Dogwash

I rambled on the other day about the convenient beatification of Tariq Jahan, my point being that Mr Jahan's fortuitous intervention diverted attention from the actual underlying problem, namely the balkanization of British society into inward-looking ethnocentric tribal groups each with a culture not only of nepotism and ethnic favoritism but also of ready resort to intercommunal mob violence: a process which not only bodes ill for social cohesion and integration but less obviously puts those of us in the much more diffuse default culture at significant disadvantage.

And along comes an interesting for-instance. I'm rather surprised that this story got under the editorial radar at the Lancashire Telegraph. I can only assume they saw it as a White racism story rather than a Paki violence story.

The gist is that some White bloke in Darwen lost his rag in a local "Asian" shop. Now I don't know the background to this any more than you do. It might have been unprovoked "recreational racism". On the other hand it may have been a common-or-garden dispute over something unconnected with race. I don't set much store by reports like

A 24-year-old man, believed to be a resident of the house, had been cautioned for making racist and abusive comments.

If someone is annoyed enough at me to call me "stupid four-eyed get", I don't automatically assume that he is motivated by dioptrophobia; more likely he just needs a handy characteristic to hang his abuse on.

But it's the sequel to the altercation in the shop which makes this case interesting. Did the shopkeeper shrug the incident off? Did he report it to the police? No, he mobilized a small militia of friends and family and went round to attack the difficult customer at his home.

Let's run that one along the breaking news ticker again, shall we?

Customer upsets Paki shopkeeper. Shopkeeper gets 30 men to attack the customer and his mother at their home.

Because if the ethnicities had been reversed, this would have been headline news on the BBC and Sky and the CiF race posse would be typing their fingers off.

Instead we get a passing mensh in the local rag.

I wonder how much of this goes on, unreported.


And another thing that puzzles me. If you have issues with your local "Asian" small businessmen, why continue to patronize them? I'm not familiar with the delights of shopping in Blackburn and Darwen, but here in the Occupied Territories of Greater Woolwich there are plenty of White-run businesses to use, mostly chain stores. If your corner shop is hostile and racist and overcharges you for duff goods, go to Morrison's or Lidl.