Is Racism Endemic?

The race debate continues in our house. Many of Toby’s friends are Black and he is quite militant about the race issue – rightly so. We do though have differences. And that comes from age and life experiences. Today we were discussing the pulling down of the Bristol slave owner statue which I agree had no place there.  I would have preferred a less violent removal but clearly a more democratic removal had not worked. It had been requested for many years that this statue be taken down as it was a hurtful reminder of a terrible period in our history. 

We then moved on to Churchill and I didn’t understand why he also became a target. “Do some research,” said Toby and check his background. So, I did and despite his great achievements in keeping the UK safe and winning the war against Nazis, with the help of course of America, there is evidence to suggest that Mr Churchill’s views on racism were indeed questionable.  I admit, I was surprised. I guess I had never really looked into Churchill’s background.

This came from from iNews:

He referred to British imperialism as being for the good of the “primitive” and “subject races”. In 1937 he said: “I do not admit, for instance, that a great wrong has been done to the Red Indians of America, or the black people of Australia. I do not admit that a wrong has been done to those people by the fact that a stronger race, a higher-grade race, or, at any rate, a more worldly wise race, to put it that way, has come in and taken their place.”And there is much more. I will let you do your own research and draw  your own conclusions. 

I think that racism is endemic in us all and that we have to go that extra mile to overcome it. Toby reminded me that whenever I retell the story of how I had to stop the car because in front of us were two men having a road rage punch up, I always tell the story saying “there were these two black guys fighting…. “”Think about it mum why did you need to say two black guys, you wouldn’t have said two white guys.” And he is right. We need to check ourselves and be mindful of the language we use because language is powerful.

Interestingly I do the same thing when someone Jewish is in the news because of negative behaviour. My girlfriend and I after watching the Netflix documentary both said,  “And he was Jewish”. As if we expected because he was Jewish, he shouldn’t have behaved so badly. My mother used to say if a Jew was in the news for something bad, “he would have to be Jewish wouldn’t he.” Meaning this isn’t going to help our cause – anti-Semitism. There is a parallel if one person  does something bad then everybody from that group, race, community is viewed as bad. 

When dad died, mum was so concerned about anti-Semitism that she changed her name on door bell from Felstein to Felsteen as she thought it would  make her less  distinguishable as a Jew.

I recommend the Netflix documentary of Epstein – it is riveting and upsetting but does omit a lot of stuff. First off where did Epstein get all his money from? It is a mystery. And also, why isn’t Ghislaine   being investigated. It is quite obvious that she procured and colluded in all of Epstein’s appalling behaviour. And of course, although it does allude to people in powerful places, I am sure at some point the Trump connection will be further elaborated on. I suspect the reason why Ghislaine hasn’t been bought in for investigation is that she has a lot of information on a lot of people that the FBI does not want it to be in the public domain.

On a more mundane level and let’s face it my life is pretty mundane at the moment today I tackled the oven. I know really have you nothing more exciting to write about. Hey, whose blog is it anyway?

I had my own mini kitchen revolt as the food was refusing to be cooked in the dirty disgusting smelly oven. So today I put aside a few hours to tackle it. 3 hours later and I am still scrubbing. The oven cleaner was hopeless. Despite following instructions, it removed nothing. Better was steel wool and good old-fashioned Ajax. Although I had a cleaner until 4 months ago, I think she avoided the oven at all costs. Can’t say that I blame her. It’s one horrible job and once lock down is over I will be bringing in oven cleaners. Apparently, there are companies that just specialise in cleaning ovens. I can see why now. Quite happy to part with a few pounds not to go through this again.

 

“Let’s be careful out there”