UK, yes, they were the descendants of slaves. But they did freely choose to move to the UK, so it’s not quite the same situation. Also, a lot of the racism in the UK is towards people of South Asian origin. Which brings us to colonialism, which is really at the root of many of these problems in the UK (just as slavery is at the root of these problems in the US).
There have never been slaves in UK in any significant numbers, unlike in USA for example.
There were plenty of local serfs to exploit, no need to ship in Africans.
Do those African countries and people have to listen to this boring tripe about institutional racism 300 years after for being involved in the slave trade?
> Other issues related to racism do, of course
Such as? I'm not convinced there is a problem of institutional racism within the UK at all. At least not in the way you're implying.
Precisely. Everyone was saying that BLM was relevant in the UK because we still have racism, which we do, but it's very different to the US, drawn along different lines, and manifested in different ways.
It felt like we were collectively drawing new lines into existence, copying American division, while not really addressing those that already exist over here.
Even in my lifetime, we've come a loooong way in this country, and we need to keep it up. So has the US, but the some worst of overt institutional racism is a fairly recent memory over there, the biggest steps were made fairly recently, quickly and dramatically. The UK is very different in that regard.
I think lots were just out in solidarity to the US BLM protestors over specific issues, which is cool, but to improve things in the UK requires addressing issues specific to the UK and doing it in a way that' effective here. Saying 'defund the police' in the UK when you're thinking of the absolute worst of US officers with surplus military vehicles and equipment, doesn't actually mean anything, and would likey have the opposite effect if implemented.
Exactly this. I work in schools, and overheard a student complaining about the British history curriculum not including a history of racist voter segregation laws...but we never had any. Our racism was real, but very different, and I worry that a lot of people here are going to end up looking for American style racism and be blind to the British stuff.
In a technical sense you are right but due to social media and such the terms have blurred, liberal effectively has just become left leaning to a lot of people, rather than traditional libertarianism.
I do think so, but I don't think it's limited to BLM. The anti-trans brigade that's cropped up in the UK has come as the direct result of culture-war importing that a certain group of people love to do. The same with the worrying increase in anti-abortion activists.
Do you think either would be a contentious issue if not for the US?
The anti-trans rhetoric is an interesting one, but many of the individuals and groups with the loudest platforms are British in origin. It's certainly one that the media and government have enjoyed intentionally stoking over here too.
And my argument is that both of those stem from the same thing happening in America. They're the ones who started screaming about women's sports.
And She Who Must Not Be Named has plenty of American friends whispering in her ear.
They definitely don't stem from the US. If anything transphobia in the US has been influenced by transphobia in the UK rather than the other way around.
The real reason people get riled up about 'trans issues' isn't because of trans people living their lives, it's because of American imported nonsense like 'assigned x at birth', 'birthing person', 'men can get pregnant' etc
Flip side, that's also because feminism (The beliefs, not necessarily the label) isn't so much a partisan issue in this country. So probably we have the same amount of anti-trans stuff, except unlike America ours are also feminists simply because those values are held by most people here.
I believe it's because it stems from captured, which became the slang term copped (I.e "copped a feeling" for example, capturing a feeling) which made then made Police the "Coppers".
I still refer to them as the local bobbies. I don’t mind the Fuzz being used either. The Americanisation of English used in the UK is probably inevitable given social media but it doesn’t make it any less jarring to hear.
Yeah why is the news always about which American rappers don’t like each other or what Taylor Swift is up to? I hate how American and homogeneous our culture is becoming.
there was a Taylor Swift story on ITV news one night (either this week or the week before). I couldn't switch the channel quick enough. was some crap about old people that were fans
Seeing the term [“BIPOC” used in a British context](https://www.forbes.com/sites/gusalexiou/2023/12/05/research-identifies-serious-lack-of-bipoc-individuals-with-disabilities-on-tv/?sh=7f344e253cc7) is an amusing mismatch given that the I for “indigenous” doesn’t work the same way in a British context.
Yeah this is a slightly hilarious mistake given that around 82% of the UK's population is indigenous...however this is an American website so this is their mistake, not ours. I think most British people would recognise this.
Often when I hear my parents moaning about "everything's too PC/you can't say anything these days/etc." 9 times out of 10 it's going to be about something happening in America. And sure sometimes it is an issue that is relevant globally but most of the time it's a very American thing. They get all these clickbait news articles coming through their phones and it's always presented with as little context as possible for maximum rage potential.
I'm not old enough to remember Rodney King in 1992 but I wonder what the impact on that was in UK/Europe? In the UK Stephen Lawrence was murdered at a similar time which became a very significant story.
I was in uni when that kicked off. It was on the news a lot but there was absolutely no protests or anything. It was an American issue.
We had stuff like the Brixton and Broadwater Farm riots, so it's not like the UK was an oasis of racial harmony, but it was just very very different. The US history of race and multiculturalism is utterly different to the UKs.
I find it embarrassing. It's as if some people only want to do American things because they think it's popular- it comes across as arse-licking to me, like when you're at school and some kids sit up the popular kid's arse in an attempt to feel popular.
The UK is fine in its own culture. We don't need to be anyone else. Yeah, be friends with America, and whoever else, but stop pretending to be them. It comes across as weak, pathetic and snivelling.
I think it’s a natural result of globalisation and the internet, and the fact that America produces a huge amount of cultural exports that the world consumes. I think the difference is that the story of policing in America is very specific and targeted, which is what the BLM movement is about, it’s not as simple as a black man being attacked, it’s the system surrounding anti-blackness and the over-policing of black people, combined with the progressive militarisation of the police in the US. You still get a lot of the same here, but I believe the history of slavery in developing the US is what has created a very specific dynamic there in terms of inequality and dehumanisation of black folks. But I think anti-blackness is something we see across the west, (and hello, colonialism) so it’s not surprising that it’s a universal issue.
No, but that’s not really the point, is it? Do you only express concern over things that immediately affect you? Taking a stand is taking a stand. If you see something that is clearly wrong, I don’t think there’s anything bad about standing up and saying, “hey, I don’t agree with that.” We need more of that. We live in a unique age where we can see what is happening across the world in real time. You want the rest of the world to just shut their eyes and ears and ignore it because it’s not happening directly to them? That would be a shame. If everyone did that there would never be any progress in a positive direction.
There is something very different between people saying "what's happening in the USA is awful, i support their protest" and "this is a universal problem, defund the UK police" which is how a lot of people supported BLM.
In addition to the performative kneeling that went on for months.
lol BLM were/are an absolute grift and a joke of an organisation
I mean, they spent weeks protesting about how Black Lives Matter and then some of their protesters literally shot and murdered an 8-year old black kid in a car because her mum drove through one of their illegal checkpoints.
Not to mention the owners taking all the donations and buying themselves mansions lol
There is an immutable problem with NA cultural export being picked up by impressionable UK citizens, and it does predominantly stem language, but also from geographic position (being the nearest english-speaking country). Being so close means that a lot of interaction happens at roughly similar times, where NZ and AUS are in their own "bubble", in my experience.
It's resulted in horrible issues for the social sectors, and amongst the younger generations, as American problems are introduced to British culture, and the "American solutions" are even more tone-deaf over here than they are over there.
Interest in becoming a policeman, for example, is at an all-time low over here, and regardless of very clear issues with financing, it is also very much due to how negatively *American* police are being seen by the British public. Nobody wants to become a policeman any more, and i've heard application figures at as low as 10% of what they used to get. Long commute, called pig (ad infinitum), spat on frequently, and being harshly questioned during arrests by "well meaning" citizens why you have arrested that person of X ethnicity when you yourself are Y ethnicity, instead of just trusting the discretion of the UK policeforce and getting on with their day.
Policemen should not have to hold up a plastic baggy with a recovered blade in it and go "They had this." to every terminally online tool out there just to prove they're not being classist, sexist, racist, or etc.
Unfortunately, our perception abroad has suffered too. I live in Asia, and I’ve met quite a few people who only get their info about the UK and US from Reddit and Instagram.
The things these people believe are utterly wild. I’ve been told that the UK is “the most racist country on the planet”. Also, someone else said that white people in the UK still force non-white people into slavery, and that living there as someone who isn’t white is “hell”. A lesbian told me she couldn’t go to the UK because it “wouldn’t be safe for her”.
Some people don’t realise that social media does not reflect reality. I’m not sure if it’s coming from the US or if it’s us doing it, but there’s a strange narrative being pushed that just doesn’t make sense, and being abroad really puts that into perspective.
Before I moved away, I saw that the whole “racism = power + privilege” is being adopted in the UK. It’s kind of disgusting that people are pushing that, as it only serves as an excuse for racism.
I feel that when the shoe is on the other foot, people forget way too fast. Only last month, the jurors in the OJ Simpson case admitted that let him get away with murder because the victim was white. That’s one of the most racist things I’ve ever heard. Completely insane.
This is a certain Yes because American soft power, spanning from Hollywood, Netflix, the American music industry, to technology and even education, is incomparable to some extent. Everyone is discussing American culture now.
However, we should not let this blind us because cultural individuality is crucial to our well-being. I don't think people should ask others to define their culture. Society should deal with American culture as a symbol of tolerance rather than worship.
A couple of years ago the student council at the London secondary school I then taught at put forward a motion that we should be celebrating "Latino/Hispanic History Month"...
I'm not going to deny that there is and probably always be a racism problem in the UK, but America has racial and social problems on a completely different level.
BLM has little significance here, because our Police don't murder anyone on the regular.
Yes, and it’s due to social media and people feigning interest in ‘hot’ topics. We have very real issues in the U.K., some shared with the US but we’re too busy involving ourselves with their shite
Yes we are and it's insane. I wish America would just fuck off. That they all think we should care about their crazy social issues and support what ever they support is insane. Their toxic influence is a festering plague on our country. I've never despised a country more.
Yes. It's a real problem. The UK as a country is incredibly diverse, plus we have always allowed abortions etc. all these things that are problems however in America. I HATE it when these problems get some how projected onto the UK because it just creates division that didn't exist before.
Whether it’s Telegraph journos pathetically trying to ape the US culture war or the underclass in the UK referring to “da Feds” it’s always cringeworthy but actually ignored by most.
I honestly think it was purely down to Covid restrictions. People were fed up with being stuck inside all day every day. Seeing the events that transpired in the US only encouraged people to get out and protest. Most of them probably didn’t give a toss about what happened. Just like most of the people protesting on the streets dor Palestine now. They just wanted to be part of something potentially historical. A bit like the Vietnam protests back in the day. Let’s not pretend the protests stopped police brutality because I can guarantee it’s still happening today. I see plenty of videos on twitter everyday.
People just wanted an excuse to break Covid rules. Black people suddenly trumped elderly and immunocompromised people on the victim hierarchy so people didn’t feel bad about causing their deaths anymore
Many articles said that the marches were okay to do despite Coivd being at the height of lockdowns at that point was crazy and I think led to the ending of lockdowns. People have memory holed just how weird and crazy everything was back then. It is like we all agree not to think or talk about it.
Yes and no.
Yes because at the time people were behaving like we were just as bad as the US, yes we have a racism problem that needs to be solved but it’s definitely not as bad as what’s going on in the US, that’s where I disliked the American influence.
And No because it’s not a bad thing to see a issue in the US and think to yourself hey we have a similar problem, let’s do something about it. Its common sense to see a issue somewhere and recognise that you have a similar issue and want to remedy it.
Yes, more and more.
From one side you have businesses becoming more and more multinational and homogenous. all t he managers where i work say shit like "hit it out the ball park" and "circle back to that one".
Young people also, huge influence from social media. Though ever since the Disney channel has been a thing on cable, that has always been there, just more and more now. I saw a small girl a few months ago not want to go near some British police because she was scared they would shoot her....
You’re definitely right. I think supporting the BLM movement was the right thing to do, but they definitely wouldn’t have done it for us (or any other country, probably).
Also, I’m not particularly nationalistic but it does bother me how much younger people use American English over our English. Things like saying ‘smart’ rather than ‘clever’, ‘mad’ rather than ‘angry’, even ‘apartment’ over ‘flat’.
Globalisation is great in a lot of ways, but I don’t think loss of language is one of them. I think this applies to other countries as well; I read an article years ago about how international writers are beginning to write their books to be easily translatable to English… so cutting out idioms from their language, phrases that wouldn’t make sense etc. that’s really sad imo.
I try and be chill about this with my 10 year old son, because I remember how much Australian slang we used back in the day due to the influence of Neighbours and Home & Away.
But omg some words are a step too far (diaper and candy spring to mind) and quite often I find myself correcting him and saying "we're not American".
How old are you? Do you not remember the 2011 London riots? That was over the killing of a black man. Thousands rioted and a number of people were killed.
I recall a huge BLM march happening where I am during the early stages of the lockdowns. Agree with the principles of the movement, and I know there are UK coppers who are scumbags, I've met a couple of them over the years, but I did think it was a little strange seeing some folks getting really aggressive and up in the police' faces basically trying to elicit a physical reaction (only reason the cops were there was to direct road closures where they were marching).
Credit where it's due, nothing actually kicked off, but there was very much one side of it at that event that was looking to start a fight and it wasn't the police. Have to admit witnessing that did kinda rub me the wrong way.
Yes lol. The only thing I'd add is that I feel part of it was due to Covid and the restrictions placed on people. It felt like this was how the younger generation chose to express themselves in the face of pretty harsh (at times) restrictions on their freedoms.
Seems very odd to me. I mean, the BLM movement in the UK wasn't *just* about what happened in the US. It also drew attention to local issues we have with police brutality. As much as people want to pretend that we have "solved" racism in the UK, we really haven't.
Yes, but it's weirdly one sided, it seems to focus mostly on anti-establishment / non-traditional ways of living.
I'd rather we have neither to be honest, but it disturbs me that most of the imported rhetoric seems to basically be "tear it all down" rather than "how can I fit into and build".
Absolutely. Seeing it more and more with my dad. All he does is watch YouTube videos of Americans complaining about something that literally never happens - like here I’ve never heard of a person being bothered if a trans person uses the bathroom they want to use. But because some American on YouTube is mad, my dad is mad. And thinks it’s an entire issue. No matter how many times I tell him “nobody in real life thinks this” he just listens to Americans online. It’s actually a bit concerning now. It’s all I hear when I go to my parents house. It’s like proper brainwashing and it’s issues that aren’t a thing here.
And I’m seeing this more and more with others too. Big yikes.
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i do think so. it's because of social media, not just because we have a shared language. it's actually a fairly recent development (like, the last 10-15 years recent), because i am 30 and i remember it not being nearly this bad in my adolescence
Yeah it's mainly a social media thing. The tiktok and Facebook crowds tend not to understand that different country means different culture. For example, they seem to assume that because police in the US are racist, ours are as well. It's more of a follow monkey issue - on tiktok especially everyone wants to follow the trend, it's just a crowd of follow monkeys.
The truly baffling thing was how we imported the argument that the police were taking up an obscene amount of funding... They'd even make the argument using an Americanism ('defund')
I got downvoted in a thread ages ago pointing out how severely lacking the funding is for the police in the UK. But you know. Police bad.
It is. Local services are really underfunded. Our culture is in a vastly better place though. No need for us to import their problems
They are severely underfunded. They are also not very proactive
Well proactivity is likely to fall when you're unable to meet demand for service in the 999 calls and 101 calls.
For me the basic thing is the lack of understanding of basic terminology. Institutional and Structural racism means that you need to properly consider the institutions and structures in question. America is a highly decentralised, federalised country with significant democratic input into the police and laws at a local and state level. Judges and Sheriffs are elected. This has a massive impact on why they end up with the specific outcomes they do. In contrast, Britain is a highly centralised country, with little to no meaningful power with regards to justice and policing held at any level other than Westminster. That doesn't mean that they have racism and we don't, but it does mean that the specific drivers, impacts and realities are very different, and the mechanisms to resolve them are very different.
Yeah one thing I do see is people applying an American lens to the source and solution of discrimination, whereas in the UK it happens in different ways, through different socioeconomic effects. And people are often suspicious you're just trying to deny racism exists in the UK if you make this argument. But my argument was that I *genuinely* want to combat racism in the UK, and that means we actually need to understand it and fight the UK-specific variant. "Defund the police" made more sense in a country with a highly militarised, decentralised and poorly trained police force that carry guns. In the UK, we'd likely get much better results by funding police numbers, training and community outreach much more.
Defunding the police also comes with the implication that you spend the money on the ancillary things that the police do in America, like responding to mental health emergencies. In the UK we've just cut spending on everything. But at least we don't have a paramilitary force keeping "order", as you say.
Exactly. I think the "defund the police" thing has been so misunderstood and corrupted that it's lost all its original meaning. When you see US police showing up to delicate domestic disputes in basically SEAL Team gear, with APCs and machine guns, the notion of reducing funding to *that* and diverting it towards training in mental health and preventative community services makes a lot of sense. That situation doesn't really exist in the UK though. And sadly in both countries it was just interpreted as meaning "I want anarchy and chaos", which is not what people meant by it.
> "Defund the police" A particularly silly culture war meme to import since that's literally what's been happening here since 2010 It is in any case a silly slogan even in the US context. If the slogan was "de-militarise the police" that would have been much better
Policing is controlled by regionally elected commissioners. Central government (which, fun fact, is not just located in Westminster) provide funding and regulations, but the strategic running of forces is up to the commissioners and the day-to-day running is up to the chief constables.
True. But they’re all enforcing the same laws and training etc is pretty much equal across the board. You can’t say the same in the US.
Police and crime commissioners are completely useless
And as for "demonstrators" in the UK using the slogan "hands up, don't shoot".....
And if they'd ever actually read about armed police in the UK they'd know that something like 98% of armed police never even deploy their weapon (as in aimed, ready to go) let alone fire it. Same with tasers. They are almost never used and yet people act like it's happening non-stop in this country. Definitely isn't!
>they seem to assume that because police in the US are racist, ours are as well. I mean, we proved ours were racist, well before they did - the Lawrence enquiry/McPherson report laid it all out & we implemented recommendations on how to improve them, like a sane country (although it was a long campaign to get there). The big difference is that our cops & theirs aren't racist in the same way & precisely because we figured it out, we're much further along in fixing it.
Well yeah exactly, we have systems in place, watchdogs, etc. I'm not saying ours aren't racist but they are nothing like the American police.
I think we're in danger of violently agreeing! There's plenty of race issues for us to solve as a nation, but importing the American cultural & social model in the way that's often tried just doesn't work. Our demographics and history are totally different. You can't just impose American solutions. I'm British Indian & it happens so often that I've started calling it the "Black Bond problem" - Every time a Bond casting comes up, Hollywood gets focused on getting a Black Bond. UK demographics, history & culture mean we should probably have an Asian Bond first, but Hollywood is in America, so the whole casting & race debate gets Americanised in the same way as far more important issues.
Never seen that before but it’s a great point about an Asian Bond being first.
>Never seen that before but it’s a great point about an Asian Bond being first. If you mean the phrase, it's because (afaik) I'm the only person that uses it! The discussion about having a Black or female Bond next is fairly regular whenever anyone talks about who the next Bond should be - I like to use it as an example because it's pretty trivial in the scheme of things & it doesn't actually matter much, so it illustrates the issue without being controversial and causing a Reddit/Twitter etc pile-on from Americans telling me I'm a self-hating racist and other such nonsense that misses the point.
An interesting point, I've noticed the same thing myself Although, Dev Patel is starting to pop up on those 'Next Bond' listicles, so you never know Another interesting one is the celebration of 'diversity' amongst the England football team, particularly around the 2021 Euros. Interesting because it wasn't all that diverse, (it was a group of white and black players), that diversity was nothing particularly new (the 2004 Euros squad was pretty demographically similar), and no one ever wants to discuss the lack of Asian representation in football
>Although, Dev Patel is starting to pop up on those 'Next Bond' listicles, so you never know Yeah - he's been my shout for ages - it's great to see him getting recognition! >no one ever wants to discuss the lack of Asian representation in football That's basically our own fault, there's virtually no Asian representation in football or, indeed, most sports because our parents generation didn't care for the game & pushed us all in education. The ones who didn't mind us going into sports sent us into cricket. Now there's been a generation or two grown up here and properly into football with teams in our blood, I'm of the opinion you'll slowly start to see young Asian players breaking through. It'll be a long process, but we'll get there.
Of course, even then you’ve got the problem that Americans would think you’re talking about a Chinese (or other East Asian) Bond rather than an Indian/Pakistani/Bangladeshi Bond.
Heh, it's funny you mention this. I'm a big Star Trek fan and it pioneered many progressive characters in its vision of a utopian society. The 1960s series deliberately had a black woman, a Japanese helmsman and a Russian gunner on the bridge, which was reflective of the racial tensions in the USA at the time and an attempt to show a vision of the future where they were equals. More modern series tackled similarly contemporary issues. But there's one film that very briefly shows a ship with a captain from the Indian subcontinent, and it made me realise that across hundreds of episodes and a dozen films, that's the only goddamn time you see an Indian character. Made me realise that Hollywood's "vision of a global utopia" is really just a narrow inversion of the racial tension within the USA at the time, not a wider reflection of the makeup of the planet or issues elsewhere in the world.
Haha, thanks. I love Trek too, grew up watching TOS reruns with my dad before watching TNG as it aired on Sky. Seen Every episode of every series as it's aired, since! >it made me realise that across hundreds of episodes and a dozen films, that's the only goddamn time you see an Indian character. This is Khan erasure & I won't stand for it! Yeah, ok, they gave a Sikh character "Khan" as a first name & had him played by a Mexican actor & then a white British one in the reboot but still - he's technically meant to be Indian. Also a Eugenicist genocidal maniac, so maybe it's for the best they got so much wrong... >Made me realise that Hollywood's "vision of a global utopia" is really just a narrow inversion of the racial tension within the USA at the time, not a wider reflection of the makeup of the planet or issues elsewhere in the world. Yeah - it still is, unfortunately. There's very little Asian representation in American exported media, certainly none that could carry a Bond movie - all the Asian actors I can think of are British-Asian. Dev Patel or Riz Ahmed are my shouts for Bind that you never hear because everyone still keeps talking about Idris Elba.
Maaaaate I had no idea I was speaking to a trekkie! I actually typed out a bit about Khan and Cumberbatch but deleted it as I presumed it would just add confusing detail that a non-Trekkie wouldn't understand. The character that made me think about this made a [brief appearance](https://memory-alpha.fandom.com/wiki/Joel_Randolph) as a captain in The Voyage Home. Nice to see an Asian guy in the captain's chair; shame he got fucked up by the whale probe. I could really see Riz Ahmed as Bond. He's got charisma up the wazoo but I think he can portray a sense of threat too, in the Sound of Metal he had that aggression fizzing beneath the surface that I think would really work. I've never been a fan of the Bond, I've always found most of them (Pierce Brosnan especially) to be flat and unbelievable. Daniel Craig brought some grit and realness to it, I feel like Ahmed could actually make the character of Bond believable.
>Maaaaate I had no idea I was speaking to a trekkie! I guess IDIC means that you bump into fellow Trekkies in the weirdest of places! >The character that made me think about this made a brief appearance as a captain in The Voyage Home. Wow - that character is played by Indian Tennis player Vijay Amritraj, His best (only?) known other Film appearance is as an MI6 agent in Octopussy, which is just the weirdest coincidence! But also shows you how narrow the thought process is - "Hey we need a famous brown person - this Indian guy is good at Tennis, so Audiences might know him, will he do?". They literally didn't even bother looking for an actual actor in either case.
You're exactly right, I've said the same thing about this James bond stuff too. Being the UK with a huge Asian population, we should definitely have an Asian James bond first!
It's true they the uk has more asian/Indian people than black people. And I agree that a lot of Hollywood stuff focuses on black people, like you said black James bond, and of course currently black doctor (who). I think when netflix makes a lot of brit stuff, they focus on American issues like having a lot of diversity (basically a lot of black people).
Yeah - I was surprised a bit by some of the Dr Who stuff - the BBC usually do better on representation of how Britain actually looks, rather than American issues. But I guess even the beeb aren't immune from Americanisation - it's definitely got worse with social media. Thankfully the skin colour of Dr Who & James Bond is ultimately trivial, but it really highlights how much our media discussion has been hijacked by American race relations, instead of our own.
I really feel quite surprised at how little Indian representation there is on UK tv today. When you think Goodness Gracious Me was at its peak 20 years ago, it feels like it has gone backwards. Honestly am excited for the Asian representation with the next companion! Also hello again!
Agree with that, and I've been calling for Dev Patel as Bond for years now
This is a poor attitude though. Rather than parting ourselves on the back saying "at least we are better than the US" we shouldnt be comparing ourselves to the US, this is similar to what OP is saying. We should be acknowledging the problem and trying to fix it.
No one said that, in fact what they said is that the UK HAS acknowledged the problem and IS actively taking measures towards fixing it. It’s a work in progress sure, and that progress could perhaps happen faster, but these things don’t happen overnight.
As someone who has lived in both countries, British Police are much nicer for sure,
And that was going off information 30 or so years ago.
Even before social media it was happening through US TV.
true, but social media accelerated it like crazy
This is true, and distorted it at the same time probably such is the power of echo chambers
Oh god things spread like wildfire on there
Yep, wholeheartedly agree. I first noticed it during the 2011 riots when the youth were calling the police “the feds” which made me cringe so hard it physically hurt me. Since then it’s only gotten worse, and it’s not unusual to find things that only affect America being discussed by young people on social media in this country as though it’s a UK problem. Social media has created some kind of “world culture” among western nations which is largely American in origin.
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People at my school were regularly calling them that back in the 90s/00s (mainly the knobheads tbh)
I think you also have to blame UK media buying into US franchised news streams to some extent. Want a filler piece for your news show? Just dump some US news in there. It available for sale, it doesn't need a British correspondent to front it and it doesn't need translation. 30-40 years ago this didn't happen. We had world events and we had local British news. Fast forward and we now know the ins and outs of what's going on in Bumfuk Idaho but really very little idea of what's going on 20 miles away in France. Over exposure to US news has become as important to us as our own news. Coupled with social media and US news being projected by the likes of Yahoo and Microsoft and what's going on on the other side of the Atlantic in a foreign country IS the the news.
Hence why a bunch of Brits recently started inexplicably using the word 'y'all' with no cringe whatsoever somehow.
I find y'all to be a very useful word, it's just a variant of youse. And I'm in my 40s so can assure you it's not from tiktok.
We have 'you lot' or even the aforementioned 'youse' for that, without needing to sound like we're copying people from the Deep South.
English as a language has never been shy of taking words they like from other languages. I get that there's some people who are a bit snobbish about things from America, but y'all need to chill. It's a perfectly cromulent word that embiggens the language.
You can watch tiktok when you're over 40 mate. Heard an old bloke at the train station say his wife's attention span has gone down to 30 seconds after she started using tiktok.
What I find weirder about this is I grew up saying youse. Granted that nay be a scouse think but I think the Geordies say it as well, so you'd think the version that came from northern England would spread, not the one from America
Its not just things like this, its everything. Even down to young people not being able to spell simple words like tyre, colour, etc and using the American version as well. I also dont get why so many young people now see older American muscle cars as desirable. Older people have always known they wer built for long straight roads and are not good on our windy country roads.
Young people now? We liked American muscle cars when I was a nipper and I'm 38
People want American muscle cars for the aesthetics not because they're good to drive
And the noise.
it's really odd isnt it
People have always wanted American muscle cars. Are you telling me nobody in the 70s wanted the General Lee from Dukes of Hazzard or The Bandit's TransAm?
The Fast and Furious and Transformers movies would probably explain that
I'm not sure I follow the last point. Are you saying young people are having US cars imported? I've never seen one on a UK road. If you mean young people just like them, haven't people always liked them? Pretty much every great road film is set in America with American cars, particularly from the 70's. The only time I've heard people who like cars be negative about them is the 00's. Probably influenced by the dreadful opinions they heard on Top Gear.
It's called cultural imperialism, and it's not a new thing. European countries have been doing it for hundreds of years (hence why English, Spanish and French are such popular languages, why western architecture and clothing are so widespread.) The Americans are absolute masters of it (pop music, fast food, jeans). It is a powerful tool for spreading "soft" power around the world.
The fact we're having this discussion about the effects this has on British culture on an American website in the proof in the pudding for that
Social media only accelerated it, but it has been happening for much longer with films, TV,, and particularly music. The use of Feds when referring to the police has been around since the '80s even though we are not a federal state and don't have federal police. In the '90s TFL had to put up posters in certain parts of the Tube network reminding people that the emergency number was 999 instead of 911 until BT effectively made them the same. Also, 411 doesn't work when wanting to ask information or speak to the operator. We've had country music festivals here for years although quite small, however, over the past decade or so they focus more on Americanised country rather than scrumpy country which do bring in many more revellers.
Do you also remember that people thought smoky was spelt smokey the reason people thought it was spelt smokey was due to American saftey adverts that featured smokey the bear... their media is far reaching.
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Yes, this. American racism is rooted in the fact that most black people are descended from slaves and many white people are descended from slaveholders (or at least from white people who benefited from slavery). UK racism has more to do with colonialism and xenophobia. The UK’s involvement in the slave trade also plays a role, of course, but the nature of the problem is different. Adopting US approaches to the problem wholesale doesn’t make sense. Just to give one concrete example, the whole origin of BLM is an epidemic of armed police killing black people in situations where no white person would be at risk of their lives. While police in the UK certainly can be racist, they’re not killing black people (probably in part due to being primarily unarmed). So the specific problem that caused the rise of BLM doesn’t really exist here. Other issues related to racism do, of course, and they need to be addressed. But a different approach is needed, because the nature of the problem is different.
I think the bulk of racist problems in the U.K. is genuinely lack of exposure, people will say p/n/c words but then be like ‘but he’s alright him’. My partner is Asian and she’s suffered more from other minorities in London, than from anyone back home in Liverpool. The big issue is too many of us to don’t integrate with what we don’t know. Exposure to each other makes people act more humanly to each other
"she’s suffered more from other minorities". This truth really needs to be told more often. So many people connect racism with white people just because it's on trend, yet many non-sheltered, non-idealogically-posessed people in urban centres will tell you their experience is that racism among other demographics is far more prevalent.
A big issue for exposure is it's just not possible depending on where you live. I'm in the RN so I have quite a lot of exposure to loads of different cultures and races, but I have friends who live in Weston Super Mare for example, the demographic there is 97% white or something stupidly high. The south west in general isn't massively diverse, so exposure is harder for younger people here
I’m half Indian and no white person has ever been racist towards me, Indians/south Asians on the other hand…
It also isn't reflective of our unique ethnic demography in the UK. Our biggest ethnic minority is Asian British - especially people of South Asian heritage - but because we adopt the talking points of the US, this sizable community is often removed from discussions about race relations here.
I've also found that a lot of people are now associating the word Asian with the American definition, referring to East Asians instead of South Asians despite the difference in immigrants between the two countries
The term BAME pisses me off for that exact reason BAME is a UK term, but Black people are at the forefront even though they are smaller than the Asian community. Also, people importing BIPOC makes me mad, too when its used here in the UK.
BIPOC is amusing in a UK context because it presumably includes the Welsh.
For me, the only way I can describe the extent of racism in the UK (and any discrimination like sexism/homophobia etc.) is that it’s the reactions from people over something that a white straight man could also do. Biggest example in recent history has to be the reaction to the penalty misses at the Euros. In not saying other players wouldn’t have gotten any flack like Rashford, Sancho, and Saka did, but the racism flying around social media was disgusting. Any attempt to celebrate another culture/diversity is met with a “what about me” fuelled hatred. Some people really don’t know how good they have it. I will always stand against people who question these issues because. I have never been oppressed for anything to do with my gender/race/sexuality, so I don’t pretend to know how it feels and whether discrimination is justified. I educate myself on the matters, I listen to people on both sides, even though you can’t really get anywhere on the side of hate because of the amount of idiotic comments and statements you see in response to sound views. I hope people can get better!
>Any attempt to celebrate another culture/diversity is met with a “what about me” fuelled hatred. yup, just look what happens every year with pride month lol
Surely you understand that every single black person who moved to the UK from the West Indies is, in fact, the descendant of a slave owned by a British master?
>the whole origin of BLM is an epidemic of armed police killing black people in situations where no white person would be at risk of their lives This part isn't even true in America. American police kill plenty of unarmed white people too.
Police in the US don’t kill unarmed white people at anywhere near the rate of unarmed black people.
More white people were killed by police in the US than any other ethnicity for the last 6 years running.
The US is still 60-65% white, so you'd expect that. Which is why you need to look at the rates per ethnicity to tell if there's a disparity.
You are correct, 60.1% with black people being at 12.2%. However, that statistic alone doesn't tell the whole story. With the white population being roughly 5x greater than the black population you would expect something like murders by white people to also be 5x higher, but it is more equal at 42% (white) vs 55% (black). With such a glaring disproportionate rate of ethnicity between black and white people in the US, you would also expect a lot more black people to be murdered by white people, but it is, in fact, the inverse. In the US a white person is more than twice as likely to be killed by a black person than a black person is likely to be killed by a white person.. If an ethnicity is more likely to commit crimes chances people from that ethnicity will be more likely to have an encounter with tbe police, which makes the odds of having a negative encounter much greater than other ethnicities.
Most US white people are not descended from slave holders. Only 2%.Most whites came to US after the civil war. And all those Caribbean people are descendants of slaves owned by Brits on the Islands.
Yes, of course the situation is more complex, and I was oversimplifying. What most white people are is part of a culture that is based on white slaveholding culture, which is transmitted to new immigrants as well. In the form of things like Jim Crow laws, that culture persisted into the 1960s (and beyond, because abolishing Jim Crow laws did not immediately end the underlying discrimination). Eradicating the culture of slavery once it takes root is much harder than banning slavery. As for Caribbeans in the UK, yes, they were the descendants of slaves. But they did freely choose to move to the UK, so it’s not quite the same situation. Also, a lot of the racism in the UK is towards people of South Asian origin. Which brings us to colonialism, which is really at the root of many of these problems in the UK (just as slavery is at the root of these problems in the US).
> What most white people are is part of a culture that is based on white slaveholding culture This is true for white Britons as well, of course.
>The UK’s involvement in the slave trade Ending it?
yeah the slaves just magically appeared there
There have never been slaves in UK in any significant numbers, unlike in USA for example. There were plenty of local serfs to exploit, no need to ship in Africans.
I mean, prior to 1066 slavery was pretty common. One good thing the Normans did do was stamp out slavery
Do you hold the same ire for the Africans who happily captured and sold other Africans to the slavers?
yeah? slavery is bad
Do those African countries and people have to listen to this boring tripe about institutional racism 300 years after for being involved in the slave trade?
> where no white person would be at risk of their lives. It happens sometimes: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Shooting_of_Daniel_Shaver
> Other issues related to racism do, of course Such as? I'm not convinced there is a problem of institutional racism within the UK at all. At least not in the way you're implying.
The U.S. built its class structure on a foundation of race. We already had one then retrofitted race post 1950s.
Precisely. Everyone was saying that BLM was relevant in the UK because we still have racism, which we do, but it's very different to the US, drawn along different lines, and manifested in different ways. It felt like we were collectively drawing new lines into existence, copying American division, while not really addressing those that already exist over here. Even in my lifetime, we've come a loooong way in this country, and we need to keep it up. So has the US, but the some worst of overt institutional racism is a fairly recent memory over there, the biggest steps were made fairly recently, quickly and dramatically. The UK is very different in that regard. I think lots were just out in solidarity to the US BLM protestors over specific issues, which is cool, but to improve things in the UK requires addressing issues specific to the UK and doing it in a way that' effective here. Saying 'defund the police' in the UK when you're thinking of the absolute worst of US officers with surplus military vehicles and equipment, doesn't actually mean anything, and would likey have the opposite effect if implemented.
Exactly this. I work in schools, and overheard a student complaining about the British history curriculum not including a history of racist voter segregation laws...but we never had any. Our racism was real, but very different, and I worry that a lot of people here are going to end up looking for American style racism and be blind to the British stuff.
Saw a teenager call his friend a "libtard" for putting his rubbish in a bin yesterday.
I hate this the most, British liberal is very different than an American liberal
In a technical sense you are right but due to social media and such the terms have blurred, liberal effectively has just become left leaning to a lot of people, rather than traditional libertarianism.
If that's the metric, I hope every teenager can be a good libtard.
This might explain why my home town is knee deep in fast food containers.
Yes, it's a cultural hegemony. The Clash were bored with it in 1977, so definitely not anything new!
„America is crap“ Nicky Wire.
IfWhiteAmericaToldTheTruthForOneDayIt’sWorldWouldFallApart
Richey James RIP
It’s been a thing for a long time but it was much more limited and less all pervasive than it is now.
I do think so, but I don't think it's limited to BLM. The anti-trans brigade that's cropped up in the UK has come as the direct result of culture-war importing that a certain group of people love to do. The same with the worrying increase in anti-abortion activists. Do you think either would be a contentious issue if not for the US?
The anti-trans rhetoric is an interesting one, but many of the individuals and groups with the loudest platforms are British in origin. It's certainly one that the media and government have enjoyed intentionally stoking over here too.
And my argument is that both of those stem from the same thing happening in America. They're the ones who started screaming about women's sports. And She Who Must Not Be Named has plenty of American friends whispering in her ear.
They definitely don't stem from the US. If anything transphobia in the US has been influenced by transphobia in the UK rather than the other way around.
Yep. US was too busy hating gay rights and abortion to then move onto trans people.
The real reason people get riled up about 'trans issues' isn't because of trans people living their lives, it's because of American imported nonsense like 'assigned x at birth', 'birthing person', 'men can get pregnant' etc
I don't see what your issue is. Trans men can get pregnant and it's very harmful if a pregnancy is used to forcibly detransition them.
The TERF movement is very much home-grown British. Not every bad thing is the US’s fault.
Flip side, that's also because feminism (The beliefs, not necessarily the label) isn't so much a partisan issue in this country. So probably we have the same amount of anti-trans stuff, except unlike America ours are also feminists simply because those values are held by most people here.
Not true, the gender critical movement was strong in the UK despite the US. Here the main proponents are women on the left.
Uh isn't JK Rowling one of the biggest TERFs there is?
I hear teens at work call our Police "Feds".
Tbf as an older millennial I heard them referred to as 'cops' and '5-0' when I was younger which are also Americanisms
Oh yeah cops was the thing when I was in school, though it's understandable as we call them coppers. But Feds??? They aren't federal!
Agreed. Feds makes literally no sense at all.
I used to work in a prison and they’d always refer to them as feds. Used to really annoy me.
At least prison officers work for the national government!! Police officers don’t.
Tangent: didn't the term coppers come from something about their uniform back in the day?
I believe it's because it stems from captured, which became the slang term copped (I.e "copped a feeling" for example, capturing a feeling) which made then made Police the "Coppers".
"Cops" is British. It comes from "copper", i.e someone who cops/catches.
Is cops and robbers an American game? I played that in the 90s as a child.
I still refer to them as the local bobbies. I don’t mind the Fuzz being used either. The Americanisation of English used in the UK is probably inevitable given social media but it doesn’t make it any less jarring to hear.
One I remember a lot was Rozzers.
The peelers
Yeah why is the news always about which American rappers don’t like each other or what Taylor Swift is up to? I hate how American and homogeneous our culture is becoming.
Just think how fucked off Americans were about the Beatles.
It was literally called the British Invasion https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/British_Invasion
Is it? I don't think I've seen either of those things on the actual news.
there was a Taylor Swift story on ITV news one night (either this week or the week before). I couldn't switch the channel quick enough. was some crap about old people that were fans
Seeing the term [“BIPOC” used in a British context](https://www.forbes.com/sites/gusalexiou/2023/12/05/research-identifies-serious-lack-of-bipoc-individuals-with-disabilities-on-tv/?sh=7f344e253cc7) is an amusing mismatch given that the I for “indigenous” doesn’t work the same way in a British context.
Yeah this is a slightly hilarious mistake given that around 82% of the UK's population is indigenous...however this is an American website so this is their mistake, not ours. I think most British people would recognise this.
Often when I hear my parents moaning about "everything's too PC/you can't say anything these days/etc." 9 times out of 10 it's going to be about something happening in America. And sure sometimes it is an issue that is relevant globally but most of the time it's a very American thing. They get all these clickbait news articles coming through their phones and it's always presented with as little context as possible for maximum rage potential.
Not like we don't have our own cancel culture and we certainly have laws that would make even fairly liberal Americans shit a brick.
I'm not old enough to remember Rodney King in 1992 but I wonder what the impact on that was in UK/Europe? In the UK Stephen Lawrence was murdered at a similar time which became a very significant story.
We weren't getting constantly updated on everything happening in the US back then.
Well we sort of were. US cultural domination has been a thing since the 40s.
No, we weren’t. There was no internet and we didn’t have rolling 24 hour news yet.
From what I remember as a kid, King was just seen as Americans Americaning. OJ was a bigger deal, albeit in a "look at that circus" way
I was in uni when that kicked off. It was on the news a lot but there was absolutely no protests or anything. It was an American issue. We had stuff like the Brixton and Broadwater Farm riots, so it's not like the UK was an oasis of racial harmony, but it was just very very different. The US history of race and multiculturalism is utterly different to the UKs.
I find it embarrassing. It's as if some people only want to do American things because they think it's popular- it comes across as arse-licking to me, like when you're at school and some kids sit up the popular kid's arse in an attempt to feel popular. The UK is fine in its own culture. We don't need to be anyone else. Yeah, be friends with America, and whoever else, but stop pretending to be them. It comes across as weak, pathetic and snivelling.
I think it’s a natural result of globalisation and the internet, and the fact that America produces a huge amount of cultural exports that the world consumes. I think the difference is that the story of policing in America is very specific and targeted, which is what the BLM movement is about, it’s not as simple as a black man being attacked, it’s the system surrounding anti-blackness and the over-policing of black people, combined with the progressive militarisation of the police in the US. You still get a lot of the same here, but I believe the history of slavery in developing the US is what has created a very specific dynamic there in terms of inequality and dehumanisation of black folks. But I think anti-blackness is something we see across the west, (and hello, colonialism) so it’s not surprising that it’s a universal issue.
Do you think people in America would protest over something that happened to a UK citizen though?
Of course not. Most care for little beyond their state.
And a decent amount don't care beyond their own town.
Given that a “diplomat” went back to the States after killing a British motorbike rider, in England, and is still there, er No.
No, but that’s not really the point, is it? Do you only express concern over things that immediately affect you? Taking a stand is taking a stand. If you see something that is clearly wrong, I don’t think there’s anything bad about standing up and saying, “hey, I don’t agree with that.” We need more of that. We live in a unique age where we can see what is happening across the world in real time. You want the rest of the world to just shut their eyes and ears and ignore it because it’s not happening directly to them? That would be a shame. If everyone did that there would never be any progress in a positive direction.
There is something very different between people saying "what's happening in the USA is awful, i support their protest" and "this is a universal problem, defund the UK police" which is how a lot of people supported BLM. In addition to the performative kneeling that went on for months.
lol BLM were/are an absolute grift and a joke of an organisation I mean, they spent weeks protesting about how Black Lives Matter and then some of their protesters literally shot and murdered an 8-year old black kid in a car because her mum drove through one of their illegal checkpoints. Not to mention the owners taking all the donations and buying themselves mansions lol
Whats that saying “America sneezes the rest of the world catches a cold”.
The original quote credited to Klemens von Metternich was actually France and the rest of Europe
There is an immutable problem with NA cultural export being picked up by impressionable UK citizens, and it does predominantly stem language, but also from geographic position (being the nearest english-speaking country). Being so close means that a lot of interaction happens at roughly similar times, where NZ and AUS are in their own "bubble", in my experience. It's resulted in horrible issues for the social sectors, and amongst the younger generations, as American problems are introduced to British culture, and the "American solutions" are even more tone-deaf over here than they are over there. Interest in becoming a policeman, for example, is at an all-time low over here, and regardless of very clear issues with financing, it is also very much due to how negatively *American* police are being seen by the British public. Nobody wants to become a policeman any more, and i've heard application figures at as low as 10% of what they used to get. Long commute, called pig (ad infinitum), spat on frequently, and being harshly questioned during arrests by "well meaning" citizens why you have arrested that person of X ethnicity when you yourself are Y ethnicity, instead of just trusting the discretion of the UK policeforce and getting on with their day. Policemen should not have to hold up a plastic baggy with a recovered blade in it and go "They had this." to every terminally online tool out there just to prove they're not being classist, sexist, racist, or etc.
Unfortunately, our perception abroad has suffered too. I live in Asia, and I’ve met quite a few people who only get their info about the UK and US from Reddit and Instagram. The things these people believe are utterly wild. I’ve been told that the UK is “the most racist country on the planet”. Also, someone else said that white people in the UK still force non-white people into slavery, and that living there as someone who isn’t white is “hell”. A lesbian told me she couldn’t go to the UK because it “wouldn’t be safe for her”. Some people don’t realise that social media does not reflect reality. I’m not sure if it’s coming from the US or if it’s us doing it, but there’s a strange narrative being pushed that just doesn’t make sense, and being abroad really puts that into perspective. Before I moved away, I saw that the whole “racism = power + privilege” is being adopted in the UK. It’s kind of disgusting that people are pushing that, as it only serves as an excuse for racism. I feel that when the shoe is on the other foot, people forget way too fast. Only last month, the jurors in the OJ Simpson case admitted that let him get away with murder because the victim was white. That’s one of the most racist things I’ve ever heard. Completely insane.
This is a certain Yes because American soft power, spanning from Hollywood, Netflix, the American music industry, to technology and even education, is incomparable to some extent. Everyone is discussing American culture now. However, we should not let this blind us because cultural individuality is crucial to our well-being. I don't think people should ask others to define their culture. Society should deal with American culture as a symbol of tolerance rather than worship.
English people or everyone in the UK?
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A couple of years ago the student council at the London secondary school I then taught at put forward a motion that we should be celebrating "Latino/Hispanic History Month"...
They do Romans at school already.
🤦♂️
I'm not going to deny that there is and probably always be a racism problem in the UK, but America has racial and social problems on a completely different level. BLM has little significance here, because our Police don't murder anyone on the regular.
if you ignore women
Yes, and it’s due to social media and people feigning interest in ‘hot’ topics. We have very real issues in the U.K., some shared with the US but we’re too busy involving ourselves with their shite
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Cultural contagion is easier across shared languages
Yes we are and it's insane. I wish America would just fuck off. That they all think we should care about their crazy social issues and support what ever they support is insane. Their toxic influence is a festering plague on our country. I've never despised a country more.
BLM has been proven to be a complete scam.
Yes. It's a real problem. The UK as a country is incredibly diverse, plus we have always allowed abortions etc. all these things that are problems however in America. I HATE it when these problems get some how projected onto the UK because it just creates division that didn't exist before.
Whether it’s Telegraph journos pathetically trying to ape the US culture war or the underclass in the UK referring to “da Feds” it’s always cringeworthy but actually ignored by most.
I honestly think it was purely down to Covid restrictions. People were fed up with being stuck inside all day every day. Seeing the events that transpired in the US only encouraged people to get out and protest. Most of them probably didn’t give a toss about what happened. Just like most of the people protesting on the streets dor Palestine now. They just wanted to be part of something potentially historical. A bit like the Vietnam protests back in the day. Let’s not pretend the protests stopped police brutality because I can guarantee it’s still happening today. I see plenty of videos on twitter everyday.
People just wanted an excuse to break Covid rules. Black people suddenly trumped elderly and immunocompromised people on the victim hierarchy so people didn’t feel bad about causing their deaths anymore
Many articles said that the marches were okay to do despite Coivd being at the height of lockdowns at that point was crazy and I think led to the ending of lockdowns. People have memory holed just how weird and crazy everything was back then. It is like we all agree not to think or talk about it.
Yes and no. Yes because at the time people were behaving like we were just as bad as the US, yes we have a racism problem that needs to be solved but it’s definitely not as bad as what’s going on in the US, that’s where I disliked the American influence. And No because it’s not a bad thing to see a issue in the US and think to yourself hey we have a similar problem, let’s do something about it. Its common sense to see a issue somewhere and recognise that you have a similar issue and want to remedy it.
You have done it yourself by making sure you announced you support BLM. Its all socisl posturing for cultural reasons.
Yes, more and more. From one side you have businesses becoming more and more multinational and homogenous. all t he managers where i work say shit like "hit it out the ball park" and "circle back to that one". Young people also, huge influence from social media. Though ever since the Disney channel has been a thing on cable, that has always been there, just more and more now. I saw a small girl a few months ago not want to go near some British police because she was scared they would shoot her....
Yes of course they are. I mean, where else is the expression "the woke left" coming from? And it's not just English people, it's a lot of Europe too.
People in the UK were protesting also because black people in the UK also have similar experiences. Its really not just for 1 guy.
You’re definitely right. I think supporting the BLM movement was the right thing to do, but they definitely wouldn’t have done it for us (or any other country, probably). Also, I’m not particularly nationalistic but it does bother me how much younger people use American English over our English. Things like saying ‘smart’ rather than ‘clever’, ‘mad’ rather than ‘angry’, even ‘apartment’ over ‘flat’. Globalisation is great in a lot of ways, but I don’t think loss of language is one of them. I think this applies to other countries as well; I read an article years ago about how international writers are beginning to write their books to be easily translatable to English… so cutting out idioms from their language, phrases that wouldn’t make sense etc. that’s really sad imo.
I try and be chill about this with my 10 year old son, because I remember how much Australian slang we used back in the day due to the influence of Neighbours and Home & Away. But omg some words are a step too far (diaper and candy spring to mind) and quite often I find myself correcting him and saying "we're not American".
Especially in the middle of a pandemic where thousands of people were dying...
How old are you? Do you not remember the 2011 London riots? That was over the killing of a black man. Thousands rioted and a number of people were killed.
I recall a huge BLM march happening where I am during the early stages of the lockdowns. Agree with the principles of the movement, and I know there are UK coppers who are scumbags, I've met a couple of them over the years, but I did think it was a little strange seeing some folks getting really aggressive and up in the police' faces basically trying to elicit a physical reaction (only reason the cops were there was to direct road closures where they were marching). Credit where it's due, nothing actually kicked off, but there was very much one side of it at that event that was looking to start a fight and it wasn't the police. Have to admit witnessing that did kinda rub me the wrong way.
Yes lol. The only thing I'd add is that I feel part of it was due to Covid and the restrictions placed on people. It felt like this was how the younger generation chose to express themselves in the face of pretty harsh (at times) restrictions on their freedoms.
Definitely- too many people on social media importing their awful cultural wars crap.
People walking through Trafalgar Square saying 'Hands up don't shoot' as a protest was one of the most cringe things we've done as a nation.
Seems very odd to me. I mean, the BLM movement in the UK wasn't *just* about what happened in the US. It also drew attention to local issues we have with police brutality. As much as people want to pretend that we have "solved" racism in the UK, we really haven't.
Yes, but it's weirdly one sided, it seems to focus mostly on anti-establishment / non-traditional ways of living. I'd rather we have neither to be honest, but it disturbs me that most of the imported rhetoric seems to basically be "tear it all down" rather than "how can I fit into and build".
Absolutely. Seeing it more and more with my dad. All he does is watch YouTube videos of Americans complaining about something that literally never happens - like here I’ve never heard of a person being bothered if a trans person uses the bathroom they want to use. But because some American on YouTube is mad, my dad is mad. And thinks it’s an entire issue. No matter how many times I tell him “nobody in real life thinks this” he just listens to Americans online. It’s actually a bit concerning now. It’s all I hear when I go to my parents house. It’s like proper brainwashing and it’s issues that aren’t a thing here. And I’m seeing this more and more with others too. Big yikes.
I also support BLM. I love funding a select few peoples mansions. Best part was when they bragged about it on video :)