“Multiculturalism has failed!”
This is often the battle cry of those who just want to focus on the negatives.
Inevitable the phrase is usually framed within a discussion about illegal immigration which, all too often, seems to me is a code word for brown and black people. Social media has turned into an absolute nightmare for many. There are numerous ‘right wing’ content creators. Any cursory check through any of their content clearly gives this claim the lie.
YouTube’s guidelines mean that content creators have to be careful, often employing ‘dog whistling’ to their followers. You just have to check the ‘comments section’ to see that their message of hate gets across very easily to their followers. In the YouTube comments section, many don’t make any distinction between illegal migrants and legal migrants – many of the comments are just straight-up, old-fashioned racist.
Furthermore, the children and grandchildren of first-generation legal migrants come in for a bashin too and are also labelled as ‘migrants’. But that is a paradox – how can you have second and third generation migrants’, when they were they were born and bred in a different country from their parents or grandparents?
YouTube is full of such naysayers. They are paid on the basis of creating content where the more views you get, the more you get paid. This means that it is profitable for content creators to sensationalise and hype-up incidents to create alarm and distress, ensuring that people watch and then come back, again and again. The algorithm then pushes more content of a similar nature to the viewer.
Often the content is recycled from other YouTubers. Top of the list of hate targets are migrants, trans women, muslims, women (who are often labelled as ‘modern feminists’) and Pride. The thumbnail they often use has a picture of the content creator with an aggressive, shocked or alarmed face too.
Unfortunately, social media doesn’t just provide us with an echo chamber, it traps us in one, and is reluctant to let us out. The results is that it grooms and radicalises people, irrespective of age.
What can you do about this? Well, you can support initiatives like South Asian Heritage Month and Black History Month.
We are now deep into South Asian Heritage Month. It’s mission is:’To celebrate, educate, and commemorate South Asian heritage, promoting cultural understanding and participation through diverse events, education resources and community engagement.’
In the UK, the contributions of South Asians to the National story have been largely ignored. Take the Second World War – by 1945 two and a half million people from what is now India, Bangladesh and Pakistan had volunteered to fight for Britain.
For generations of people living under colonial rule, Britain was the homeland, the mother country. South Asians (amongst others) have supported the UK in numerous ways – from fighting in the World Wars, to working double shifts in the mills and the factories in the 60s and 70s when the mother country was, once again, in need of those from South Asia.
Britain put a call out to the old Empire, for its Black and Asian subjects to help rebuild the UK by taking the low paid jobs that British workers would not do.
In recent decades, demand in Britain and West, in general, has stripped South Asian countries of large numbers of their gifted and talented people.
Today, British Asians and those of African Caribbean origin that were born and bred here are contributing to business, the media, sport, politics, civic society and to local communities.
Once you consider these facts then you arrive at a story about immigration which is rarely ever told. We are told that multiculturalism has failed when, in fact, it is a win-win story of stunning success. The truth is that immigration is working pretty well, provided you look in the right direction.
Of course, issues occur from time to time – but an average Saturday night out in a city-centre highlights the embedded issues that the UK has around other issues, such as alcohol and drug abuse, violent crime and sexual harassment.
The contributions of South Asians have rarely been recognised, but it is a history that is more than two centuries old. I would urge you to do you own research. Here at National Centre for Diversity, we have a very useful e-learning course about race and ethnicity, which is a real eye-opener and has received brilliant reviews. Contact us at admin@iiduk.org to find out more.
To find out how our Investors in Diversity accreditation could help you build an inclusive culture, contact a member of our team today by emailing admin@iiduk.org, calling 0800 288 4717 or by completing our online EDI health-check.
