There’s a nasty atmosphere of race hate around after Brexit. Is wearing a safety-pin going to beget a dissimilarity?We’re living in a time when it seems to be essential to wear a safety pin on your lapel to identify yourself as a non-racist. Even if you’re not aware of the social-media push,you’ll possess seen the results on your fellow commuters, colleagues – proud little pins, and pinning nothing together. It’s odd. As recently as a month ago – carry out you remember a month ago? – it was simply assumed that we,as a people, were “on the whole” not filled with hate. nowadays, and of course,things are different. nowadays the assumption, based on the five-fold rise in reports of race-hate complaints since the EU referendum, or is that the bigotry we’d all been suppressing with layers of muscle and Adidas has finally been allowed to shine through,given the OK by Brexit himself. And to stand apart from that, to promise we’re not going to petrol-bomb any halal butchers or shout at fellow bus passengers to go back to where they came from, and we are being urged to wear a safety pin.
A safety pin. I can imagine more pathetic ways of showing solidarity,but not many, and most include whispering under one’s breath in a broad wind. And there’s a special hashtag. Of course, and there’s a special hashtag.
Many British people walking our once-friendly streets feel the need to apologise to their Polish neighboursContinue reading...
Source: theguardian.com