Youve hit the nail on the head there, this was clearly the differance between the BNP's beliefs and the statement made by the Home Secratary. He doesnt care what colour skin the Doctors have, just as long as they speak good English. The BNP would want all-white British born Doctors and use language as the excuse.



Freedom of Speech.......just watch what you say.

I don't consider it over the top the expect people to speak the local language. In the case of such parties, it is obvious that there is more behind this though: only to have 'English' doctors. I bet they couldn't care less about the language itself...

You are right of course that the overdone political correctness is really bad as well. It indeed makes it really hard to talk about such subjects at times.

The BNP are having a bit of an uprising at the moment in northern England, they have won 5 or 6 seats at local government level. Its important to view that in perspective though, the chance of them ever getting even 1 seat (out of 650) at central government level is small, but it could happen.

Essetially they are racist bums and I would never vote for them but they do have one or two policies I agree with, for example....

1- When I visit my Doctor I expect the conversation to be in English, good English for that matter, not psuedo Bangladeshi-English which I can barely understand.

2- Fair distribution of local government spending. Currently, in Burnley at least, the proportion of local government spending is weighted greatly in favour of Asian areas.

Now then, just by making the above statements in public, I will be branded a racist. The Home Secratary (3rd most powerful polotitian in Britian) actually spoke out on the Doctors issue confirming his agreement with it and was immediatly condemned by Black communities and called a racist - this is wrong.

The big problem is that open debate regarding the issue is impossible without one party accusing the other of racism. This, in conjuction with point 2 above is what led to the race riots in Burnley, Bradford and Oldham in 2001.

The racism issue is far from being a black and white subject(no pun intended).

Yes, you're right there, but since there's no such thing as real racial differences I tend to use racism and xenophobia as synonyms sometimes... my mistake. The problem here is when you discuss racism you have to think like a racist, see what they consider 'racial' features and what not, and I'm not very good at that obviously. So for me there's little difference between (just random examples) making fun of a German's accent, and someone's appearance.

Of course, but racism is mainly about different looks. There is no obvious distinction between 'Americans' and 'Germans', but you can easily notice if someone is 'Asian' or something. That is what most racists get high about....

Neither is anyone else, racism has nothing to do with 'race', since there is only one human race.

Actually, the 'American Owner' - affair is not so much racist, but more of nationalist. Tuss' story about 'bad' Germans buying houses shows the difference quite well: Germans aren't really another 'race' than 'Americans'...

Mole: and you - being Flemish - don't support them???

Speaking of racism (and even outright fascism); I'm sure at least some of you have heard about the 'tension' in Belgium over the past few months... for those of you who didn't hear of this yet: you should know that both sides are (according to me) total morons, on one side the extremely xenophobic and flemish-nationalist party Vlaams Blok (Flemish Bloc) and one the other side the equally extreme AEL (Arabic European League). And here's the incident that fueled the conflict even more.

I have to agree with Mr Creosote, that's some seriously flawed reasoning... Terrible to see that being so openly discriminating can actually pay off...

but I still don't think to highly of buisnesses when they use that to attract customers. While you could pick up some quick buisness, I think you could get a bad name quick doing something like that, but in a region where most are racist, I guess that isn't a problem.

It is racist because these people give the nationality of someone a monetary value, too. "We're just giving the public what the public wants" is a very poor excuse - basically, you can use it for anything ( "There is a demand for killing people? I'll do it, but that doesn't make me a murderer!" ). How far is it till it comes to what you can see on the attachment again?

They put it in front of their restaurants or, more commonly, hotels. However, I don't see anything racist in that; they just react to the market environment. Only customers that choose those places over others because of those signs are racist.

Tuss: I still don't quite get it. Do they put these signs in front of their own houses or only in front of shops, restaurants and such?

fretz: I had never even heard of the BNP....

Speaking of racism, I live on the outskirts of a small town in Northern England called Burnley which is Englands epicentre of racist violence, we had riots 18 months ago....

http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/uk/1420930.stm

Well, the southeastern part of the US is noted for being more racist than others. These signs indicate to others that the owners are American. Plus there are some Germans buying the land where I was and the people there really resented that. Overall where I was was a lot less derverse than where I live, and thus, they are not very used to that and are quite ignorant.

Huh? And what are these signs supposed to mean?

A bit of both - once a philosopher, twice a pervert

Oh, guess we have a misunderstanding then... I thought sexual liberation was not so much about being an authority on the subject, but more of an attitude...

That is what you said, yes. But from what you said, it is obvious you don't know much about this subject, otherwise you wouldn't have been surprised about this naming-question...

How could you know that? I never gave any opinion about homosexuals, bisexuals or whatever else... All I said was you seem to know much about the subject, and that I don't envy you (and also that I want to see a lesbian called 'Uncle Tuss' of course).