Soren wrote on Jun 7
th, 2012 at 1:56pm:
When you look at two people of different races, race is not the only thing that is different in the vast majority of cases. Most people discern these other, non-biological differences (tintedness, nose shape etc).
And after a few encounters they realise that there is an unmistakable pattern. And so from then on, it becomes a matter of statistical patter-recognition, if you like.
A bit like the climate, 'racism'. This used to be a European country but parts of Sydney look like an Asian or Middle Eastern place, just as London looks like a European city only architecturally, not demographically. demographically it is a Nigerian-Paki city.
We are having a very obvious demographic 'climate change' in Australia - and the UK, Scandinavia, Western Europe, North America.
It really is marvellous, isn't it? Take Bradford. Only a few years ago it was full of snow-white washerwomen and football hooligans - terrible people. Most backward. Not a tan in the place.
Now Bradford is leading the way. It really is the model of a civilized, multicultural melting pot. People of different shades and nose shapes happily coexist side by side. Whoever would have thought?
Now I'm not usually one to blow my own trumpet as it were, but I do think that the Faculty of Pakistani Studies has played an influential role in this transformation. We've helped to shape the statistical patter-recognition in our own small way, and we have, I believe, been largely successful.
It's a credit to our marvellous team, of course. Yes, the architecture has helped, but I also put it down to the tintedness and nose shape of the great people of Bradford.