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Comment by Lawtonfogle | Hacker News Reader

This sounds very close to "Brexit supporters are racist." There seems to be a growing trend of people labeling anything they don't like with some -ist to shut down discussion.

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There is an even faster growing trend of people who campaign on really explicit "stop immigration, prevent foreigners from ruining our culture" platforms turning around and saying 'how dare you call me racist!'

Do people call Japan's immigration policy racist? Or do people not bemoan China controlling Tibet because, among other things, Tibet'd lose their cultural identity (this is separate from the valid argument about annexation and human rights issues). What about Bhutan, should we propose they go full globalization and either take on western culture, or Japanese or Korean culture?

Fundamentally countries have a right to self determination and that includes the future direction of the countries, culturally, economically, etc. So long as it does not encroach on other countries' sovereignty.

Do people call Japan's immigration policy racist? No because it applies to everyone equally. They call it xenophobic because that is exactly what it is.

In the US we actually had a racist immigration policy, the Chinese Exclusion Act [0] because it was actually applied to a single race created by actual racists. Do you see the difference?

[0] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Chinese_Exclusion_Act

Not sure why you're stating things about the US when we're talking about the UK and their policies --which apply to Europeans as well as people from other countries.

And yes, the Chinese exclusion act was by definition racist... But no one in any major western country is talking about excluding one race or even nationality of people outright (Trump talks about "pausing" immigration from conflict zones).

People do speak about controlling their legal immigration and deterring illegal/undocumented/etc. immigration (but pretty much all countries do have visa requirements (or inter country-region agreements) --even those who mainly export workers.

I was just pointing out a flaw in your argument.

I don't actually consider the UK's immigration policy as racist. Short-sighted, definitely. but racist? Definitely not

I'm pretty sure most people familiar with Japanese ethnic views & policies consider them racist. The difference is that Japan doesn't have the same stigmas against racism. In western countries where other freedoms are preached and valued, racism is much more hypocritical.

But these immigration and cultural issues aren't necessarily racist. The weight behind anti-immigration movements includes other social/cultural/economic opinions, in addition to flat-out racism.

Is it though?

There are aspects of their history which was racist and the treatment of people of Korean descent living in Japan for generations is debatably racist (more ethnicist than racist) but their immigration policy, I don't think is racist just because they are very strict about accepting new immigrants and naturalizing people.

Predominantly white countries are not permitted self-determination due to innumerable arguments referencing Hitler and slavery. Protection of cultural integrity is permitted for everyone else.

I don't think "foreigners have a different culture that I don't like" is a racist statement. For a US citizen it's certainly a hypocritical statement, but the case isn't as clear to me for Europe.

It is clear that immigration was the emotional issue driving Brexit. So it would be foolish to ignore that angle. (There were other angles, but I really doubt the resolution would have passed if it was just "EU regulations".)

I think it is also clear that it would be foolish to just focus on the "you're a racist!" angle.

Today's globalization and technology -- while bringing many benefits to the world -- also are leaving a lot of people behind, as seen by the growing inequality in much of the world today.

So you look at the Brexit demographics. The single biggest predictor for the Brexit vote appears to be average educational attainment -- the higher educated the area, the more likely the Remain vote. Social class was also a strong predictor -- lower middle class and above leaned Remain, working class and below leaned Leave. (http://www.theguardian.com/news/datablog/2016/jun/24/the-are...)

The core issue to me, is that no one has really come up with a great solution for people "left behind" in today's economy (eg, those with low education or low skills). For them, things really are worse than it used to be. I know in the US, for instance, that real hourly wages for the lower class actually have fallen 5% over the last 25 years (http://www.epi.org/publication/charting-wage-stagnation/). I cannot find similar charts at the moment for the UK, but I think I remember reading that it's similar (maybe even worse).

I believe a lot of these people have latched onto immigrants as the problem, as a proxy for issues brought on by other factors. Perhaps because immigrant culture is a very visible sign of global change, and they know things are crappier than they used to be... and, well, they blame what is obviously new and strange to them. This is a phenomenon found in many places, from Donald Trump to the Le Pens.

It's wrongheaded -- I believe this vote will economically hurt the lower classes more than the middle to upper class. The world is not going to un-globalize and technology is not going to un-invent itself. But without solutions to address inequality and wage stagnation, I'd expect more votes in the same direction.

Yeah I see that too. I don't have much of a dog in the fight. I am watching across the pond mostly.

But this seems to be the pattern. A lot of young, technical people here, are upset and one way to show their anger and disappointment is to just say their countrymen who voted the way they did hate darker skin colors.

It is hard to argue against that because if they say "that's not why", the reply is probably "oh, but they'll never admin in public, so they are still racist".

I can understand and see anger and effect it has, but I think it show badly and paints them in a bad light. In other words those that jump up and yell racist! are not looking tollerant or in general don't manage to convince other effectively as to why EU was a better option.

(Economic advantage and breakage of those ties is a much better argument and I can see that one being real).

Polls strongly suggest that the referendum was about immigration. I'm sure some of that has to do with racism, but a lot is probably just plain old isolationism and xenophobia. The working class of the UK have been screwed since forever, and it's remarkable that no party is able to represent them. Real wage growth stagnated in the early 2000's even though GDP/Capita kept rising (much like in the US). I find it amazing when talking to UK colleagues that they still talk of "the recession" (meaning the 2008 one) as being an ongoing and current event. The fact that the economy grew somehow hasn't helped small business and regular workers in the UK. The rise of populism is just a response to this middle class squeeze.

There is a lot of talk about Camerons failure, but really what has happened is that the Labour party has been too dysfunctional for too long, and populists like Farage took the opportunity to fill the void.

The distinction between racism and xenophobia is a very fine one. It's a Venn diagram with a huge amount of overlap.

While I do think it's unfair to describe the brexit movement as wholly racist, it's hard to deny that racism was a contributing factor. After all, a big part of the momentum of the brexit movement was a backlash against the Syrian migration crisis.

Since one of the Brexit leave leaders and the main voice calling for a referendum for years is Farage it seems reasonable enough to say that some Brexiters are racist and voted for racist reasons.

Would you prefer xenophobic?

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