Or am I being overly cynical?

“IMMIGRANTS OR BRITISH?

I was disappointed to read a report suggesting that it’s a mistake to consider the children or grandchildren of immigrants as British (Mail) and that we should rather be classified as ’second or third generation immigrants’.

I hope that your proposed reclassification as ‘not British’ of Princes Charles, William and Harry, second and third generation descendants of foreign-born Phillip, won’t distress them too much.

But it does seem ungrateful to Winston Churchill, voted ‘greatest Briton’, to strip him of that status because he had an American mother.

Citizenship and nationality can’t be reduced to place of birth or ethnic origin. My parents came to this country in the Sixties from Ireland and India. They worked for the NHS for decades and became naturalised British citizens.

Having been born as a British citizen in 1974, anyone would understand why I would find it offensive that I should be regarded as a foreigner, an immigrant and not truly British. I’m astonished to think that such a description might even apply to my children, born here in 2006 and 2007.

Such a message can only make the important task of integration more difficult. It is an extremist idea that being British is a matter of ethnic origin and that integration of immigrants and their descendants is impossible.

Care must be taken when describing generations. It has been said that you can be a ’second generation Briton’ but calling you a ’second generation immigrant’ would mean that you had left the country your parents came to.

SUNDER KATWALA, general secretary, Fabian Society, London SW1

Yes they do, but they also want to live their lives without the discrimination. Until that goes away, its hard to pretend everything is as hunky dory as you imagine.

chavscum – I think you’ve just drowned in the avalanche of bullshit cliches, and frankly make little sense as ever.

Grand-sounding words but very disingenuous. Asking black people to tick a box saying they’re black is racist and patronising in the extreme. Whatever you are for or against is irrelevant. The fact of that person having to tick that box encourages the strenghtening of a micro-identity, like it or not.

Not only that, it fosters a victim status which most members of ethnic minorities do NOT want. They just want to get on with their lives, thanks very much.

“This report in itself makes racist assumptions.”

Could you point them out to me?

As it happens, I’m not sure whether the sample size for that report is wide enough for us to draw any confident conclusions, but it’s interesting nevertheless.

“This, as always, is because it emanates from the left-leaning white “middle-class. Such people have had very little life experience of other cultures, except holidaying in Thailand/Goa or their Bulgarian cleaner.”

With all due respect, Chavscum, the crap you talk about the “the left-leaning white middle-class” could fill all the sewage systems in the world. Can’t you argue without fantasising about the lives of your rhetorical opponents? You don’t know anything about the backgrounds of the researchers. There’s no indication as to their backgrounds.

“They would also find that prejudice between ethnic groups is definitely more predominant.”

Bare assertion fallacy.

“A Jewish fella that I previously worked with changed his very Jewish name to a very English name…”

A single piece of anecdotal evidence? Hot damn.

“Sunny, you must know this and I guess that you are either so wrapped up in leftist dogma, you fail to think independently, or you see the opportunities to someone of your background are more advantageous in warped rhetoric, where minority groups are always victims.”

Do you really think that Sunny would put up that link so as to make “the opportunities to someone of [his] background…more advantageous”. Really? Rly now?

b) States/insinuates that “Asian” culture is superior to others.

This report in itself makes racist assumptions. This, as always, is because it emanates from the left-leaning white middle-class. Such people have had very little life experience of other cultures, except holidaying in Thailand/Goa or their Bulgarian cleaner. If they did then they would understand that prejudice is endemic in all societies. Being in a mixed-race relationship, I have first hand experience of this. If they made the same study with ethnic minority owned businesses, they would find prejudice equally as stark. They would also find that prejudice between ethnic groups is definitely more predominant. The people doing the diversity monitoring are either racist or not very diverse themselves, which produce one dimensional conclusions.

A Jewish fella that I previously worked with changed his very Jewish name to a very English name when he began his career for fear of being discriminated against. When he joined the company where I worked, he changed it back when he realised the owners and several senior staff were Jewish. In his mind, being Jewish would give him an advantage.

Sunny, you must know this and I guess that you are either so wrapped up in leftist dogma, you fail to think independently, or you see the opportunities to someone of your background are more advantageous in warped rhetoric, where minority groups are always victims.

The worst kind of institutionalised discrimination is at the bottom of the link. If you want to discuss the article, go to the “BBC Asian Network”! What the fuck is our State broadcaster doing running a racially segregated broadcaster?

The problem with what is essentially the French Republican position is that it sounds good in theory but fails in practice. It is good at symbolic and rhetorical commitment to full integration. But it believes it would anti-integration to collect the data about how well integration and equal opportunity is going. The result is a very poor practical record on integration, and the inability to know what approaches might achieve integration in practice. Britain may have been less good at promoting integration as a goal of policy. But we have been better in many respects at achieving integration in practice than the French have. Equal opportunity and an integrated society are about two things: objective progress towards equal opportunities regardless of background, and the subjective sense that we do share a society and feel common allegiance to the institutions that reflect our common citizenship. Be sceptical about voices (left or right) which tell you we should aim at one or ther other. If you don’t achieve the first, don’t be surprised if the second is weakened. But you will also find it hard to build the coalitions to achieve the first if you aren’t pursuing a politics of solidarity across society. Less effective integration without a more equal society. But no equality without integration and solidarity too.

There are several important public political and public policy debates: how far is Britain structured by class advantage and disadvantage? Are gender, ethnic origin, place of birth or of residence strongly or weakly determining of opportuniities and outcomes? Are these effects becoming stronger or weaker? If you had a Martin Luther King style preference for a “colourblind” approach which established equal opportunity and fair chances, then you can not in reality get there without trying to assess progress. (Otherwise you are sticking your fingers in your ears shouting – “Don’t believe class exists” or “Race is a fictional construct”. It might be a fictional or humanly-constructed category, and still have real social consequences. If you don’t think class is any longer relevant, you have to provide and explain data to prove that: why are there starkly different infant mortality rates, for example, by social class? what could change these)

Take this study from 2003 of ethnic performance in the labour market. Anybody who thinks that it is racist to study such questions is mistaken, but is also unable to effectively promote equal opportunity. Public debates are much more rarely informed by the complex reality than by people’s intuitions and instincts. For example, a data-based approach would discover whether there might be specific issues affecting white working-class boys (but not girls), or particular ethnic minority communities, and ask how the structure or culture of education or broader factors might be contribuiting to that.
http://www.cabinetoffice.gov.uk/media/cabinetoffice/strategy/assets/ethnic_minorities.pdf

I am against addressing disadvantage in a way which incentivises the creation or strengthening of micro-identities as a way to make a claim on resources. But that is a quite different point from whether it is appopriate to find the data out. So there are several historic shortcomings of British multiculturalism – on which Sunny, myself and others have offered engaged critiques for a long time – but no continental country can claim a better practical integration record.

And indeed this is what is going to enable us to move on to a less race-structured and race-conscious society over time. If we want race not to matter in structuring life chances, we have to understand where it still does (and indeed interrogate claims about when/whether it does or not).

I think however that you are attaching too much emotion to something that I see is actually quite simple.

Your children carry a British passport and therefore their nationality is British – no argument there at all because in my mind nationality is a man made concept for a group of people holding a travel document from a politically deliniated geographical area. This can change though because they could choose to marry and take on their spouse’s passport in order to have right to live in their new country – and then when they are filling in forms which ask their nationality – they won’t be putting British but the nationality of the new country they have adopted.

“But you have made one error: she is most certainly NOT “Indian”. She has never been to India and doesn’t particuarly feel much of a connection with the geographical region of South Asia.”

As I see it, ethinicity/race is based on genetics and culture. Your wife and therefore your children have the charachteristics (one of them being a higher concentration of melatonin) of people we group as Asian Indian. Therefore she will always be ethnically or racially Asian Indian. There is nothing that can ever change that – as much as she wishes it wern’t the case. Its in her DNA and thats just the way that it is.

What about if I as a white European parented women decided to go a live in India for decades, celebrate Diwali, Holi and ate curry everyday for these decades, I would still never be ethnically or racially Indian. I might have received an Indian passport – in which case I would say I was Indian if asked for my nationality but if asked for my ethinicity – I would always put White European because that is my DNA and I can never change that.

“Naughtpointzero, your wife is Indian, her parents are born in India and their parents before them. I bet she has an Indian name and eats curry at her parents home. Your children are a mixture of you both, they have the best of both ancestors – why can you not celebrate it?”

Well, I most certainly, definately celebrate my wife’s (and our future children’s) Indian background. For example, we had an Indian wedding ceromony and tend to do something at Diwali and sometimes Holi. But you have made one error: she is most certainly NOT “Indian”. She has never been to India and doesn’t particuarly feel much of a connection with the geographical region of South Asia. So that’s one thing: her and her children are politcally English/British. They have a cultural background that is connected with India, but she is not “Indian” any more than I am “Scottish” because my grandfather was Scottish and I occasionally root for them at Rugby. Equally, I wouldn’t consider her parents to be geo-politically Indian either.

As for the ticking boxes on forms, I guess to me it all comes down to the question: why are the boxes there to begin with? If it’s simply for monitoring diversity within a workplace… well, maybe. Depends on the workplace I suppose. But, baring in mind the fact that our children’s background is predominantly an English/British one, were they to tick the “mixed race” box of a form, would they be signalling anything other than they have a darker skin tone than some of their peers?

I think that is crucial. If it is the case, then I object to the box being there. The fact that the kids will eat curry, celebrate Diwali etc etc does not define them innately any more or less than my support of Scotland for the rugby defines me. The difference is that my skin is pale white whereas there’s will be sepia. Is this enough of a difference?

The effect is only slightly spoiled by the xenophobia and racism which follows it in the ConHome discussion, though with one or two decent Tories taking the time to challenge that.

more here
http://www.nextleft.org/2009/02/damian-green-rebuts-mails-new.html

Sunny, people with muslim sounding names would receive preferential treatment among muslim employers, anglo saxons amongst anglo saxons, Chinese amongst Chinese etc etc That is a human thing. If you want to go all affirmative action, as an ex South Afican – I can promise you – its not a great idea.

Naughtpointzero, your wife is Indian, her parents are born in India and their parents before them. I bet she has an Indian name and eats curry at her parents home. Your children are a mixture of you both, they have the best of both ancestors – why can you not celebrate it?

My parents are Eastern European, but I grew up in South Africa. My parents speak a European language and English with a European accent (after many years). They eat the foods their parents fed them in Europe, they like the music and culture and that is what they gave to me. I would call myself more European then South African even though I grew up there and its the passport I hold. Of course South Africa, had an epic affect on my personality and being, but my blood and ancestors are European. If I have a baby with an Asian, African, Chinese, Maori etc no matter how many generations down, my child will be mixed race – and I won’t have an issue stating that anywhere because my child will be a mix of the best of both of us.

I hope that helps

although the figures from the Government’s Office for National Statistics show an increase in numbers of foreign born people they still fail to record the true impact of immigration because they record their children as British rather than second or third generation immigrants.

Can you imagine how the Mail would react if they didn’t do this? There would be shock horror headlines about how immigrants didn’t think of themselves as British.

My issue is: I have no fucking clue what our own kids are going to put in their forms. ‘Mixed race’ I suppose, but I’m really not that comfortable with them doing that because I don’t think of them as “ethnic minorities” – indeed, I don’t even think of my wife in this way. I certainly don’t want them to be rendered ‘the other’ by the state (I know that sounds a bit wanky, but never mind). So, basically, I don’t really like these boxes to tick at all.