Was at a meeting. Each of the people at the meeting was white and British. Some were from working class backgrounds, others middle class. The majority, if not all, were brought up in areas where people-like-them lived. Not, maybe from the dominant culture as represented on TV, but from the dominant culture locally, where they grew up. I would argue, that makes a lot of difference to a person's outlook.
Myths brought up:
middle class black people do not experience racism.
young people, youth, adolescents (some) are "colour-blind"
black boys not doing well at school (statistically) is the reason there are no black male teachers.
...but Asians do
answers not stated at the meeting: 1)I did partially respond to this at the time with what to me is bloody obvious, that every single person with black skin will have experienced racism at some time in their lives because it's out there. Could have said, middle class people are also racist. They may not beat people up generally or vote for political parties who want deportataion, but they will refuse to give black people jobs or take responsibility for the fact that they work in an culturally or ethnically homogenous environment 2) young people have also been given a lifetime's worth of stereotypes. They also have a wealth of myths and potential sources of fear and hatred. On the other hand, they are generally more open than we are to everything, including "difference". 3) Firstly, I have worked with 2 black male teachers in primary schools - so they do exist. But there may be much more complex reasons for the statistical reason for the predominance of white women in school education 4) I have a feeling they read too many newspapers. All of these stats (or opinions) seem like the kind of thing promulgated in the media and not from personal experience or a specialist magazine article where some kind of adherence to fact is the norm 5) why then did W, who is black and middle class write an article the other month about the lack of black faces at any event she has ever attended at this very institution?