Immigration and Racism in Britain and USA

cicerone imposter wrote:

Geezuz, McT, it seems the Dutch are living in a foreign country.

Yes its called Belgium. Hi nice to see you ci hope things ok with you all.

Black children left out of Irish schools

Yahoo! News
3 September

When local educators in the north Dublin suburb of Balbriggan called a meeting for parents struggling to find school places, they were shocked to see only black children. About 90 children will now attend a new, all-black school, a prospect that educators called disheartening. Parents said they had been told that all places had to be reserved by February, but some questioned why white families who had moved in this year had managed to overcome the deadlines.

Some also complained about discrimination: about 98% of schools are run by the Roman Catholic Church, and the law permits them to admit only students with a certificate confirming they were baptized. Some of the African applicants were Muslim, members of evangelical Protestant denominations or of no religious creed. More than 25,000 Africans have settled in Ireland since the mid-1990s.

Muslim Tory says she was advised not to stand as an MP

August 23, 2007
The Guardian

The leadership of the British Conservatives has denied there are any "no-go" areas for ethnic minority candidates, after one of the rising stars of David Cameron's shadow cabinet, Sayeeda Warsi, admitted that local Tory colleagues had advised her against standing in Dewsbury. They had cautioned that the white community of the Yorkshire town might not be ready.

Conservative officials insisted that Warsi, a Dewsbury-born solicitor who will become a peer later this year, had been talking about her difficulties with a divided local electorate - not with her constituency activists.

In an interview with the Yorkshire Post, she described how some white constituents in the seat she lost in 2005 by 4,615 votes to Labour's Shahid Malik, a fellow-Muslim, had slammed the door in her face and used racist and abusive language before saying: "I ain't voting for you."

But she said she had also experienced problems in orthodox Muslim wards with voters "who just had a real issue with a woman standing". She said: "Suddenly people who you thought would be there to support you, it stuck in their throat. I always say that in the 2005 election I was too black for half of the community and too white for the other half."

It was in that context that her constituency chairman had suggested she might be wiser to accept offers, initially from Michael Howard, to join the Tory hierarchy as a party vice-chairman.

I really could imagine that these problems were more the result of a lack of planning than racsm.

Catholic schools' enrolment policy may be illegal

Independent.ie
September 13 2007

THE Equality Authority has warned that the Catholic-first school enrolment policy could be in breach of Irish and EU anti-discrimination laws.

Chief Executive Niall Crowley has written to Education Minister Mary Hanafin and the Archbishop of Dublin Dr Diarmuid Martin warning that they are on unsafe legal ground.

The authority is reacting to the controversy over all-black enrolment in a new school in Balbriggan, Co Dublin catering for about 50 pupils for whom no place was available in other schools in the area.

The controversy put the spotlight on the Catholic Church's Catholics-and-siblings-first policy which, where demand outstrips the supply of places, can leave non-Catholic children at the bottom of the priority list.

Specifically, the authority, which has a role in advising on legislative matters in the equality area warned: lThe State must provide education in a manner which does not discriminate on religion or race grounds; lThe Church cannot rely on preservation of religious ethos to defend a claim of discrimination where schools are over-subscribed.

Segregation

Mr Crowley said they were concerned about the emergence in effect of segregated primary school provision for black and minority ethnic students.

He noted the requirement on pupils to present their baptismal certificates to gain access to Catholic primary schools and of inadequate provision of schooling generally to cater for the diversity of pupils.

Legally, he said that such a policy may result in causing direct discrimination by: l Breaching the Equal Status Acts 2000-2004 -- contrary to the view that such legislation allows for exemptions on religious ethos grounds; l Flying in the face of the EU Race Directive, which takes precedence over national legislation.

Mr Crowley said that the policy ran counter to the Government's commitment to integration as set out in the National Action plan Against Racism. [..]

Well, it's apparently mostly the question of almost all schools being Catholic, and Catholic schools having been granted the right to give priority to students who can prove they were baptized. That leaves non-Catholic students at the end of the line.

A couple of - Irish and Britsih - papers run reports of Catholics who had to send their children to other schools as well.

Do you know other EU countries where schools can require parents to show a certificate confirming the child is baptized?

Under a dank sky and with a statue of Christ, arms outstretched in welcome, it seemed like just another opening day in the life of an ordinary Irish primary school. But the school in Balbriggan, Co Dublin, which finally opened its doors yesterday morning, has been the centre of a national controversy which has highlighted how Ireland is failing to cope with the influx of tens of thousands of immigrants.
Ireland's newest primary school is overwhelmingly black, the majority of its pupils with parents from Nigeria and some, judging by the number of mothers in head-scarves, from the Islamic faith.

The school was created out of incompetence rather than design. A huge population increase, partly due to immigration from Africa, China and eastern Europe, has put enormous pressure on the school system. The result, according to one local councillor, has been the creation of a "mini-apartheid" in the seaside town, with the new "emergency" school almost exclusively filled with the children of immigrants.

Dozens of children from non-Irish ethnic backgrounds had been turned down by local Catholic schools principally because they did not hold Catholic baptismal certificates. More than 90% of schools in the republic are run by the Catholic church. Up to 100 children were facing the new term with no place at primary school in the north Co Dublin region.

Brown plans new migrant controls to get unskilled Britons back to work

September 10, 2007
The Guardian

[..] British PM Gordon Brown will try to quell union anger at the growing insecurity of the British workforce due to migration of cheap and casualised foreign labour by promising to find an "extra 500,000 British jobs for British workers". The message is also intended to head off moves by Cameron's Tories to warn that the scale of recent immigration from within and outside the EU has damaged the country.

Brown will make it more difficult for non-EU migrants to enter the British labour force by tightening English language requirements, and offer a package of measures to fasttrack Britons on the dole queue into jobs. Brown's offer of British jobs for British workers is unlikely to silence union demands for the government to bring full employment protection rights for casual and agency workers, either through the EU or national law. [..]

It may be that the British people were indeed tired of Mr Blair and what they see as his international grandiosities, but that doesn't mean he was wrong about the world and where it's headed. The essential question for Britain is whether it continues to be progressive, internationalist, open, liberal, free trading and unafraid, or turns in on itself and consoles itself in decline - whether Left or Right - with tinkering and complaining, all the time wondering why it cannot get the genie back in the bottle.

You cant blame someone for being anxious and frustrated when they see immigrants coming into Britain in large numbers,...

Steve 41oo wrote:

You cant blame someone for being anxious and frustrated when they see immigrants coming into Britain in large numbers,...

Well, to what time period are you referring?

If to today, well, you are an island but it's quite easy to go there. So those figures are actually and relatively small compared to other European countries.

And undercutting wages? I just heard that most German doctors want to go to Britain due to the high wages there. As do some other professions (like our traditional seasonal workers: they get the double in Britain).

It might be fine for seasonal workers coming here, but not so fine for workers who live here all the year round. Or at least thats how they see it. I'm not defending their attitude, just explaining it.

Hundreds of Polish migrants have decided to leave Britain, blaming high crime levels and racism for their premature return to eastern Europe.

Polish migrants flee violent Britain

Quote:

Hundreds of Polish migrants have decided to leave Britain, blaming high crime levels and racism for their premature return to eastern Europe.