We regressed. After the murderous 90s and the shitty 2000s we had some years up until the pandemic in which racist politics didn’t have the same draw it has now.
Just like any country, we did not defeat racism. We let it bubble under the surface and now it’s exploding. There are still millions of people who don’t think that way. But the majority is now totally fine with racialized politics.
Sometimes I wonder whether what we’re seeing is actually a regression, or whether that’s just what’s easier to believe. As you highlight, this has been bubbling under the surface for a while, so one could argue that it never really went away.
I often think about how the UK likes to pretend it doesn’t have a problem with antisemitism. Before WW2, there were plenty of powerful people in Britain who were thinking that Hitler was a sensible chap to be finally addressing “the Jewish problem”.
Sure, some of these people were probably horrified when they learned of the mass extermination programme under Nazi Germany, but they were plenty fine with seizing the property of Jewish people and putting them into ghettos. But nooooo, of course we don’t have a systemic problem with antisemitism — we beat the Nazis! We’re the heroes, don’t you know?
We regressed. After the murderous 90s and the shitty 2000s we had some years up until the pandemic in which racist politics didn’t have the same draw it has now.
Just like any country, we did not defeat racism. We let it bubble under the surface and now it’s exploding. There are still millions of people who don’t think that way. But the majority is now totally fine with racialized politics.
Sometimes I wonder whether what we’re seeing is actually a regression, or whether that’s just what’s easier to believe. As you highlight, this has been bubbling under the surface for a while, so one could argue that it never really went away.
I often think about how the UK likes to pretend it doesn’t have a problem with antisemitism. Before WW2, there were plenty of powerful people in Britain who were thinking that Hitler was a sensible chap to be finally addressing “the Jewish problem”.
Sure, some of these people were probably horrified when they learned of the mass extermination programme under Nazi Germany, but they were plenty fine with seizing the property of Jewish people and putting them into ghettos. But nooooo, of course we don’t have a systemic problem with antisemitism — we beat the Nazis! We’re the heroes, don’t you know?