Explaining racial segregation and ghettoes
This video (thanks Riz) explains why racial segregation occurs.
It’s a pretty effective and simple explanation. It’s also half the picture. I think it misses out two crucial factors that exacerbate geographical racial segregation.
Firstly, in Britain local councils allocate a lot of social housing, and they can perpetuate racial segregation by allocating housing in specific areas according to race. I remember reading a report in the wake of the 2001 Burnley / Oldham riots that said (white run) local councils had made the problem with through their own policies, and then later blamed local minority communities for ‘living in ghettoes’. Secondly, estate agents themselves can make problems worse by actively discriminating against people of a particular colour trying to find property in an area where another race dominates. There has documented examples of both.
Now, there are arguments against racial segregation, but what about arguments for racial clustering? I can only see one: it helps develop a more hybrid culture amongst those minority groups. For example, British Asians are generally recognised as more culturally interesting than American South Asians, primarily because racial concentration of Asians in the UK helped develop and sustain a vibrant British Asian music, fashion and food industry. Not so much in the United States where they are more spread out.
| Post to del.icio.us |
Filed in: British Identity,Culture,Race politics
Racial “clustering” is a less offensive term than “racial segregation”, but it is really the same thing – and I thought the debate on racial segregation (forced and self-imposed) was over: it is not a good thing. Ghettoes in the long run create alienation, distrust between communities, and in many cases poverty. There is no reason why integrated neighborhoods cannot achieve the same effect as segregated neighborhoods in terms of making their cultures interesting and vibrant.
The reason why British Asian culture is vibrant in the UK is because we follow multiculturalism as opposed to assimilation. I tend to like both aspects – multiculturism is great for immigrants, and assimilation is best for 2nd and 3rd gen who are born and raised in this country.
There are loads of different examples of this which say different things. I’ve spoken to enough white racists now to realise the whole story of “white flight”in London. These white working class felt like a loud and dominant Jamaican culture was forced on them by middle class and rich whites who had no intention of living alongside black people. They feel they basically “Lost the war” and moved to Essex.
It wasn’t that long ago the Old kent rd was a dividing line. When the council first started trying to settle blacks on the Bermondsey side they burnt them out.
Now in Birmingham I had a great introduction to Jamaican culture. We went to Blues parties all the time. But I have no idea whether working class white Brummie neighbours found these blues parties a serious bone of contention. I lived at the time in a dominantly Pakistani Muslim area with no trouble whatsoever. I was an immigrant myself from the Bournemouth area. I have no idea what the original residents of Sparkhill thought about the changing face of their community.
Recently we have seen swathes of Polish people totally undercut the price of working class labour, to the economic advantage of households in Poland no doubt. In the same situation we would probably do the same thing.
People have also complained to me about African “cabbals” in the allocation of council housing in South East London.
People suffer from racism, no doubt. But working class people tell me they have also historically suffered from the ideas of middle class PC people who have no intention of trying out these ideas in their own neighourhoods.
I think people need to see other peoples truths and other peoples situation to get a true picture. Often they don’t do this and instead hold to their own political idealism.
This is a subject which is rarely properly explored and dealt with in media. If economic collapse continues it could seriously raise its head in a totally uncontrollable manner which is why it is really important it is dealt with.
There are lots of success stories, I think the post-riot under cover racial integration policy in Handsworth council housing totally de ghettoised the place, Bristol too, though on street level everyone knows which racial gang is in charge at the moment, on a community level I hear that integration has worked to a large extent.
London has a bit more of a deep seated problem in that it is such a sprawl and everyone reacts to it by rarely talking to their neighbours, having friends spread out in all locations. I am the biggest fan of multi-racial Britian how it is presented by people like Tony Blair and his friends at Channel 4 but I try not to let my idealism shut out other peoples realities.
“British Asians are generally recognised as more culturally interesting than American South Asians” Sunny it’s Monday morning, what have you got against Kal Penn and Mira Nair?
There’s heaps of geographical and demographic factors to explain the lack of South Asian concentration in the US (though you still get some in places like Queens) , the bigest of which are being a smaller percentage of the population as a whole and having closer contacts both historically and via Heathrow, with South Asia.
Ethnic concentrations do tend to reinforce themseleves naturally and it’s clearly happenned here somewhat. But apart from Brit Bhangra which has benefited from having the UK market to build on and to take new influences to India,(unlike Bollywood where which is more of an import where the UK is a secondary market), couldn’t you say that a lot of British Asians that have broken through (like Meera Syal, Gurineder Chada) have done so partly to overcome the barriers brought about by the UK’s ethnic concentrations (and not just by catering to South Asian communities).
It is interesting though that until the first Harold and Kumar film, the idea that anyone other than Peter Sellers doing the ‘Bombay Welsh doctor’ accent was funny, has seemed dated/offensive for years, wheras Apu Nahasapeemapetilon is still a fixture in the Simpsons.
That’s great, take someone else’s idea and make a point about it.
I’d be more impressed if you came up with a theory of your own, instead of writing about someone else’s.
What particular value does your contribution make towards racial segregation that hasn’t already been made, Driving Miss Daisy?
James
There is something rather natural about Ghettoes. It’s about familiarity isn’t it. Generally immigrants will tend to settle in the most affordable areas, these tend to be the ciy centres, or the ghettoes. Once people settle there, a small community is formed, and as more people of that ethnicity move to a place, they will try to settle closer to that community for the familiarity and the convenience.
Where I live, we have Asian sopecialist food shops within a 5 minute walk, , A Mosque within a 5 minute walk, a halal butchers within a 5 minute walk.
When I can afford too, I will move out of the ghetto, I’ll still need those facilities, but I will have to travel further to them. Some people can’t afford to do that tarvelling, others don’t want to do that travelling.
The area I live in 20 years ago was an area of mainly Asian and afro-carribean people. It’s now is home to a Balkan community, an Afghan community, an arab community, an African community (west African as well as East African and an Eastern european community. For all these communities it’s a ghetto as well. Stragely we’ve got to the place where the ghetto is in fact very ethnically diverse. So far it’s alright.
Mind you, the government does play a part in increasing Ghettoes. A lot of of the people we have now in the hood are refugees and asylum seekers (apart from the europeans). The government will settle them in the ghetto. Why not make the effort to settle these people in some middle class communities around the city. There is plenty of rental accomodation there too.
Bit harsh, James. Sunny’s post has generated some interesting, balanced responses. What’s the problem?
dave bones (2) – Interesting comment.
‘But working class people tell me they have also historically suffered from the ideas of middle class PC people who have no intention of trying out these ideas in their own neighourhoods.’
Sorry if I am being really dim here, but what are these, ‘ideas?’ How exactly have they been forced onto ‘the working class.’ (whatever that means in this century)
On the face of it, I assume that is a cloaked reference to ‘diversity.’ If so, I can not see a contradiction between diversity and integration. Surely integration is for individuals and is not the responsibility of the ‘middle class PC people’ (again, whatever that means).
Why do the ‘working class’ have a monopoly on victimhood? I think I have suffered badly from the idea of right to buy for example, but I would hazard a guess that some of the ‘working class people’ you spoke to were not altogether averse to ramming that down the generational throat back in the day.
I assume, incidentally, that you are not confusing ‘working class’ with ‘underclass.’
Again, apologies if I am missing something obvious.
Schellings experiment is hugely important and raises some very difficult issues if you’re a liberal of one variety or another. It means you don’t need strong racial or religious prejudice to have residential segregation, all you need is a very weak preference. To put it another way, weak preferences at the individual level can have a dramatic outcome at the aggregate or societal level. It also means that the kinds of factors Sunny points to are merely exacerbatory not causal – even if you didn’t have them you would still end up with resdidential segregation so long as the mild preference exists and you have free choice in where to live. The only sure way of preventing this if you want to is to restrict people’s choice of where they live in such a way as to ensure mixed neighbourhoods. IIRC Singapore has a policy of this kind.
Dave Bones
“But working class people tell me they have also historically suffered from the ideas of middle class PC people who have no intention of trying out these ideas in their own neighourhoods.”
This is a stupid argument because once people come to this country there is no way of stopping them living where they wishe. African/Asian doctors dont live in white working class areas; they live next to the middle class PC people (and how many of them have been burnt out of their homes as people in WWC areas were ?)
How many of the Ugandan Asians who Enoch Powell fumugated against with strong backing from parts of the WWC live in inner cities or working class neighbourhoods?
Its amazing that people who came from totally different countries, often speaking little of no English, of a different colour and religion managed to, through hard work and education make a success of their lives. What excuse do people who have none of these drawbacks have? Just seems like a case of blaming others for their own failures.
If people respond by saying they dont object to the doctors etc but the “Third world trash” (a phrase I have heard on a number of occassions) that live in their areas arent they just condemning themselves ?- they are the working class British equivalant of what these working class “trash” are in their countries!
I hate to say this but Munir has got a point.
All South Asian immigrants do not have the same experiences. They have varied experiences — for example I would say there are as many “The Namesake” experience as those depicted in the “Brick Lane” and there are many in between.
7 and 9, immigrants were “settled” in Brixton and parts of South east london and parts of Bristol, birmingham and Liverpool against the wishes of some openly racist working class people. They weren’t “settled” in Hampstead. This is not my argument, it has been the argument of the “forgotten white working class”.
Mixed race children are the ultimate solution to racism. Segregated communities make them a lot less likely to occur.
I’ll comment briefly on the housing aspects of this.
Obviously, the housing regime was different then to what it is now, these days council and ALMO housing allocations is 99% based on actual housing need on a UK-wide perspective. The rules are slightly different for other Registered Social Landlords, although most RSL’s also work on that basis, but some are going for a specialist market (including many BME RSL’s) and others have limiting trusts (quite often for almshouses).
Back then, allocations were based mainly on time on the list and controlled by the all powerful Housing Committee. This started to change in the late 70′s and completely changed over by the late 90′s, partly through the results of legal cases and partly through the legislative changes.
Also most people who arrive in Britain are subject to not having recourse to public funds, so they settled in areas with low rents and available private rental stock. It was noticeable in this city, that in general South Asian groups in general didn’t want to know about council housing for many years. Probably because the stock here was concentrated in either Inner City tower blocks or maisonettes or large peripheral estates. As property prices rose, this started to change and now South Asian groups apply for council housing at the levels you would expect.
As for allocations to areas, yes, there were areas where BME tenants were not offered properties. There were two in this city until a few years ago, this was done on the grounds of the levels of harassement that occured on those areas. As councils gained powers to deal with those tenants, those areas were dealt with and this is no longer the case.
In this city, applicants have to select 5 and can select up to 12 areas (out of 46) in order of preference for allocations. This doesn’t apply to priority homelessness cases, who get one offer asap to be legally compliant (areas are taken into account here only if there are multiple matching properties). The vast majority of South Asian clients pick the more South Asian areas of the city, although there appears to also be a small group who go for “as far away as possible”. As these areas often have little council (or council allocatable) stock, this can lead to very long waiting lists for those areas. I’ve also seen South Asian who are supposedly priority homeless turn down properties that are outside these areas in the full knowledge that they will then drop to the lowest level of housing need.
We did a very detailed study on BME populations and the actual allocations made last year and found that the results came out in the correct proportion (i.e. +- 2 standard deviations) to the known ethnicity of the waiting list who could have been allocated and their requirements.
I do think what RSL’s need to look at more is what people actually require for housing. There’s a desperate shortage of larger family homes in this city, anything in council stock over a 4 bed is much sought after and we don’t have any significant numbers of houses over 5 bed. Yet RSL’s ape private developers in building 1 and 2 bed apartments.
I shall get off my hobby horse and go to work.