Origination: The Race Debate

Multiculturalism in Britain today: Has it worked?
Michael Collins, broadcaster and writer, April 2007.

Multiculturalism swaggered in at the fag end of the last millennium informing us that monoculturalism, like whiteness, was no longer the norm. In short, other creeds, colours, cultures were making their way from the margins to the mainstream, and would soon demand a voice and a profile.

Within this new faith, according to the converts preaching with an evangelical zeal – building careers on campus, in quangos – ethnic minorities each had a history, a culture, an identity that was relevant. The melting pot that someone sang about way back when the Sixties went belly up was finally in the offing. Like Utopia and the unicorn, many saw it as a myth, but went with it nevertheless.

So far, so good.

But as the clock struck 2000, it became apparent that Big Bad Whitey had been removed from the picture completely. This wasn't so much ethnic cleansing as ethnic airbrushing. In this brave new vision, whites were not allowed the status of an ethnic group, and in the urban areas with which the white working class were synonymous, anything that identified them with a culture, a history, and a singular experience was omitted from any dialogue or literature that took multiculturalism as its theme.

So much for inclusiveness.

If multiculturalism has its flaws then this, its fraudulence, is the biggest. It's one thing to build a vision around a myth; it's another to build it on a lie.

Ultimately, Big Bad Whitey has been allotted one role within this multicultural utopian fantasy – that of the permanent blot on its landscape. Using Big Bad Whitey as the reason for multiculturalism not realising its full potential is a ruse to avoid looking at the cracks and fault lines appearing elsewhere in the vision.

Therefore, in this post-Macpherson era, accusations of racism – 'unwitting' or otherwise – will continue to be levelled exclusively at Big Bad Whitey. While he himself has a dream that one day he will not be bullied by the heavy-handed, self-conscious attempts of middle class 'progressives' and pundits (who are not as young, gifted or black as they'd have us believe) to educate him on race, faith and culture. Then and only then will he be able to stand up and say 'Free at last! Free at last!'

Michael Collins presented 'The British Working Class' for Channel 4.
Find out more

Michael Collins' book 'The Likes of Us: A Biography of the White Working Class' is published by Granta.

www.michaelcollins.info

I do not recall the same moral panic in Nigeria when Britain controlled the country economically up to the 1960's. Nigerian's were not worried about their culture being diluted because their culture is what it is and could never change - visitors either share it or miss out. I see no reason why the English cannot take the same attitude. Britain is more than just England it encompasses a huge former empire and of course Scots, Welsh, Northern Ireland, is a part of that. What is more revealing is that perhaps finally - learning to treat other cultures equally has taken the fun out of being white and English. Perhaps (I suggest only!) being English and British was all about being dominant over other cultures, delusions of grandeur. We all know what happens to a person who losses their confidence, it can be hard to regain. Many aspects of British history have been denounced, their involvement in the slave trade, their control over India and its subsequent partition, their failure in Suez, the current shambles in Iraq. So to be English is to be selective about the past, but it should also be about not making the same mistakes in the future  i.e. Iraq. Of course there is a lot to praise in British culture and in English culture -so what the English should be doing is bringing what is praiseworthy (to adopt a phrase) to the table. Those who denounce multi-culturalism primarily do not really understand it; and consequently are unable to apply its meaning. As global economies continue to grow and expand, the multi-culturalism that is a reality of our planet will be reflected more in microcosm in individual countries. It is natural that this will occur in the more prosperous economies before others. The real concern is inequality which can of course affect all cultural groups and has always impacted more on ethnic communities. These inequalities form an undercurrent to many social tensions including race complainers. These pathetic people exist, thankfully all over the world so it will comfort many to know this is not a uniquely English obsession. All indigenous communities have people in their mist that will heighten and exaggerate fears of foreigners, after all isnt that what Mugabe has used to bolster his popularity in Zimbabwe. As an infinitely more civilised state Britain is able to marginalise such opinions. Current objections seem to extend primarily to Eastern Europeans, who in any case have a right to come to Britain and do not have to assimilate into British culture because the European Union appears to be about sharing different cultures and living in harmony. Easier said than done!
- Legal69, 4 June 2007

Michael, I am not sure why your blog is entitled the race debate. The views you have articulated do not offend me as a London born and bred Nigerian. I have travelled extensively throughout the UK and I think the difficulties you articulate are about cultural inadequacies. Whether these are inadequacies of the general white English population or a minority is unclear. A previous writer summed it up when he spoke about social divisions in living standards. The problem for modern white dominated societies is that not all 'white people within them can be wealthy and successful. For those on the margins seeing successful ethnic populations is a real drag and a major source of frustration. Poor minorities are simply a drain on the economy but wealthier minorities 'are a bloody nuisance' taking jobs and of course buying houses. This appears to be the rhetoric! Of course the reality is somewhat different. The small numbers of minorities succeeding do so against difficult odds. Many others fail and are the subject of regular news stories. (Draining the system) In a multi-cultural society what some white people have not grasped is that of course white is a colour - not a culture. Of course the English need to know what their culture is about, as a Nigerian I understand my heritage. I also understand my relationship with Britain. It is a facilitative one; I am British in a broader non specific sense but not English. Note I am also not a colour and never describe myself as such.
- Legal69, 4 June 2007

Paranoid ranting.
- LittleRichardjohn, 22 May 2007

The video by Michael Collins has led me to search out from what perspective he coming from. It would appear from his other writings (and I have not as yet read his book) that he centres on the further disenfranchisation of the British working classes (white that it). In many ways I actually believe that the present race issues are merely the furtherance of the class struggle that has existed here in the UK for centuries. I further believe that those in the positions of power encourage racism and other forms of bigotry in order to deflect this class struggle away from them. If the field of inequality we could reach some form of consensus then we would then be able to aim our actions at the establishment which is the true source of disparity that we see throughout our society. Lets stop being the puppets of others and becoming sidelined marginalised and entrenched in silo interests that are really only Red Herrings and enflamed to keep the masses busy elsewhere. I have been involved in the civil rights movement here for many years and the longer that I am involved the more I see the commonality of the other issues around intolerance and exclusion.
- Serendib, 25 April 2007

The Michael Collins article sums up the situation succinctly for most of the native white working class population in England today. We're being made to feel like unwelcome intruders in our own country. The politically correct middle class establishment is hell bent on a systematic slur campaign against our English identity and seek to deny us any pride in our history and culture. They want us to be meek, docile and eternally apologetic to the black and asian population, just for existing here. They want us to grovel and give ground to them until we have nothing left and we end up as the rootless illegal drifters, outcasts with no rights. Any homogenous white community is regarded as a threat to 'racial harmony' and must be remedied by 'multiculturalism', a large influx of foreigners. The education system is dominated by 'pc propaganda'. Our young are brainwashed by it. We are fast becoming uprooted and cast out to make place for a more pliable source of cheap labour. The whole of Europe is in the process of becoming Eurabia.
- onionpants25, 14 April 2007