Agreed and for anyone that has the time there are loads of great voluntary projects out there. Or if nothing suits, start your own. You’d be amazed at how useful skills you take for granted can be and how much people can be empowered with only a tiny amount of help. From a purely selfish standpoint voluntary work is the best thing I’ve ever done.

Ha ha ha.

You thought us white dudes had no soul didn’t you?

Trust me, you haven’t seen me on the dance floor after a few pints.

I married a man from a different ethnic group, though not a different ‘colour’, from a different city. The biggest difference was the north/south divide. I had much more in common with black Londoners, than with Scouse Jews, and certainly than with a Scouse Catholic. But, guess what? We became used to each others strangeness, and formed a little community of our own.

We called it a family.

BTW funkg, you are so right. I have done absolutely nothing concrete to help the WWC.

Shame on me. All credit to you.

To bikhair aka taqiyyah that really does sound utterly offensive, vile and spiteful.

Its about peoples CHOICES if you really do believe in God, God gave us a choice to marry and date whoever we like whether you Muslim, Christian or any other faith. The most important thing for us is doing what id right in Gods eyes. I don’t think that the creator really cares that much if we decide to marry out of our colour boundaries, as long as those families share the same values to build communities and to advance civilisation and at the same time worshipping him.
When professed Muslims or Christians profess a faith, and talk about dating ones own, I really feel that they are often superseding their own inadequacies in finding relationships above Gods will. When you talk of ‘half caste’ who is to say that Bob Marley, Malcom X, Barack Obama, Tiger Woods or the myriad of other mixed race people normally seen as black are anything less? Im sorry to say that people who make statements such as your own, are actually hindering their chances of relationships, mot aiding it. How many men actually wants to be with someone with opinions like that? We want our women to be open minded, cheerful cosmopolitan and open to new ideas, not prejudice, come on! But I will apologise now to you if I have caused offence, because im that type of person.

I was in Morocco this year and many of the people there are of mixed ‘blood’ so are lots and others from the Islamic worlds, and in Christian Spain and Italy. Do you think those black men who cuss out black women who date white men, the ones who have mixed race kids? Of course not that’s utter crap to think that.

I thought I would just pick up on my postings I submitted, to say that I apologise for saying that the majority of WWC people were illiterate, they were not but a lot were.
In a lot of postings good manners are often overlooked, and offence taken where none was meant. Political ‘correctism’ is often mocked, but I think PCness can be often translated as displaying good manners and courtesy to your neighbours without giving to much offence.

No I certainly don’t think the WWC have theirselves to blame, the WWC have always been shat on by the ruling classes, whether they were sent off to fight the wars, enduring the secondary modern system of education or to work in the factories in times past. If was the British educational system which failed generations of young people, and still does. Like I mentioned in this ‘new’ economy we can’t have WWC or any other ethnic groups frightened to use computers, not develop good communication skills or not willing to transfer their existing skills into other careers.

The point I was trying to make earlier was that many immigrants to the UK back in the 50s and 60s had a halcyon view of the Mother country, and were shocked at the level of illiteracy and poor education as many were schooled in a post British imperialist and Victorian level of education. I am glad I started a debate on this subject, and that people have come to the defence of the WWC. I am certainly NOT a racist, I don’t wish to brag, but how many people on this site can honestly say they have done enough to help those marginalised WWC in their communities? Not many like I have said I ACTIVLEY work with this ‘group’ 5 days a week trying to build their self esteem, encouraging them to gain drivers licences, construction training and eventual careers in the emerging Thames Gateway. Illiteracy is no laughing matter for me, and there is no reason for me to mock the WWC nor for my father.
Many WWC people I meet are quite open with their prejudices, but somehow they feel comfortable with me because of my cockney accent, and ‘real’ local roots. With these people I meet, I say to them you have to adapt to the changing circumstance and empower yourselves and your families to move on.

Finally can I just say and this is different matter no one I know from ethnic communities wishes to change the English culture. All this rubbish that’s been mentioned in the press about not celebrating bonfire night in Tower hamlets in favour of a Bengali festival, I have not heard one Bengali person in favour of this. Lets be proud to celebrate our histories, lets not be scared to call Christmas, Christmas, not seasons greeting or ‘winterval’. Let Hindus celebrate Diwali, or Muslims celebrate Eid lets not forget that we still live in a nominally Christian country. Just because our state religion is Christian, and that of Pakistan is Muslim, that does not mean we have to trample on other faiths.

Didn’t I mention earlier in this thread how racism was endemic among all sectors of the community? Coming from a WWC family myself – from Tottenham no less – I’ve got to say that’s utter racist bollocks. Just imagine I had said the same about my dad’s experience in the 60s…

The implies of course that the WWC have only got themselves to blame for any perceived disadvantages – or they are genetically retarded. Take your pick. And for fun, switch ethnicity.

Brothas have some nerve hatin on your dating a black girl when so many of them be running up white girls. I am black women and east Asian men, atleast in America are the least interracially dated people. So when you see these black and white half caste running around its a white mother and black father. Dont get me started.

Apparently one of the many reasons for the 1944 Education Act was that the authorities were shocked by how many conscripts had great difficulty doing much more than signing their names and reading a few simple words. I’ll see if I can find the figures — I know someone who should know where they were reported.

Good point. The ‘Lumpen Proletariat’ definition is none too bad – it being the ‘refuse’ of ALL classes. You could probably revamp it – dodgy career criminals, drug dealers etc.

Agree also in relation to Travellers.

Generally speaking people who are schooled are literate to some degree – sometimes a pretty limited degree – even if they are not particularly academic or have learning difficulties. That applies across class and race lines, I think.

And I really don’t think we are talking about the WWC here; the working class of the last generation and before were all literate and numerate to an extent which frankly would leave most GCSE students of today standing; today’s WWC are, like everyone who goes to school, as literate as today’s pisspoor educational standards permit. What we are talking about is what Marx would have called the lumpen proletariat (which has uncomfortable Third Reich undertones, if you ask me).