Thursday 17th August

When I first came to London I was shocked to see a sign in a window “Room to let – No Blacks, No Irish”.  Not that I knew any blacks or Irish either.  I had once seen a black girl in Ipswich, and I suppose I regarded her much like I would an exotic animal in a zoo.  But this was London, and it was a swirling mass of people of all colours, black brown and yellow.  As for the Irish – I knew no Irish people either.  But Prejudice than was accepted.  We laughed at Alf Garnett, but how many openly agreed with him.  It has been a long hard struggle to rid ourselves of Prejudice, and we thought the battle was almost won.  Okay, we knew some employers still wouldn’t employ black people, we knew that black kids tended to grow up in poorer neighbourhoods 0 but surely things were getting better, weren’t they?

But slowly the pendulum has been swinging back.  Ever so politely you understand.  They now talk about ‘Immigration’ as an issue.  They preface their remarks by saying “I am not in the least prejudiced, but…” And yet they still are.  What is it about us that we instinctively don’t like those we don’t understand?  I know quite a few men who really don’t like gays.  What are they worried about – contagion?  But mostly now prejudice is against Muslims.  It is almost open season to be worried about these ‘Islamists’, to blame all our woes on this still pretty small minority.  Yes, they have a different religion, they come from a different culture, they are mostly, but not all, a bit darker skinned than ‘white’ people.  But they are just the same as you and me.  They love their kids and want the best for them.  They mostly work and study hard.  They want to contribute to our society.  And anyway, most of them were born here and are just as British as us.

And yet, since the Referendum it seems that it is now okay to talk about the ‘Muslim’ problem.  Nigel Farage posed in front of a poster showing mostly Syrian refugees (actually at a border crossing in Eastern Europe) declaring that there was no more room for them here.  Blatant Racism, and a nod and a wink to our Prejudices.

Two hundred years ago we went to their countries and plundered them, taking raw materials and appropriating vast swathes of their countries as ours.  We made slaves of many of them, we made fortunes out of their labour.  If anyone should be Prejudiced, it should be black and brown people for what we did to them.  But if you think that the battle is won, just look around.  The press is full of stories of Muslim men grooming white girls, of terrorists, jihadists, Islamic fanatics and so on.

Yes, a few Muslims commit crimes, as do blacks and white people, but turning against people because of their Religion or their Colour is still wrong – even if it is under the polite term of ‘Concerns about Immigration’.  We still have a long way to go to get rid of this Modern sin of Prejudice.