Mick Hartley

The American Way

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Mick Hartley

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is just more of the same it’s-all-our-fault breast-beating. What should we have done differently? Yes, it so happens that Muslims in the US appear better integrated than they are here – but haven’t we congratulated ourselves in the past, not without reason, on the fact that our black communities are nowhere near as separate as the big city ghettoes like Compton or Harlem in the US? That you’re far more likely to see mixed race couples in London than in New York? It’s all down to the circumstances. The US, after slavery, has a race fault-line running through its history. We have an entirely different history of Muslim immigration than the States, with a preponderance of Pakistani immigrants who keep their ties to their homeland, and who in many cases have shown no desire to integrate.

If, on the other hand, he’s saying, well, we need to re-think that old multicultural model, don’t we? – then maybe I’d agree with him.

Comments

  1. Jim Avatar
    Jim

    “but haven’t we congratulated ourselves in the past, not without reason, on the fact that our black communities are nowhere near as separate as the big city ghettoes like Compton or Harlem in the US?”
    Same problem as with all the rest of the Guardian’s comments about the US – they are based on a weak grasp of the facts. Compton and Harlem may or may not be representative of black communities in the US. What does the Guardian have to say about the uproar over “gentrification” – whites, mostly gay, moving into predominantly black urban neighborhoods? How does that fit their model of segregation? Do they acknowledge the presence of a black suburban middle class? I doubt they do. They seem to prefer their comforting framework of stereotypes and dogmas.

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  2. Mick H Avatar
    Mick H

    Jim – it’s me making that comment about Harlem or Compton, not the original Guardian article, so I guess it’s me using a “comforting framework of stereotypes”. You may be right. I was just trying to point out that it’s a waste of time trying to make much of America’s different experience with racism and immigrants: we’re looking at two different histories.

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