Britain’s race debate is unhealthy

Britain’s race debate is unhealthy

Yesterday’s Murder of a British Solider in Woolwich was a truly tragic event, it also illustrated the unhealthy state of Britain’s debate about race.  You may think I am going to launch a full-scale attack on the EDL, but I am not as they are only part of the problem.  The problem is twofold the first part is large sections of the media are mad about political correctness, if you point out a problem in a race or culture that is not your own, then you are branded a racist.  The second part of the problem is groups like the EDL who are violent and thuggish, their behavior damages race relations and creates extremists.

The first part of the problem, that political correctness is suppressing debate with damaging accusations of racism being thrown at anyone who brings up a problem with race relations.  Imagine a politician saying that some Muslim communities have problems fitting into wider society.  It does not matter if there is a large amount of evidence supporting their claim they will be labelled a racist and their career will be in tatters, this means is a minority group has a problem it is not solved and is left alone in the hope that the problem will sort itself out.  In America a politician known as Patrick Moynihan wrote a report called, The Negro Family: The Case For National Action, the report was wrote to highlight a problem of family breakdown amongst the American underclass particularly African Americans (hence the reports name) and how welfare was increasing the problem.  Despite this being a genuine problem with statistics to back it up he was labelled as a racist, and the debate killed and the problem remains today.  Patrick Moynihan was not trying to persecute African Americans he was trying to help them, but as he was not part of that community he has no right to point out problems in it. 

So you may or may not agree with me that societies natural response to people who point out problems in a community is to call them racist.  You will probably agree that the debate about race in this country has been practically shut down and is only fought out between far right groups like the EDL who demonise Muslims and the left wing political correctness brigade which will not allow a bad word be said about anyone, no matter if it is right or wrong.  This creates an unbalanced debate and no other issue in UK politics has a debate fought out purely by extremes, the way race is debated in the UK is absurd.  It is the equivalent to debating the economics and saying you can have an economy purely controlled by the state or the state has absolutely no control.

 The majority of people in the UK understand that not many Muslims are radicalised but understand that, as with any community they will have problems.  The big problem we have with Islam in this country is understanding, most people don’t know much about Islam, so when they hear about suicide bombers or an Asian sex gang it creates a climate of fear.  Race relations are not helped by parts of cities becoming almost exclusively Muslim as this creates an, us and them mentality, it does not matter that most of them have been in the country for two or  three generations or that many Muslims serve in our armed forces or are doctors.  Because areas become fractured, they are seen as Muslim or British Muslim rather than just British, a solution would be to mix communities break down the wall of fear and misunderstanding.  However mainstream Politics ignores the facts that we have fractured cities with communities living separately, the problem is never bought up in Parliament as bringing it up is racist.  Multiculturalism is not working because politicians are letting it fail.  Multiculturalism is a good thing but by failing to mix cultural groups, you don’t have multiculturalism you have several separate societies who risk not getting along.  This unspoken fault with multiculturalism has spawned groups like the EDL, because communities are not mixing properly it creates a climate of mystery then something happens e.g. a terror attack, or just a crime involving members of different racial communities.  Suddenly you have a climate of fear and groups like the EDL grow to protect their community, this leads to minorities in this case Muslims being persecuted, a small number of the minority become radicalised as they feel shunned by mainstream society then you have your own home-grown terrorists. 

To conclude, because political correctness has stifled debate politicians fail to address problems in society to do with race due to fear of being branded a racist.  This stops problems being addressed like communities not properly mixing, separated communities creates a climate of fear and this creates groups like the EDL and radical Muslims.  If the UK can’t have a grown up debate about the problems with multiculturalism race relations could worsen, you only need to look a N.Ireland to see that if problems between communities are ignored they can snowball into bigger problems.