zlacker

DHH chose to link to Wikipedia's page about ethnic groups in London, which is literally about race and ethnicity. Not accent, cultural practices, or national identity. His use of "native Brits" is telling, especially when he follows it with "[a] statistic as evident as day when you walk the streets of London now." The implication is clear when you contrast this language with demographic data about non-white populations.

Reading further into DHH's blog post reveals even more troubling context. He describes Tommy Robinson organized marches as being "normal everyday Brits." When white supremacist, xenophobic marches are your idea of "normal everyday Brits," the mask rather slips, doesn't it? He attempts to equate these marches with legitimate free speech cases like Graham Linehan, trying to make it all seem like reasonable pushback, as if this is just another historical moment of the isles being "invaded". The rhetoric is telling.

It takes DHH only 701 words before he's linking to articles about Pakistani rape gangs. At this point, we're not dealing with subtle implications anymore.

The argument about Danish cultural context doesn't hold water either. Denmark has its own charged political discourse around Middle Eastern and African immigrants. And DHH has lived in the US for roughly 20 years so he's well aware of how these discussions are perceived. As for the Anglo-Saxon history lesson: they were themselves migrants who mixed with existing populations. London was founded by Romans (also migrants!) and has been a multicultural trading hub for over a thousand years. What "native British" golden age is DHH mourning exactly? The 1950s? The Victorian era built on colonial extraction? When precisely was London purely "native British"?

> So now we have recognizable 'native Brits' who look different from modern day 'native Italians' or 'native Germans'.

I'd be curious to hear more about these supposedly "recognizable" distinctions. This sounds remarkably similar to certain early 20th century anthropological theories that we've since... reconsidered.