Racialization does not require discrimination on grounds of biological differences, as most of the migrants who came after 2004 were white, the discrimination they faced was based on differences in cultural practices. Race is not a biological construct but a social one that can have catastrophic effects. Race is not a trait of migrants but rather it comes part and parcel with the marginalisation and exclusion they experience.
This post will expose the issues, changes, and acceptance of racialization towards Polish migrants in the UK. It will touch upon the mess of what many call Brexit, and how this has led to detrimental effects upon the Polish community. These events have left them vulnerable in a place they call home.
The history of Migration to Britain has proven that there is a trend of opposition to new arrivals in this country. But what happens when these new arrivals are not so clearly “the other”? What about the arrival of immigrants from nations that identify as white, are these groups free to live unaffected by forms of racism? What does this mean for our definition of racism previously outlined?
by Tallulah Brennan The battle to tackle Britain’s deep-rooted racism has thus far been long and unsuccessful. As of yet, no change in government, no border policies and most significantly, no EU referendums have done much to alleviate this struggle. In...
Image: © Channel 4/Plimsoll Productions by Alishba Chohan You may have seen in the news recently that a certain skeleton known as ‘Cheddar Man’ has received newfound attention in discussions about British and racial identity. Despite his discovery in Cheddar Gorge,...
by Tania Stein The anti-immigration rhetoric that pervades much of the tabloid media, especially around debates over Brexit or the so-called ‘Migrant Crisis,’ often focuses on ‘economic migrants’ and ‘fake’ refugees. They have been depicted as “swarming” or “flooding”...
by Laura Brewis Despite the political and media representation of the current ‘immigration crisis’, the issue of mass migration of people into the United Kingdom is not a new phenomenon. There was a great deal of public distress in the early 1800s about Irish...
by Ana Maria Ortiz Larrea For the 800.000 Rohingya who have fled Myanmar this is, most likely, the last image they have of their village: smoke, the sound of bullets and thousands of people running to an uncertain safety. The feeling of fear and horror is not new and...
A recent scandal outlined in the Guardian reported that former Commonwealth citizens are being threatened with deportation under a new hardline approach to British immigration policy. In this article, immigrants who have lived in the UK since the 1960s describe how they came to discover they were never naturalised and therefore would be treated as illegal immigrants by the home office. In one particular instance, a Paulette Wilson was sent to the infamous Yarl’s Wood immigration removal centre. These stories only shed light on the latest chapter in a broader trend dating as far back as the influx of commonwealth migrants, originally encouraged to come to Britain as cheap labour. It seems to me that the Brexit and post-Brexit spike in anti-immigrant feeling is nothing new, despite the target somewhat shifting towards Middle Eastern refugees and Eastern European economic migrants, but is instead a natural progression of a culture of scapegoating, alienation and racism that has indiscriminately affected migrants of all colours and creeds thanks to government policy and media manipulation. I have done some research into the underlying policies and media tactics through which immigrants have been marginalised in order to understand how such draconian and outdated attitudes towards migrants have been able to flourish.
Across our world, borders are controlling the imports and exports of a country’s goods. The question we ask is whether the sentient human should be considered as an export, is this humanly just? Border control has never been as strict as it is today; factors such as the ‘Brexit’ vote, the fear of terrorism and the significant increase in the world’s population over the last century have all triggered this sudden urge to be more controlling of what comes in and out of our country, referring to the flow of people. Should a world that is considered ‘free’ be this controlled? Can a person considered free if they are unable to go where they please?
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