Tolerant Britain? If only ...
The Guardian (leave it out, Putney's Queen of Sneers) reports today that:"Rising levels of racist abuse that forced people of Chinese heritage to withdraw from UK society before the lockdown are likely to escalate when it lifts, an academic has warned.Chinese people have been coughed at, attacked and told to “go back home”, according to research led by Prof Binna Kandola. Reported experiences ranged from casual jokes to violent attacks and death threats, with people left too frightened to venture out alone and children ridiculed by their peers, 29 in-depth interviews with people of east Asian heritage revealed.Kandola told the PA news agency that some people who have lived in the UK their whole life are questioning “whether people of Chinese heritage will ever be accepted as British”.Just over half of the 412 people surveyed said they had experienced an increase in discrimination during the Covid-19 outbreak. Three in 10 said they had witnessed or experienced discrimination at work, while 37% said they had experienced this outside the office.One woman, an NHS doctor who works in her local hospital’s respiratory unit, said she has stopped her daily morning jog because of the abuse. Another family withdrew their four-year-old boy from a football club after other parents told their children not to stand close to him. One respondent told Kandola:Nearly every British-born Chinese person I’ve spoken to is genuinely very shocked about what has happened. They are British, have lived all their lives in Britain and yet they feel like outsiders now.Prof Kandola said society has an opportunity to show zero tolerance towards racist behaviour when the UK eases lockdown measures. Condemnation from leading politicians and the media would help those affected feel like they are being listened to, he said, while also suggesting local authorities direct victims of abuse to helplines or support groups. He said:There’s a role for all of us to keep our eyes and ears open about what is going on around us and, when we see it, to intervene.We are actually better than this. As a nation we are better than this.And there are a lot of people in this country who will be shocked about what is going on, and will do something about it."Presumably this wasn't the sort of thing that fool Laurence Fox meant when he said on Question Time that "We're the most tolerant, lovely country in Europe."
Richard Carter ● 1830d2 Comments