Poor likkle UK mites: failed by the UK

BBC Headline:

The UK has been accused of failing its children, as it comes bottom of a league table for child well-being across 21 industrialised countries.

Some highlights...

• UK child poverty has doubled since 1979
• Children living in homes earning less than half national average wage - 16%
• Children rating their peers as "kind and helpful" - 43%
• Families eating a meal together "several times" a week - 66%
• Children who admit being drunk on two or more occasions - 31%

Click on the BBC link above for a full report, but basically, the UK's behind in a Unicef report on children round the world. Its categories are family life, friendships, health/safety, sense of educational well-being, personal well-being, and material well-being.

Am I surprised? Erm, no. Two instances that will drive me back to the US: getting accidentally up the McDuff or finding out I've got a serious ailment that needs treatment. I wouldn't raise kids here and, most likely, since preventative medicine is anathema here, early detection is non-existent and corking it upon diagnosis is likely, too.

Wake up, UK black folks!

I'd promised, during the whole Big Brother racism hoopla, to address my sistahs and brothers in the UK. All I've really got to say is that racism in this country wouldn't be near as odious is black folks---heck, let's try this USAism PEOPLE OF COLOR---would step up and confront people on their nonsense. I don't think I've ever seen such a lackadaisical approach to anti-racism. There are spokespeople, like Darcus Howe, who are invited to panels and write columns who say little that is radical or challenges Britain's status quo. There are interesting prosecutions that happen under the Race Relations Act. But otherwise, not a peep about the lack of people of color in powerful positions in the media (state-run or quasi-private), nothing said about the few people of color on telly, and absolutely no protest about the dearth of people of color in Parliament.

An example of the seeming absence of agitation for social justice: I've been to a number of symposia and such about the exclusion of blacks from the media in the UK. I hear the same, tired, ineffectual whinging every single time. UK black folks will cast an eye abroad and say, "Well, black Americans are successful because they have the NAACP..."

Scrrreeeech! Hold the phone. Little history lesson: the NAACP, while once in my opinion a valiant defender of civil rights in the 1950s-1970s, has slipped from their game (see state-by-state rollback of Affirmative Action). UK black folks think that just because the NAACP threatens a boycott that US networks pay attention and cease their racists nonsense. Sorry to disappoint you, but networks listen to their advertisers who might be marginally influenced by black consumers.

Of course, compared to the UK's Commission for Racial Equality (CRE), the NAACP is like a bloody hurricane of racial justice. As far as I can tell, the CRE is merely a figurehead organization rife with social movement vampires like Trevor Phillips. With all the hate crimes against blacks, racial profiling of youths, and other egregious instances of racism, I've seen the CRE do nothing but issue ineffectual press releases.

I once went to a panel on racism, featuring Phillips. At one point he went on a tirade about how the UK is ahead of the US in race relations. His highly astute, social science example was that, well, look at the TV show Friends. In all of New York not one black character? Shock! Horror! First of all, Trev, black comedians made that same point, like, TEN years ago. Second, who gives a rat's ass if Monica gets her swerve on with a brotha on the sofa in Central Perk. And, third, that's your evidence? As we say in Black America: nigga, please.

Since I'm a media-head, this particular area is my pet peeve, but there are plenty of other example in which people of color in the UK are complicit in their continuing disenfranchisement. This may seem like blaming the victim, but what I'm really asking is where is the fire and passion that said no to colonialism and racist oppression?

I will grant that, sociologically, there are probably differences in US blacks being brought to that country as human chattel and resisting versus blacks and Asians coming to the US as commonwealth citizens. If one is already enfranchised, perhaps there is some complacency that comes with the assumed entitlement to fair treatment.

Still, if I hear one more black person call on the US black experience as the model for emancipation, I think I shall scream. UK black British history is full of examples of heroism, such as the brave nurse Mary Seacole. Why not claim them? Forge your own path and do it quickly...stand for nothing, fall for everything.

Blogging for Choice in the US & UK!

Of the things I don't miss about the USA (land of the so-called free), cops with guns and constant tussling with god-botherers about whether a woman should be able to choose to have an abortion are two. Granted the UK cops with guns can be a mite trigger happy (Justice for Jean Charles de Menezes!) and there are political disparities here, but for a country without a constitution, the UK is on track when it comes to reproductive rights. On track, but not perfect.

2007 is the 40th anniversary of the Abortion Rights Act that legalized abortion in the UK. However, a woman still needs the permission of two doctors before she can access an abortion. Of course, if one has to depend on the NHS for an abortion, the wait can be as long as eight weeks. In Northern Ireland a woman still cannot choose an abortion. Abortion laws in the UK are more restrictive than in almost every other European country, where abortion on request is legal in the first three months of pregnancy. And there are, of course, anti-woman, anti-choice, pro- child-until-you're-born-then-pro-death-penalty forces working to make sure that the UK goes back in time.

A recent opinion poll found "that 63 per cent of a representative sample of GB adults agreed that ‘if a woman wants an abortion, she should not have to continue with her pregnancy’. 18 per cent disagreed with this.

59 per cent of those polled agreed that ‘abortion should be made legally available for all who want it’. This would require a change to the existing law, which requires two doctors to confirm that a woman meets certain criteria. 27 per cent disagreed."

Another thing that rocks about the UK? Contraception is FREE! Yes, I know I pay for it through taxes for the NHS, but why you gotta nitpick? When a wee horseman of the apocalypse (read: a child) is throwing a strop in the grocery store, touching all the bus surfaces with their cute snotty hands, or playing Akon's "Smack That" on a tinny, rubbish mobile phone for all to hear, I think, "Did I take my pill?"

Yea, for choice!

Language Revisited

So, I'm told that blokes in Leeds call one another "luv". Clearly, I'm going to need context. Is it a drunken frat boy, "I love you, man!!!" or a more casual, appreciative endearment. Do tell!

Racism in Britain Is So 1983

It's not the fact that we had crazy gale-force, "Hold onto yer panties, Dorothy!" winds, that are making headlines. The Big Brother house is in the headlines because a, frankly, common as muck (nay, muck itself), no talent, recycled BB contestant is in the house making racist comments against a Bollywood superstar.

Shock! Horror!

Look, the racism is not suprising. And it is racism. Britain needs a primer on what racism is, so herewith...The Big Ol' British Come to Jesus Meetin' on Racism.

Racism is...
...calling someone out of their name by either mangling it cause you're not even trying or using what your Racist Frankenstein ass thinks is a generic ethnic name
...rather than using a person of color's name, choosing a food that is allegedly representative of that person's race and using it as their name (e.g. yes, calling Shilpa "Pappadom" is racist)
...about power. So I'm not particularly fussed about a D-list so-called celebrity who thinks the marking on peaocks' tails are EYES, she's got no power. If I got upset everytime a white person said something ignorant about race, I'd be pissed off all the time. [I'm pissed off a lot, but that's 'cause of things like crap lecturer's salary and general GenX/Post-Soul malaise. So there.]


Racism is not...
...racial, as in "She's not being racial." That's just plain ig'nant. If one is discussing traits of race, one is being racial. "Racial" and "racism" are not the same. Racial is about characteristics; racism is about the power to subordinate another person based on race.
...the opposite of ignorance. People seem to think that if a person is ignorant, they don't know better and there, therefore, not accountable for being racist. A person is racist because they are ignorant and ignorant because they are racist. Same thing.
...different than saying things out of anger. If they first thing that comes to mind as a rebuttal in an argument is to point out a racial characteristic, that's racist.

Finally, just because a person is of mixed race doesn't mean they can't be racist. This is about the dumbest thing I've heard so far in the extensive chatter on this issue. A person of color can be bigoted against white people and other people of color, but ultimately not have the power to enforce their prejudice. A person of color (mixed race, whatever) can have internalized race issues where they hate people of their own race. Given that said-celebrity didn't even know her daddy and doesn't identify with black people in the least, she can indeed be racist. And she is.

Do some reading, y'all:
Cultural Etiquette: A Guide for the Well-Intentioned
Rent-a-Negro
anything by bell hooks


Next post: A Note to British People of Color---Fire Trevor Phillips...

Go 'way, I'm in the loo...

Minor, but on my mind in cold & flu season: handwashing. Most British bathrooms (loos, toilets---say 'restroom' and people think you're going to faint) sinks have two taps. You've got your hot water tap. You've got your cold water tap. While most US bathrooms and kitchens have one tap, UK sinks have two. The water from the hot water tap gets Hades hot. The cold water? Hace mucho frio, yo.

The one-tap system is called a "mixer" tap, I guess 'cause they think there's a little sprite in there mixing the water with teeny tiny buckets. Mixer taps are more expensive. Why? You're paying for one, not two.

I'll never get over it. My only solution for face washing is to do the faux mixer tap shuffle: cold water in palm, quickly over to hot water, splash on face. This takes about six more steps than it would with a mixer tap which would be precisely three jubilant, refreshing face splashes.

Bobblehead Posh & Becks Move to LA

Ha! Ha! No take-back-syies!