Its odd isn't it how we can discuss most things openly and rationally but the subject of immigration and race is still pretty well taboo.
Am I alone in thinking that something has slowly crept up on us that now we cannot deal with, if I say in public that I am uncomfortable with the close presence of say a person from another country or a person from another culture I am immediately branded as a racists bigot.
Well as it happens I am not, but lets look at the origins of my discomfort.
Although Leakys diggings in Olduvai Gorge suggest the Homo Sapien evolved about 200,000 years ago, its generally considered that modern man evolved about 10,000 to 12,000 years ago.
Now in evolutionary terms thats sub segments of a nano second, so we are not yet different in any significant way than we were then, apart perhaps from being taller, fatter and no longer all black. ( ie if you accept that Leakys theory that modern man evolved from the Olduvai Gorge in Tanzania, then the early ones must have been black)
My real point however is that our inbuilt reflexes will not have changed all that much.
To illustrate my point lets imagine for a moment that we are all sitting around our freshly killed aardvark debating whether the fact that my cave is bigger than yours should automatically mean that I give you more of the aardvark than I get (well thats basically the argument for Council Tax banding)
When into our cave troops a group of strangers, they demand a share of the aardvark, even though they didn't participate in the hunt and then take up residence in the back of the cave, shun our way of life and insist on being fed.
It is unlikely at that level that without any understanding of each other, our imaginary cavemen would be saying " hey lets embrace multiculturism " in the same way as lesser animals are programmed. Sentient beings respond to intrusion by either fight or flight, that is how evolution has programmed them to respond. Do you think that the sparrow on your lawn or garden fence when watching a cat is thinking to itself, hey I know we are different but lets live together, no it flys away damn quick before it comes to any harm
My point being that a wariness of the unknown is a survival instinct built in to us all, not, as the BBC or Guardian would insist, a sign that we are foaming at the mouth right wing racists.
By making debate all but impossible we are left with the shorthand used by lazy media writers i.e racists don't like a person because they are a different colour, a position as ludicrous as it is possible to be. Stop - now and consider that friend of yours who just happens to be another colour, friendship is colour blind
There are lots of people I don't like, and I am sure there are lots of people who don't like me - well thats life.
What the average Brit really feels uncomfortable with is a situation in which " others " ( and in reality no one really gives a damn about their race, creed, gender or sexuality) enter their society and are given preferential treatment. The UK is a nation of remarkably well adjusted people who are also very fair minded, but Governments local or central, that favour the takers over the providers are in fact the racists.
Touching on the subject of sexuality earlier reminded me of my father, he was born in 1919 and used to tell me that in his youth homosexuality was " the love that dare not speak its name " slowly over the years it became what I think we would now refer to as " the elephant in the room " its there, we know its there, but we are not going to acknowledge or talk about it, then came the legalisation on homosexual practices between consenting adults followed by the good old BBC and well meaning Governments progressively presenting it as merely an alternative life style, My father always maintained that if you followed this trend through to its logical conclusion he wanted to die before it became compulsory. He achieved his wish but as he only died a few years ago it was a close run thing