\”A loudmouth and a mother\’s boy, sweet but angry, a child in a hurry to grow and an adult still anchored to adolescence,\” it stated. \”Half bully and half tender, Mario Balotelli represents the prototype Italian.\”
Or, as we might put it, national identity is a cultural issue, not a pigmentation one.
On similar lines: people of West African descent provide a hugely disproportionate fraction of the world’s best sprinters. Obviously being black somehow reduces air resistance.
Sitting outside a café a while back, there was a guy walking up & down on the pavement talking on a cellphone. Mainly, it would seem, in semaphore as the hands were emphasising every point with chopping motions & rejecting them with wide sweeps of the arm. Needless to say, as he passed, it was quite obviously Italian being spoken.
Sorry but that is not always true. Some national identities are transmitted purely culturally. Some are not. In fact most are not. Balotelli would not have bananas thrown at him if, in fact, he was seen by everyone as purely Italian. The fact is Italians tend to think Italians are White. For a long time to be English meant being White even more than for Italians. Maybe it still does. Very few BMEs identify as English no matter how much they are English by descent. African Americans may be Americans but they are not Americans in the same way that White Americans are Americans. They may be able to, but it is unlikely. Because being Black means having a very different attitude to things like the Founding Fathers.
Balotelli is not seen as Italian by a lot of people. He is not entirely accepted as Italian by Italians. Thus he is not Italian in the same way that other Italians are Italian. What is more he probably doesn’t want to be. British people of Jamaican descent could pass into British, but not English, society if they wanted. They clearly don’t want to. British Muslims even less so. And that is not likely to change.
@ SMFS
National Identity is usually a matter of choice for members of a minority. One can choose whether or not to assimilate. It seems that I have a longer memory than you (whether I am older or younger) as in my youth most BMEs chose to do so and, in the dark, I could not tell a black Yorkshireman from a white one.
John77: *loud applause*
‘Mario Balotelli represents the prototype Italian…’ He sounds like the prototype of most of us when we were his age.
Does culture create the nation or does the nation create its culture? Do we believe England would still be England had it been settled by Eskimos or East Timorese instead of Anglo Saxons?
BTW, you only ever ever hear white people reducing everything to culture and pretending that genetic factors are a mere question of “pigmentation”. Is that because of our culture I wonder?
Steve @7 “Does culture create the nation or does the nation create its culture? Do we believe England would still be England had it been settled by Eskimos or East Timorese instead of Anglo Saxons?”
If England had been settled by the Eskimos or the East Timorese, it would have had a very different history, so would probably have a different culture. (There may be some doubt as to how many Anglo Saxons actually settled – but that’s another matter.)
“prototype”
Surely “archetype” ?
Balotelli is actually a Manc and one of the best kind of Manc there is.
SMFS: if your ancestors were brought to the USA as slaves, and your grandparents lived under Segregation, you may naturally have a somewhat jaundiced view of the portrayal of the USA as the Land of the Free. That certainly makes a difference, but a suggestion that your viewpoint is thereby less American would have to be based on a racist definition of what it means to be American.
john77 – “National Identity is usually a matter of choice for members of a minority. One can choose whether or not to assimilate.”
No it isn’t. It is a matter of choice by both sides. They have to choose to assimilate and the community they want to assimilate into has to accept them. I will not become Italian by sheer force of will power. No matter how much I might want to.
I do not think most BMEs want to make that choice, and I am not sure most British people would agree even if they did.
What is more it is only a matter of choice where there is no racial component to the identity. In some communities, for better or worse, there is.
“It seems that I have a longer memory than you (whether I am older or younger) as in my youth most BMEs chose to do so and, in the dark, I could not tell a black Yorkshireman from a white one.”
In your youth they may have done so. Or they may have wanted to do so. It is unlikely most Yorkshiremen agreed in the daylight. But now I am not sure they do. Nor would it have taken much talking to said Yorkshireman in the dark to work out his colour.
PaulB – “if your ancestors were brought to the USA as slaves, and your grandparents lived under Segregation, you may naturally have a somewhat jaundiced view of the portrayal of the USA as the Land of the Free. That certainly makes a difference, but a suggestion that your viewpoint is thereby less American would have to be based on a racist definition of what it means to be American.”
Less is your word. Not mine. Which simply points to the inherent dishonesty of your position – you cannot argue what I said so you rely on a smear instead. Different is not less.
But other than that, it seems we agree. Yes, Black Americans are likely to have a different view of America, American history and American politics. The idols of one group are not worshiped by the other. They are two separate communities. Marked by skin colour. There are many many ways to mark community and skin colour is not always the main choice. But for the English-speaking world, it is the historic legacy we are stuck with.
You cannot say that as a White person you are going to give up on racism when the growing ethnic groups, and soon to be majority communities in many places, have not. It has to be a two-way street and it is not. Which means that skin colour will go on being a, or perhaps the, main marker of identity in the UK.
SMFS: try this:
“White Americans may be Americans but they are not Americans in the same way that African Americans are Americans. They may be able to, but it is unlikely. Because being White means having a very different attitude to things like the Civil Rights Movement.”
Does that have the same import as what you wrote?
However, since you hadn’t been explicit about your meaning, I carefully phrased what I wrote in the conditional mood – “would have to be based”. There’s nothing dishonest there.
PaulB – “Does that have the same import as what you wrote?”
Yes. Exactly the same. The word “less” is not used and is not even implied. As we agree, Black people are likely to feel differently about Slavery.
“However, since you hadn’t been explicit about your meaning, I carefully phrased what I wrote in the conditional mood – “would have to be based”. There’s nothing dishonest there.”
I was perfectly explicit. You simply saw what you wanted to see.
SMFS: @ 13 and 3
“You cannot say that as a White person you are going to give up on racism when the growing ethnic groups, and soon to be majority communities in many places, have not. It has to be a two way street, and it is not. Which means that skin colour will go on being a, or perhaps the, main marker of identity in the UK.”
“British people of Jamaican descent could pass into British, but not English, society if they wanted. They clearly don’t want to. British Muslims even less so. And that is not likely to change.”
You start by saying those of Jamaican descent can’t be part of English society, but can be part of British society. Eh? Does the same apply to Bajans? Or Nigerians? Or a very middle class Catholic and convent educated friend of mine whose parents are Jamaicans of Indian descent -British but not English?
Then we move to Muslims. Is that British or English society you say that can’t (or won’t?) be part of?
Then we move on to saying saying skin colour is the main identity factor. But earlier it wasn’t it religion – or why did you mention Muslims? Where do white Turkish Muslims fit into this?
And a few white Christian immigrants who remember signs saying “No coloured or Irish” might take issue with some of what you say.
I’m not accusing you of any ism. I do think you’re a bit confused about what you’re trying to say.
SMFS: so tell us, is racism something which exists only in my overactive imagination and which I smear you even by mentioning as a hypothetical possibility, or is it something you cannot as a White person give up on?
Luke – “You start by saying those of Jamaican descent can’t be part of English society, but can be part of British society. Eh? Does the same apply to Bajans? Or Nigerians? Or a very middle class Catholic and convent educated friend of mine whose parents are Jamaicans of Indian descent -British but not English?”
The definition of English has traditionally had a racial component. So someone of Jamaican descent – despite being largely British or even English by genes, culture and so on – could not be English no matter how much they wanted. British is a more artificial concept. Perhaps they could be British although in the recent past that was not true either.
Now these definitions are not written in stone. We can change what it means to be British. I think we have. I don’t think we have for what it means to be English. Yet. Which means that a Bajan can be British but can’t be English.
“Then we move on to saying saying skin colour is the main identity factor. But earlier it wasn’t it religion – or why did you mention Muslims? Where do white Turkish Muslims fit into this?”
Turkish Muslims are more complex – and again race does clearly play a role. Boris Johnson is British, even English, and no one disputes it, even though he is also part Turkish (actually I expect Circassian) by descent. But he is not a Muslim and he is not Black. For better or worse race is playing the major role here.
“And a few white Christian immigrants who remember signs saying “No coloured or Irish” might take issue with some of what you say.”
They might. But then again they might not.
PaulB – “so tell us, is racism something which exists only in my overactive imagination and which I smear you even by mentioning as a hypothetical possibility, or is it something you cannot as a White person give up on?”
That is a very good question. But not the right question. It is a smear even as a hypothetical possibility – and it was not that hypothetical. Asking someone if they should give up beating their wife is still a smear. The right question is whether it is possible to escape the language and assumptions of race in the English speaking world even if you want to. I think not. Racism is childish. Worse than that really. But it is the cultural and intellectual framework we have and I don’t think we can escape it. Especially because while White people may be happy to give up on racism, no one else is. Non-White people have agency too you know.
@ SMFS
My remark is based on what actually occurred. I got on a train (as one did in those days) to return to my ancient seat of learning and, since British Rail did not expect north-easterners to visit said ancient seat, in January the only train left before dawn. At Bradford two guys got into “my” compartment and chatted: I could tell they were Yorkshiremen from their voices and their attitude to cricket; when dawn broke I was surprised to observe that one was black and the other white. There was NOTHING in their conversation to suggest that one was black. I was there and you were not so you do *not* know.
Secondly I am, like most Englishmen, a mongrel (my father was mostly Welsh) – I cannot recall anyone rejecting me because he and I had a German name. The Poles I met as a child were (or were the children of) those who had fought for us before Hitler invaded Russia and were therefore barred by Stalin from returning to Poland – apart from mispronouncing their Christian names, the locals were clearly happy to assimilate them. Where I come from the BMEs were so rare that they *had* to be treated as individuals because you couldn’t form a category. I met anti-English sentiment as a small child in Scotland, and vicious anti-middle-class violence as a child in England but not anti-black sentiment.
@ Steve
Pigmentation is a question of adapting to the level of sunlight, so Scots and Irish are more likely to have freckles. But genetics *is* more complex than that which is why Ethiopians and highland Kenyans (not those whose ancestors lived around Mombasa for millennia) are better at marathons.
The answer to your question is the “thought police” – different races have developed different patterns of abilities, but it is not politically correct to recognise this until a handful of Ethiopians have won umpteen marathons and some statistician has said “this is incredible”.
@ SMFS #18
The definition of English has always had a MULTI-racial component. Angles, Saxons and Jutes invaded and mixed with a Romano-British (in Cornwall one with a Carthaginian element) population, with major influxes of Vikings before the Norman invasion and Flemish, Huguenot, Jewish, French and other refugees later. It’s too late at night to find Kipling’s quote although I know it would say it better.
Like a dog returning to its vomit, I’m back.
SMFS at 3 and 18. Jamaican descent? How the fuck can someone be genetically Jamaican?