Re Birds of a Feather!

Hi Monica yes I agree it was hardly breath-taking results, I think it just displayed the prejudices that all races have against each other some of the time. The results were taken from second hand hear say as well as personal experiences. Now if the author carried out a survey world wide with say several participates from each country of different backgrounds, then another at their university, I wonder what it would they would have shown then. But I think an exercise such as that one, shows there is a mutual inclination to veer towards similar races. But it is a shame to judge others by second hand views and personal experiences, but I suppose that’s only natural even if not fair! Where I live now venturing out late at night one has to give a wide-berth (don’t go near) to certain groups of individuals of different racial backgrounds loitering around because of the fear of muggings and well justified too!

Kids in the playground don’t see race as an issue they do all mix well and get along. So what happens to change this, I can’t speak for the USA but here, our history and culture as not been taught to the newcomers and put on the back-burners! Many here carry on as if in the home lands of the parents and grandparents! When I heard groups of West-Indian youths cheering on Brazil when they played England in football, despite a third of the squad being black if left me puzzled! But now the black commissionaire for racial equality has admitted this policy was wrong and has hasten White Flight!

But this veering towards like kind does not even have to be a racial thing. It can be class, locality, professions, or even county! Someone I knew twenty-five years ago moved down to Cornwall (a rural county in the south-west of England). His wife was pregnant and the neighbours would not let them use their phone in an emergency to call an ambulance! He was back in the home-counties within six months because of their small mindness. To them he was something like Dustin Hoffman in Straw Dogs (very violet film made here in the UK many years back). They were outsiders they were foreigners, even though they were all English! I don’t know if it is has changed down there now. But us Londoners have bore the brunt of immigration over the last few decades, Londoners despite my rants are very tolerant and fair people, they must be no one else would have put up with what we have!

I laughed at some of things in that survey! Someone said that the best they could say of an Armenian were that they could out Jew a Greek!
“During the time I lived in Fresno I saw nothing in the Armenian to make him endurable. Industry and the ability to out-Jew a Greek are his only useful characteristics” I suppose this was a knock at saying they were tight and careful or dodgy with money. Here in London again racial and class preferences can come a calling in your minds eye when dealing with different groups. I have done jobs for all and have to keep my mind on the ball when dealing with all.

Many builder friends won’t touch foreigners because of all the haggling and reneging on deals! One plumber I know was in a café, the Greek proprietor knew he was a plumber. And pointed him out to his Greek friend, who supplied all the material pipes, radiators etc. He done the job, went around the flat to get his money. The bubble (bubble and squeak=Greek) was not there instead a young couple answered, he had sold it and knocked the plumber! Never ever happen to me yet touch wood (although some have tried!) I keep one step ahead! I know roofers who have pulled off roofs of knocker’s houses LOL ( from those that don’t pay their bills) I have only had to do one rip out when someone tried to knock me on a final payment! RE Ripeout (Gaining access and take out material from the installation to the amount that is owed! It left this smart arse property developer with out Electrics. Thought he was going to knock me on the final payment did he! It cost him more in the long run, what Sparky is going to touch an installation, that is now unfinished with wires hanging every where! I don’t bother with small claims court and fees you would dead before you got your dosh!)

So if the plumber was in that survey, the Greeks would be the race (me thinks) that he would hate and distrust, plus all those he told that story too (And I know its true) would put them on the list too, and would not touch them with a barge pole in business again!

As for myself there is good and bad in all but I have found in the majority of cases work and social wise you can’t beat a working class Londoner, not just because I’m one. After doing rewires in the poorest part of London Walthamstow little old pensioners will shove a tip of say a fiver or a tenner into your pocket when you finished your job and they can ill afford it. But a wealthy middle-class family in Borehamwood Hertfordshire with a mansion and a Rolls on the drive, you would be lucky to get a cup of tea! A tip from them would be to work faster and keep the noise down. LOL No they are not all that bad just tight! So we tend to favour our own kind for many reasons, but similarities has to be a big one!
Little green men with antenna start holding me up the street and they are going straight to the top of my list!

I resisted this one and put him on his arse! LOL