Ethnic groups in England

GCSE Religious Studies (Philosophy & Ethics)

BY KAPIL RAMBURN

Around the 1940's the black ethnic group came to England. Most of them had reasons like:

They needed workers to repair the damage parts of England after the Second World War.
Good jobs
Work as servant for rich merchant
Fought for the war
Education so that they make a good career
Better life
A land of good hopes

Most of them came during the war to help the allies to fight and after the war most of them returned home but the rest of the black Caribbean stayed in England. From 1948 to 1958 about 1000 immigrants per year came to settle in Britain, out of which 60% of them came from Jamaica. In 1952 there was a sudden increase of immigrants and by 1961 there were almost 172,000 west Indians in Britain.

Most of them came to make wealth and to build up good reputation through education and hard work {Celebrating the 50th Anniversary of Britain's first post war immigrations from Caribbean's}

In all these reasons given, immigration to Britain took place because there was hope for making wealth in a fast developing country. But their hopes changed greatly when prejudice and racism came face to face to them.

Examples:

Blacks were not allowed in some shops.
Their rights were restricted.
Black children were bullied at school.
The white community created two classes of people where blacks were regarded as inferior.
Black people were not allowed to be house owners.
And also were not paid well only if they were lucky to get a job.

And there were no laws against that till the 1960's. And all of this came from fear of domination. The white community feared they would loose their land and life so they made up their heads against the black community. And all of this happened because of jealousy, jealous of power.

When the black community's hopes went down they felt bad; all their wishes and good life was scraped and they were scared. Some wanted to stay but some white people made up their mind to make them go. How can human being be so cruel? Is it because they are greedy for money or honour? And if it was for honour but then who was it for is it their own community, wife or jobs. I mostly think jobs just because of fear of losing everything. If you were scared why not acts in a positive way like a legal ...

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If I ask you to give me a good positive response on the arrival of the ethnic groups in Britain. You would say none as I thought but if I ask you the same thing but changing positive into negative? I would say plenty like:

Prejudice/racism
Bullying
Unable to get a job and a house
Nearly no rights
Not allowed in some places
Making them inferior
And many more.

You see I gave 6 main reasons of negative thinking about the way they were received. I think the ethnic group felt really sad and lonely no body helped them that much. They were rejected from many work, school and houses. And most of them have to leave in poor areas and have the unwanted jobs from the white people like picking up litter, builder, cleaner, etc…. Most of the black people lived in towns like Cardiff, Liverpool and London during the 19th century. The black and other ethnic groups suffered great discrimination about houses and employment and also anti-black riots such as the 1919 riots in Cardiff and Liverpool. The league of coloured people was formed to defend the non-whites population and to make white people to get ride of their prejudices against ethnic minorities. Until 1962 immigration act, all the ethnic minority became British citizen and had fought for both of the world war. Even if they fought for Britain in the war there was still discrimination and had the same problem as before like housing and employment. Not until the 1960's the parliament started making laws against racism and educational programs. As years came many immigrant came to England so the first commonwealth act was passed in 1962. That means they limited the immigration with laws like:

People with British passport could come to England
Or they had wives or children here they could come
Or elderly parents
Limited British passport to ethnic groups
Limited the entry of people

They made this law to decrease population and to:

To increase jobs for white British workers
And fear of the ethnic group transforming the white areas into some cities and these into non British areas
Causing overcrowding in towns and cities

I think these problems were caused because they knew little about them and many didn't even know where they came from. The Caribbean was shocked to find that they knew little about them. The black people had made up their minds to believe in was there second home from posters and advertisement.

Example: (it’s a copy I took from a book and I am not allowed to copy the poster but I tried to make it similar as the one in the book)

ARE YOU LOOKING FOR

EMPLOYMENT?

TAKE A TRIP TO ENGLAND

On the Italian Luxury liner

T.N. LUCANIA and S.S. AURIGA

Compagnia di navigazione

FRATELLI GRIMALDI

T.N LUCANIA

Sailing from BARBADOS 25TH JANUARY

Tourist Class Passage $322.00

BARBADOS-LONDON

FOR BOOKINGS CONTACT

CARIBBEAN AGENCY

No. 12 Swan Street, Bridgetown

One of this hundred of advertisments for the passage to England appearingin west indian newspapers.this one comes from the Barbados Advocate, 2 January 1955.

The media gave information about the racial attacks so that later in life it would not happen and also it gives evidence to the police so that they can stop discrimination and the racial attack. Some people also think the 'KKK' only acts in the U.S. but they are right but not only there but around the world. And the news paper shows us what happen. The racist also use the media like some news paper might right there opinion only and the readers get only the personal view of the prejudic and the racist. And the reader might make up their mind agianst black people. I think the more you are inform the more you'll think before you would act. The racism start because of miss information that's why today there is religiouse studies to learn about other people and it's bad to discriminate others.

The racial conflict between people in different areas might vary to the jobs, wages, population and behavior. like if a black and white person apply for a job and the boss was an ethnic person and the black person gets the job because of good CV and the white gets rejected, the white person would think that they are racist. But the problem was he wasn't informed well as he never new the black person had a better results then him. You can see lack of information can lead to big problems. And also jealousy was involve as he was jealouse of the other guy getting the job.

After about 30-40 years the ethnic groups came they have adabted to the way the white society lives. Like the black peoples plays football and the white people plays basket ball.

Other examples:

There is black people in movies now
Now both of the community wears the same clothes
They eat at nearly the same restaurant.
They work together.
They play the same sport(even the black people who where born here plays for england in the olympics)

But there is still discrimination even now but it greatly decrease from when the ethnic groups came to now. The KKK is still in action in UK but they can't act in public as there is high laws for the action they do and they could be sent in jail for ever. So they got cut off there racist action.

It's really disturbing for the ethnic groups in this multicultural society because you would never know what would happen to you like racial abuse. if you are in some area where there are more whites then ethnic groups you would be scared of every corner you turn or go by as you may never know if there is somebody waiting for you to get you. That distubance of fear, fear it will happen again like Nothingham. But there is always hope as there are laws against racism. Hopeful as there is enough information about other culture and race in the education of children that the percentage of racism through and childs mind is low. The children are being teached how to live in a multicultural society. Not only the whites tha are being teached like that but other races.

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