A bien-pensant progressive reluctantly admits that vibrant multiculturalism and immigration has made a reluctant racist of her:
In the Nineties, when I arrived, this part of Acton was a traditional working-class area. Now there is no trace of any kind of community – that word so cherished by the Left. Instead it has been transformed into a giant transit camp and is home to no one. The scale of immigration over recent years has created communities throughout London that never need to – or want to – interact with outsiders.
It wasn’t always the case: since the 1890s thousands of Jewish, Irish, Afro-Caribbean, Asian and Chinese workers, among others, have arrived in the capital, often displacing the indigenous population. Yes, there was hateful overt racism and discrimination, I’m not denying that. But, over time, I believe we settled down into a happy mix of incorporation and shared aspiration, with disparate peoples walking the same pavements but returning to very different homes – something the Americans call “sundown segregation”.
But now, despite the wishful thinking of multiculturalists, wilful segregation by immigrants is increasingly echoed by the white population – the rate of white flight from our cities is soaring…. I, too, have decided to leave my area, following in the footsteps of so many of my neighbours. I don’t really want to go. I worked long and hard to get to London, to find a good job and buy a home and I’d like to stay here. But I’m a stranger on these streets and all the “good” areas, with safe streets, nice housing and pleasant cafés, are beyond my reach. I see London turning into a place almost exclusively for poor immigrants and the very rich.
It’s sad that I am moving not for a positive reason, but to escape something. I wonder whether I’ll tell the truth, if I’m asked. I can’t pretend that I’m worried about local schools, so perhaps I’ll say it’s for the chance of a conversation over the garden fence. But really I no longer need an excuse: mass immigration is making reluctant racists of us all.
It’s not an accident that the loudest liberal voices still preaching the glories of immigration and multiculturalism live in safely lily-white enclaves. The vocal anti-racist McRapey lives in Bradford, Ohio, which the 2010 Census describes as “98.9% White, 0.2% African American, 0.1% Native American, 0.2% Asian, 0.1% Pacific Islander, 0.3% from other races, and 0.3% from two or more races. Hispanic or Latino of any race were 0.9% of the population.”
Meanwhile, tends of thousands of progressive and pro-affirmative action liberals with children who can’t afford to live in an elite, heavy-security White Zone are fleeing their increasingly vibrant communities for the very communities that their kind have spent the last fifty years decrying. Their actions speak much, much louder than their words. And their actions are far more intrinsically racist and segregationist than the words of George Wallace or Enoch Powell ever were.
Immigration in very small numbers tends to strengthen a society. Mass immigration, on the other hand, is simple invasion and it destroys a society through occupation, disruption, and displacement.