[Ken]

I’ve only traveled to London twice, spending a week each time. But I have noticed a few things to offer a limited opinion. First, I think the levels of racism and xenophobia are pretty much equal between the British and Americans. But what amazed and shocked me about the British I encountered was the blatant nature of the racism. Granted, people in Chicago, and the rest of the US for that matter, have been known to guard their purses and wallets a little more closely around Blacks. But in London they have an almost frightening reaction to encountering a Black person on the subway or the street. I lost track of the number of times their clutched their belongings with fervor unmatched here in the U.S. at the mere sight of me standing there, even burdened with a huge suitcase hanging on one shoulder and a large backpack behind me.I was regaled with a story of the ‘pushiness’ of Jews by a shop owner on the other side of the Tower Bridge, leaving me to wonder what she would say about me when I left. I have been nearly 30 yards away from people while walking the path through Regents Park to the zoo, glanced over that considerable distance and seen people respond to my mere look by clutching their hand over their Walkmans to (apparently) prevent me from leaping Superman-like over that great distance, stealing their radio and flying away, I suppose. I have read the papers about a ‘steaming’ incident where teens flooded a train brandishing a knife robbing riders, and the article sought to make it clear the assailants were Black, while an adjacent article on the more than 300 incidents of drunken bar brawls and assaults on one night in the London area failed to mention the fact that the assailants were white. As for xenophobia, the sports sections of the newspapers were filled with articles about the exploits of the British participants at Wimbledon, but very little about the players favored to win the whole thing: Pete Sampras and Venus Williams. The newspages of the various papers I read had very little on news from the rest of the world, content instead to a series of articles on why the Royal Family didn’t attend the opening of a kids playground dedicated to the late Princess Di. The one place where I felt completely at ease and was treated as just another human was Notting Hill, and particularly Portobello Road. I realize that America is far from perfect but its faults are equalled, and in some cases, surpassed, by England.

User Detail :  

Name : Ken, Gender : M, Sexual Orientation : Straight, Race : Black/African American, Religion : Catholic, Age : 32, City : Chicago, State : IL, Country : United States, Occupation : marketing, Education level : 4 Years of College, Social class : Middle class,