I’m not a racist but……..

It’s been an educational week for casual racism in Frampton Cotterell, the semi-rural dormitory village just beyond the urban Bristol greenbelt where I live.

People are programmed to be suspicious of things that are different or alien to them until they become familiar and they recognise that there is in fact no threat. Whether it be race, religion, age, lifestyle or just a fear of the great unwashed, it is innate. BUT if you have been reasonably educated in the last 30 years you have a head start on distinguishing a genuine threat from a racist reaction. Our kids don’t generally look at a black person and think “I bet he’s up to no good” or see a Muslim woman in a headscarf and immediately assume she’s a terrorist, some of us need to learn from our kids rather than try to indoctrinate our own prejudices.

Over the last few weeks there has been a spate of opportunist burglaries, no real pattern to events and no description of the culprit(s), but people were on edge and communicating through the local facebook groups, being neighbourly.

We’re a local village for local people and we are not very ethnically diverse, so obviously if someone is being suspicious and they are black then it’s noticed, but it’s probably better if the reason for them being suspicious doesn’t appear to be that they are black. The above post was generally received positively and those who suggested it might be racist in tone were shouted down because the author is not a racist (just a bit clumsy with the wording). Some took the opportunity to point out that admin allowed far more blatant racist and Islamaphobic material to be reposted and it began to get heated and Admin threatened to remove “abusive posts and posters” while excusing racism.

One of those kids, a lad now in his early 20s who was at school with my eldest son, who took the criticism to another, rather sacastic level:

this post was popular with his mates and some of the wider audience, but many were angry that being suspicious of a black man in a white area should be regarded as small minded or even racist. The debate got fractious and personal, several younger posters were banned and this post and discussion were removed. The fractious debate moved to other posts, particularly the reposted Britain First material, where it again became personal and resulted in other threads being removed including the original suspicious black man post.

Then yesterday we had the following act of genius, which rapidly became one of the most read and liked posts to have appeared:

The thread continues to attract many “I’m not a racist but” type comments (especially from admin) along with personal attacks in response, but I think a fair few may actually have learned something. Well done Andre.