The Ugly Face of British Racism

...A number of mixed-race groups do focus mainly on the civil rights and safety of Britain's ethnic minorities...

...There have been a number of detailed studies here of why soccer hooligans act as they do...

...they are driven primarily by a craving for violence...

...Several BNP supporters, for instance, are known to have been involved in recent bloody confrontations with police in Amsterdam when the English national team went to the Netherlands to play (and lose to) the Dutch eleven...

...they believe, have no future in this country except for prisons, the dole and the drug scene...

...Of the remainder, 2 per cent is black (of Caribbean or African origin), while 3 per cent is Asian...

...The party, in short, is the ugly face of racism in Britain, and its minor election victory has served to accentuate the more discreet bigotry that is widespread here...

...Its doctrines...

...one exasperated London-born young black asked upon hearing what Grant said...

...They are "particularly concerned about the effects of racism on their children, who...

...People have come to me to say that they would like to go back to their countries of origin if the conditions were right, and if they were able to do so and live in reasonable peace and harmony for the rest of their lives...

...Nevertheless, that an avowed racist could be elected has aroused apprehension in Britain's nonwhite communities...

...And its outcome is causing alarming reverberations throughout the country...

...He is unlikely to have any official influence whatsoever...

...Where am I supposed to go home to...

...The unhappy coincidence has aroused fears that the anniversary will be seized upon by German and British neo-Nazi toughs as an occasion for combat, endangering everyone in the stands...

...Even without that assistance, more than 2,000 emigrate to the Caribbean every year (though some have come back after finding the experience disillusioning...

...Only after that match was scheduled for next April 20 did anyone realize it would be taking place on Adolf Hitler's birthday...

...But it was hardly a decisive triumph for him or his party...

...But the response to Grant's remarks has not been uniformly negative...

...Grant's words sounded to them too close to the strident demands of the BNP "Take The Money And Run" mocked a headline in the Voice, a newspaper of the black community...

...A 1976 Race Relations Act outlaws discrimination on the basis of color, race or nationality...

...Britain's ethnic minorities are comparatively recent arrivals, having emigrated since World War II...

...Darcus Howe, the black host of Devil's Advocate, a television talk show dealing largely with race questions, sadly told Grant, his good friend...

...he went on...

...Norman Gelb reports regularly for The New Leader on British affairs...

...The idea of German and British neo-Nazis going out for each other's blood at a sporting event is not as bizarre as it might seem...

...As a political force per se the National Party is of little significance...

...Antiracist endeavors were further undermined when Bernie Grant, MP from the Tottenham district of London and the most prominent black spokesman, raised the specter of repatriation for British blacks...

...But the government-sponsored Commission for Racial Equality reports that "increasing numbers of people" say they have "experienced racism—either directly, when they have been on the receiving end of verbal abuse, or more subtly, when they have been turned down for a job...

...Many in the black community were outraged...

...Repatriation, whether voluntary or otherwise, has no place in the promotion of good race relations...

...You have made us all immigrants again...

...He received a mere 30 per cent of the ballots cast—a total of 1,480...

...Meanwhile, the British National Party has figured in another story: Scotland Yard has uncovered evidence that many of this country's thugs who are responsible for clashes at soccer matches have links with the organization...

...INTEGRATION The Ugly Face of British Racism BY NORMAN GELB London THE MILLWALL ward in the East London borough of Tower Hamlets was the scene of a hard-fought local election in September...

...Beackon defeated the Labor, Liberal-Democratic and Conservative candidates...

...They have drawn hundreds of letters from British blacks, he says, and 80 per cent of them are favorable...

...it has a few hundred members at most...

...Such an exodus would put intense, disagreeable pressures on the majority who chose to stay in Britain...

...Although the antiracist movement is vocal, it is in a chaotic state...

...Racial discrimination seems ingrained in British society, despite the fact that it is 95 per cent white...

...It considers eruptions like the aforementioned anti-BNP riot in East London membership recruiting exercises...

...Paul Boa-teng, a black MP from Brent South, declared...

...Given their profound alienation, a substantial block of blacks undoubtedly would migrate to the former British Caribbean colonies if they had financial assistance...

...Judging from the comments of embittered citizens, most of those who voted for him did so to protest the shortage of adequate public housing in the area, and to register their unhap-piness with expenditures made by the financially hard-pressed Labor-dominated Council in its effort to integrate the district's impoverished Bangladeshi immigrant community...

...Members of the ethnic minorities have consistently tried to rid themselves of the image of being perpetual immigrants rather than ordinary British subjects...

...though, are said to be responsible for a sharp rise in physical assaults on blacks and Asians this year, including many knifings and at least 10 killings...

...Most blacks from the former colonies don't feel 1 ike true Brits, even after two or three generations, because they are usually treated like undesirables or like lovably brainless foreigners with almost nothing to offer...

...Africa or the Indian subcontinent from which their parents or grandparents came...

...Unlike America's blacks, most of whose roots in the United States predate those of most whites...

...All of the findings indicate that whatever the politics of the troublemakers, if any...

...In some cities, however, the concentration is greatly disproportionate...

...Unfortunately, these groups are hampered by the absence of effective unity between the black and Asian communities, and by their lack of strong leadership...

...Black people are nervous about a situation where the political parties have not dealt with the racist threat," Grant observed...

...Moreover, it was to be held in Munich, cradle of the Nazi movement...

...The only neo-Nazi among the 50 members of the Tower Hamlets Council, Beackon is being ostracized both by his new colleagues and by the Council staff...

...Speaking off-the-cuff at a small meeting, he strongly implied that they should be given the option of returning to what he called their "countries of origin" with financial assistance from the government...

...It also led to a riot when a demonstration of several thousand people organized by the Anti-Nazi League was prevented by police from marching on a BNP headquarters in East London...

...Should the success of the BNP candidate in the Millwall election be repeated in additional wards, departures would escalate...

...Still, a great many British blacks and Asians were born here and have virtually no personal ties to the countries in the Caribbean...

...The small, activist, largely white Anti-Nazi League is motivated primarily by Leftist revolutionary politics...

...Now the concern is that they and their German hooligan counterparts will transform a forthcoming contest between the English and German national teams in Germany into a bloody free-for-all...

...In a London Sunday Times article, Donu Kogbara wrote: "Many of us have a very strong sense of elsewhere that is based on rejection...

...Sixteen per cent of the population in Greater London is non-white, for example, with the ethnic minorities about evenly divided between black and Asian Britons...

...The man elected as councilman for Millwall was Derek Beackon, candidate of the far-Right British National Party (BNP), which advocates "rights for whites" and forced repatriation for Britain's blacks and Asians...

...Other prominent British blacks see Grant's suggestion opening a debate on whether blacks should stay or go that can only exacerbate existing tensions...

...The venue has therefore been changed to Hamburg, where violence is considered less likely to erupt—or to get out of hand if it does?because the city enjoys historic friendly, mercantile-based links with England despite two devastating wars in the first half of this century...