I am only just spotting this reply (sorry!) - it must've come through without notifications - and you raise some interesting points and some interesting testimony. So here I am, four months down the line, formulating a reply.
First up, I think you're right in your assertion that there are significant differences in the UK and the US. The word you were looking for was Chav. It's purported to mean 'Council House and Violent' but is much more likely to be from the Romani word Chavi, meaning 'child' - the class system over here is far more pronounced in the UK than it is in the US and writers like Owen Jones write about the demonisation of the working class by the middle class. That doesn't mean we don't have racism, we do... but it means our racism and your racism are different.
The problem in the UK is that we have picked up the US identity led agenda and applied it over a system that doesn't share all of its characteristics. Now it is simply a new vehicle for middle class people to virtue signal to each other. There is a greater stratification across the class system of people of colour, many of whom are absolutely baffled by the white insistence they are fragile people who must be protected at all costs. In the US, race is more closely aligned with class - but the numbers don't work in favour of black people. You are ten times more likely to be in poverty if you're black, because of all the racist systems you've highlighted in your stories - but you still have ten times as many poor white folks as black. To combat racism you have to show poor people (of all skin colours) that the enemy is the system as set up by rich white folks. Trumpism doesn't do that, but neither does identity politics - both focus the entire discussion on skin colour not poverty.
I will take exception to your comment about me being a Trump supporter. I am not a Trump supporter and I do not write to appeal to Trump voters. If you read a selection of my pieces you will likely find my position is very left and very libertarian. The latter is more normally found in the right wing, but that is not where I reside politically.
Your stories add nuance and a real visceral feel to what racism looks like in America. As I've always said, I'm anti-racism - but I do not approve of the methodology the left is currently using to tackle it. Wanda's approach 'white people are all guilty and until they wake up and realise it we are stuck' will result entirely in the last three words of that approach 'we are stuck'. Economic socialism, community projects funded by central government and upward mobility of youngsters out of poverty is how you tackle racism. How do I know? This article is about how that succeeded in my country.
Thanks for hopping on and adding value and apologies it took 4 months to reply. :o)
