Comments on: Only a racist votes for a racist party

By: rantersparadise

rantersparadise — Wed, 17 Mar 2010 18:02:20 +0000

I feel the anger Kui but agree with posters. If only life was that black and white! Ahem!
I’ve had the ‘opportunity’ to go to good posh english schools since I was a child and even when I was living in Africa, my parents had a neutral English accent or my mum who had a stronger accent spoke to us in French. And when we weren’t in French schools, we were at international schools, so spoke American lol.
This ‘opportunity’ has been brilliant in seeing how racist people-so called friends I even knew- were and are.
One great example is calling up for a flat in a leafy suburb in London and the agent said it was a decent place because no blacks lived there.
Another was going for a job interview and sailing the interview on the phone but when I got there, it suddenly went cool. Maybe he didn’t like my skirt?
I could go on but you get the picture.
There is no such thing as not seeing colour (race).
Sad but this is humanity as we know and love it.

By: Ron Smith

Ron Smith — Sat, 15 Aug 2009 08:37:23 +0000

You make some good points in your article ‘only a racist votes for a racist party’. I agree that to be voting for the BNPÂ you probably have to be a racist.
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But I think you also somewhat miss the point on the nature of racism. You seem to understand racism as something that springs up from nowhere- an irrational hatred that someone is born with. A burning desire to thwart another group of people instilled in the womb.
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Now I’m not denying that to discriminate against anyone on the basis of race seems irrational to any civilised person,Â however, I think your argument does hinge on racism being a hatred born from nothing. And as a social scientist I do find that hard to believe.
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My understanding of racism is that it is a symptom of other deeper rooted social issues. I believe that the more you venture into towns with little understanding of other cultures (to be living next door to someone of another race does not automatically mean you understand their culture!) and limited education, combined with important social problems such as unemployment etc the more likely you are to find a higher proportion of racists. This is not a coincidence.
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The BNP’s success has partly been because of a failure of the mainstream political parties. The BNP peddle lies and easy answers which are attractive to people who want someone or a group to blame for the way their life is. A big problem is that mainstream political parties seem to prefer to not engage with the BNP. They prefer to try and silence them. This actually helps the BNP because it means that no one is taking the trouble to explain to their members why their ‘easy answers’ are not in fact answers at all.
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I don’t believe that someone who is a racist or sometimes says or does racist things (such as vote for the BNP) is automatically irredemable. I think we need to focus on bringing these lost souls back into the mainstream.
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We as the mainstream need not be afraid of engaging with the BNP at a political level. We should not fear to take on their arguments, which once confronted will show their shaky foundations. Rather than silencing them, we should be correcting them. But ultimately, we will only really get rid of racists once we address the deeper rooted issues such as ignorance of other cultures, unemployment and other social ills.
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By: John

John — Mon, 08 Jun 2009 22:45:13 +0000

We live in a democracy and that affords us with the freedom of political expression as well as freedom of speech. As Voltaire said, ‘I may not like what you say but I will defend to the death your right to say it’. Hitler banned the Communist Party and North Korea bans all political opponents. They are a democratically elected party who have the right to represent those who elected them. If you don’t like it, tough sh*t.