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Is racism on the rise again?
Well, is it?
I sorta feel like it is?
Casual racist jokes seem to have sneaked back into comedian's sets. My family all seem to be a lot worse than they used to be, and seem to start every statement with 'I'm not a racist but [insert properly racist comment]...' And you can't argue with them, you just get called a 'leftie', as if that's a valid argument.
I was in an Italian restaurant last night, where a guy was openly shouting quite loudly at his black girlfriend that all the 'coons should go back to being slaves and picking cotton in the fields for us'. I think the irony of various things in that sentence was lost on him.
Likewise after the riots, a whole bunch of very level-headed people I know started to dredge up some very old antiquated lines of reasoning I thought we'd discarded a decade ago as the blame for the problems, and overlooked all the white, affluent kids getting prosecuted.
And what with recent football chants, unemployment in the home counties rising and public resentment spilling out and needing to find something to take their shit out on... I dunno?
I just get the *sense* that trouble is, sadly, brewing again.
Does anyone else think this? Or is this just a bunch of weird incidents that I'm reading too much into...
[Disclaimer: I live in SE London now, had some jerk chicken last week and bought a record by Edan this week so I am DEFINITELY not a racist.]