Integration

For around a week, many of us have been horrified and choked at the racist uprising in British cities. These events are woeful. If these terrorist rioters wanted to make anyone non-white feel less British and less secure, they have succeeded. I am hearing this directly from non-white friends in the UK, or whose family members are there. What a stain on life in the UK, setting race relations back years or decades.

Why must newcomers or non-white people ‘integrate’ to the arbitrary satisfaction of white British people? Attaining a satisfactory degree of integration I suspect could never be accomplished because it’s the colour of someone’s skin that racists fundamentally have a problem with, rather than their behaviour.

I am a non-African living in Africa and I am an ethnic minority here, albeit one with gross economic and historical privileges. No one would ever think to push me to integrate more. In fact from fellow Brits I’m far more likely to be met with sympathetic and pitying looks about the challenges of assimilating into the dominant culture and to be reassured that I don’t have to try if it feels too hard. Expatriate bubbles where we embrace our western-ness are positively celebrated.

It’s almost as if it isn’t the location that’s the problem, but the notion of British, western and white racial and cultural superiority. Others must conform and bend to the subjective standards set by white Brits. And what’s this British culture we’re so desperate that immigrants mimic? What does it involve exactly? Spinning a tombola and dancing around a maypole after a few pints of Strongbow, perhaps.

It shouldn’t be difficult for ‘native’ Brits to realise that the motivations of immigrant communities are often safety, political freedom, economic opportunity and family ties, rather than talking about the cucumber sandwiches they ate during the Queen’s Jubilee in 1977.

Interpretations of ‘British culture’ are going to vary wildly. I couldn’t pin it down, and I am from there. But I know that being exposed to cultural and racial diversity has enriched my life more than I could ever describe.

I went to the supermarket and was stuck in traffic because this car had veered into a drainage channel. We can all agree that safe roads are a universal norm to strive for. And may I suggest crash barriers are installed next to open ditches. As long as the construction teams are multicultural, because this is a recipe for success.