Britain during the second half of the 20th century had fascinating attitudes towards race as our Afro-Caribbean and South Asian populations grew. The 1970s and 80s were the golden age of racist comedians like Bernard Manning and Jim Davidson, who remains popular to some extent in Australia I hear. We had the Black and White Minstrels, we even had a sitcom called
Love Thy Neighbour which dealt with a white, middle class suburban couple living next to a black couple.
During that period we also saw the growth of the National Front and ethnic nationalism along Fascist lines, we saw skinhead culture morph from white middle class youths listening to Jamaican-influenced music to groups of Neo-Nazi thugs, we saw the great "Rivers of Blood" speech by the Conservative politician Enoch Powell in which he described the dangers of a future where the "black man holds the whip hand over the white man". That said, one has to juxtapose a startling innocence and simple lack of understanding (the sort that can be seen in my first paragraph) with this darker side. We were, in some ways, miles behind the USA in our attitudes towards race by the 1970s and 1980s, though ahead in others.
This, however, primarily applies to England, not Scotland. Scotland was even more sheltered. In my home town in its hayday in the '70s when it must have had a population of over 100,000 there were no black people, though there were perhaps one or two South Asian families. Very few though, to the point that when a black gentleman named Cyril came to the town and played for my father's hockey club he was a novelty. Contrast that with my mother in London who was taught mathematics by a black teacher.
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Topic: Calm and Cool Progressive Discussion Thread (Read 1293912 times)