A factsheet from Mind, a big mental health NGO in the U.K., laments the inability of the Welsh Assembly to legislate racial equality in mental health:
Both past and recent research suggests that some groups – notably Black Caribbean, Black African and other Black groups – are over-represented in psychiatric hospitals. [7]
The high number of African Caribbean people being diagnosed with schizophrenia is well documented, with some studies reporting between two to eight times higher rates of diagnosis compared to the White population. [8]
The ‘Count me in’ census was introduced in England in 2005 and designed to support the Department of Health’s five year action plan ‘Delivering Race Equality in Mental Health Care’. The census also aimed to support the Welsh Assembly Government’s ‘Raising the Standard: Race Equality Action Plan for Adult Mental Health Services in Wales’. Key goals were to reduce rates of admission, detention and seclusion among black and minority ethnic groups.
I like how the Welsh Assembly, a rather new and ill-defined governmental body, rather than make a priority out of, say, filling potholes, decides to solve a problem that no other government has solved.
Unfortunately the figures show that these goals have not been achieved. [9]
Data from the 2005 ‘Count me in’ census showed that men from Black and White/Black mixed groups had the highest rates of admission to psychiatric hospitals. They were three or more times likely than the general population to be admitted. Women from the Black and mixed White/Black groups were two or more times likely than the general population to be admitted to psychiatric hospitals. Unfortunately, figures from the later surveys, including the 2009 ‘Count me in’ census, suggest the situation is still the same. [10]
White British, Chinese and Indian men were less likely than the average population to be admitted according to figures from all the five Count me in census reports. [11]
Men from Black Caribbean, Black African, and other Black groups were more likely than other groups to have been detained under the Mental Health Act 1983. The figures follow the same pattern in all the ‘Count me in’ reports from 2005 to 2009. [12]
Studies have shown that Irish people have higher rates of mental illness than the general population. [13] The Irish are often overlooked because they are White. Yet studies have found that Irish-born people living in the UK have a higher rate of suicide than any other minority ethnic group living in the country. [14]
Yes, let's ignore the decisions of doctors, cops, and the patients and their families themselves in favor of endorsing the Standard Social Science Model of the impossibility of underlying inequality existing. Having more black male psychotics and schizophrenics wandering the streets is a small price to pay for how much more sanctimonious we will feel after publicly kowtowing to the SSSM.
studies have found that Irish-born people living in the UK have a higher rate of suicide than any other minority ethnic group living in the country
ReplyDeleteYawn. Whites in general have higher suicide rates than non-whites, so this is hardly a surprising finding. In the US white men have a higher suicide rate than black men. (And of course a much higher suicide rate than white women - but you don't see any whiny lefty groups whining about that)
Whites in general have higher suicide rates than non-whites
ReplyDeleteI think East Asians have higher suicide rates.
Of course I thought that was supposed to be "white" people. Or is that only when they're in hot pursuit of the BNP?
ReplyDeleteWho are the truly insane?
ReplyDeleteThe Neuro-Nazis of the Sanity Police? Or are they just haterz?
I wonder if part of this might be due to African populations not responding as well to medications developed for european populations. Medications are not that specific in psychiatry, but i bet the response is different in different populations as their effect is somewhat unpredictable in any case.
ReplyDeleteIf there is neurodiversity then it stands to reason that different interventions are differently effective.
For obvious reasons, the poor Paddies were probably more likely to have suffered child abuse.
ReplyDeleteLots of deadbeats play the system so as to get institutionalized. It beats being homeless. They trade notes amongst each other and know what to say, they feel suicidal or homicidal, they hear voices, the whole shebang.
ReplyDeleteThis is the same stuff that has led Ireland, which never had colonies (being itself one) to stuff itself full of Somalis, Pakistanis, and Africans from places like Nigeria, who get special privileged treatment over natives.
ReplyDeleteAnswer me why? Oh because Irish politicians wanted reliable votes, that's why.
Why are Black people in Wales? Forget the equalizing of outcomes, why are Black people in the place in the first place? It is not as though Nigerians moan "Oh we don't have enough Welsh people here. Let's import some, so we can have really good choruses of 'Men of Harlech!'"
The real question is: Was Taffy a thief because he was a Welshman, or was it just coincidence?
ReplyDeleteDon't the Welsh put people in psychiatric hospitals for alternate sexual orientations, like, for example, NOT being attracted to sheep?
ReplyDelete(A great job I had a few years back was moved to Wales. I'm still bitter about it).
Whites in general have higher suicide rates than non-whites
ReplyDeleteI think East Asians have higher suicide rates.
but you don't see any whiny lefty groups whining about that
I dunno...
ReplyDeleteI mean who be crazier? Caribbeans who got themselves into UK to live off welfare or white folks who allowed them to arrive in the first place?
Isn't PC a kind of mass lunacy?
Whiskers said: Answer me why?
ReplyDeleteHunsdon replied: Nice white ladies? I mean, seems to be your answer to everything else.
Are we any better? Bushitis among Americans that got Bush II elected, and then Obamitis that got Barry elected.
ReplyDeleteWhen a people freely elect a government that spreads propaganda such as this, I call that crazy.
ReplyDeleteAnd what about liberals who think SKANK WITH DRAGON TATTOO is the greatest moral testament of the 21st century?
What is the underlying mechanism for this higher than average rate of psychopathy among blacks in Wales? Vitamin D? Is this constant throughout Northern Europe?
ReplyDeleteI have my own theory about psychotic disorders but, of course, I'd need some statistics to back it up. I believe collectivist cultures as well as certain child rearing practices, especially those incorporating religion, cause a greater incidence of psychosis. Any upbringing encouraging a person to believe society, "the man" or the devil has more control over the individual than the individual asserting his own will should contribute to the amount of psychosis in a population.
ReplyDeleteAnswer me why? Oh because Irish politicians wanted reliable votes, that's why.
ReplyDeleteSo who exactly are these "Irish" politicians that have been liberalizing Irish immigration laws?
Here's one: Alan Shatter, the only Jewish member of Ireland's parliament http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Alan_Shatter
Here's what he's been up to:
"Shatter introduces visa waiver scheme"
http://www.irishtimes.com/newspaper/ireland/2011/0512/1224296752885.html
"MINISTER FOR Justice Alan Shatter has introduced a visa waiver scheme where visitors with a valid permit for the UK will not need a separate visa for Ireland.
“This is a major change in public policy,” Mr Shatter said. “It is the first time that Ireland has contemplated such a programme and as such it is proposed that it be pilot tested from July of this year to October 12th.”"
Having more black male psychotics and schizophrenics wandering the streets is a small price to pay for how much more sanctimonious we will feel after publicly kowtowing to the SSSM.
ReplyDeleteIs anyone on the planet arguing in favor of this?
"Whites in general have higher suicide rates than non-whites"
ReplyDeleteI think East Asians have higher suicide rates.
Hard to say. The CDC does not break out East Asians from Asians in general.
I am tired of Western civilization revolving around black people. As Whiskey said, what the hell are they doing there?
ReplyDeleteThis is clearly the fault of women. Women who HATE HATE HATE beta males.
ReplyDeleteWhile the Welsh NGO complains that blacks are "over-represented in psychiatric hospitals", the US Surgeon General is annoyed that "racial and ethnic minorities collectively experience a greater disability burden from mental illness than do whites. This higher level of burden stems from minorities receiving less care and poorer quality of care, rather than from their illnesses being inherently more severe or prevalent in the community".
ReplyDeleteIf you are determined to see racism it's easy to find it wherever you look.
Well, from what I've always heard, blacks tend to skew toward mania, while whites and Asians tend to skew more toward depression. I don't know the relatively prevalence of the different rates of mental illness, but they do tend to take different forms.
ReplyDeleteAnd obviously, people behaving like maniacs tend to attract more public attention than people moping around very depressed.
"Studies have shown that Irish people have higher rates of mental illness than the general population."
ReplyDeleteDue in the USA, to the 16 "No Irishman Need Apply" signs that every Irishman claims he saw* 150 years ago.
Hmm.. a discussion about relative rates of mental illness in Wales, and of course the anti semites from Mangans need to blame it all on the usual suspects. Alan Shatter is just one man in a huge group of politicians that flooded Ireland with a dysgenic tide. Why single him out?
ReplyDeleteI don't remember the context, but this line from 'The Commitments' now seems insightful: "Do you not get it, lads? The Irish are the blacks of Europe."
ReplyDeleteOne small step for mankind: Pat Buchanan was at the Local Lefty Bookstore tonight discussing his MSNBC-upsetting book and a new biography of him by an English journalist.
ReplyDeleteThe LLB audience seemed well-disposed to Buchanan’s views on trade and foreign policy, which I think are bagel-brained, but less well disposed to his views on immigration and culture, with which I agree.
As I said, a small step.
"I don't remember the context, but this line from 'The Commitments' now seems insightful: "Do you not get it, lads? The Irish are the blacks of Europe.""
ReplyDeleteYou're an idiot. Had you the least bit of interest in psychology you would've recognized years ago that those mental health diagnoses don't manifest the same across populations. In many cases, the symptoms vary so greatly an intelligent person would consider adding new subcategories of mental illness or perhaps scrapping the existing system altogether.
Plus I'm not so certain that blacks are diagnosed more often with schizophrenia specifically as they are psychosis.
"Anonymous said...
ReplyDeleteAlan Shatter is just one man in a huge group of politicians that flooded Ireland with a dysgenic tide. Why single him out?"
Why single him out? Perhaps because he is the Minister for Justice and Equality.
"I am tired of Western civilization revolving around black people. As Whiskey said, what the hell are they doing there?
ReplyDeleteSlave trade.:
I know in the US, but I meant Ireland and England. Now Iceland has some.
Lack of Vitamin D may play a big role in may of those cases of mental illness, especially in countries at a high latitude.
ReplyDelete"For obvious reasons, the poor Paddies were probably more likely to have suffered child abuse."
ReplyDelete"Due in the USA, to the 16 "No Irishman Need Apply" signs that every Irishman claims he saw* 150 years ago."
"I don't remember the context, but this line from 'The Commitments' now seems insightful: "Do you not get it, lads? The Irish are the blacks of Europe.""
Look at national suicide rates. Ireland is about average for white western countries (about the same as the US) and it is much lower than white eastern european countries. Check Wikipedia.
Justify your disdain with some facts.
Street drugs interact very badly with mental illness. More street drugs, worse mental health results, start to finish. Increase in diagnoses of schizophrenia, BPAD, depression, personality disorders; poorer compliance with psychiatric medications; less robust response to medications even if taken; greater likelihood of coming to the attention of the law, which increases chances of mental illness flare-ups being noticed.
ReplyDeleteI've done this for a living for 35 years. Don't guess, learn.
Paavo's speculation actually does have some evidence behind it, though it's not a dominant factor. The stress-model explanations also have some support, as MI is often multi-factored, so being from a bad neighborhood/family/school also has some correlation. Just not the main cause.
Street. Drugs. Look no further.
Any upbringing encouraging a person to believe society, "the man" or the devil has more control over the individual than the individual
ReplyDeleteMy parent believed only in shrinkery, and nearly had me believing that my inscrutable subconscious had more control over me than I did.
Even the Enlightened have their demons.
Henry Canaday said: The LLB audience seemed well-disposed to Buchanan’s views on trade and foreign policy, which I think are bagel-brained, but less well disposed to his views on immigration and culture, with which I agree.
ReplyDeleteHunsdon replied: Paging Abe Foxmon on line one, re "bagel-brained."
On a more substantive note, I would be more enthusiastic about free trade were other countries willing to give up their national economic policies. Otherwise, it smacks too much of the people who thought the US and NATO should abandon nuclear weapons, in the hope that it would set a moral example for the Soviet Union.
Why should there be any blacks in Wales? The term "welsh" is actually an anglo-saxon word meaning "foreigner" or "slave". The Angles and Saxons applied it to the native celtic people of Britain. Now the people of wales are called foreigners in their own land in the conqueror's tounge. Well, perhaps they are.
ReplyDeleteMr. Anon asked: Why should there be any blacks in Wales?
ReplyDeleteHunsdon theorized: Tom Jones' backup singers? http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=pRQtldkHT3E
Having more black male psychotics and schizophrenics wandering the streets is a small price to pay for how much more sanctimonious we will feel after publicly kowtowing to the SSSM.
ReplyDeleteThere is another solution.
Lock up more marginal/borderline white patients and bingo the Balance is restored.
So how am I to digest this? There are not enough white psychopaths?
ReplyDeleteOf course if Britain hadn't let blacks (psychotic or otherwise) into their country in the first place, this wouldn't be a problem.
Alan Shatter is just one man in a huge group of politicians that flooded Ireland with a dysgenic tide. Why single him out?
ReplyDeleteBecause he is the most powerful and most destructive immigration proponent in Ireland.
It's outrageous that you would defend him.
Shatter is an asshole but he's only been a Minister since feb 2011. Lay off him a bit. The visa waiver idea isn't even his. It's the labour party's
ReplyDeleteIrish people don't do well in Britain. Never have. Most Irish people who go there tend to want to stay for a brief period to work so they never set down roots. Brief periods tend to turn into not so brief periods and the guest worker condition tends to become permanent. Add in a nice dash of racism and you've got problems. Tory England is the best for the Irish as it's less racist. Scotland is the worst. Followed by Liverpool. The Irish in Scotland have some of the worst socioeconomic stats in Europe.
A lot of the worse mental health stats of the Irish in UK are Irish travellors or gypsies. These are ethnically Irish people who got displaced in the mists of time by the english. They have learned in recent times that the English are a soft touch so many now live over there. Karma is a bitch.
Our immigrants arn't terrible all things considered. Our Muslims are better than what you find in UK for example, mostly professionals(Our doctors emigrate so we get Indians. This is very Irish). Ireland has school choice protected by the constitution and there is increasing segregation. Employers discriminate against Irish for low pay jobs and in favour for middle class work. Welfare is generous even by European standards. That's keeping a lid on things, for now.
"Alan Shatter is just one man in a huge group of politicians that flooded Ireland with a dysgenic tide. Why single him out?"
ReplyDeleteIf White people siad Jews should intermarry with non-Jews until they ceased to exist as a unique people then Jews would consider that genocidal and exterminationist. Yet that is precisely what Jews promote for the various White nations.
It seems fair to point out Jewish behavior that they would call genocidal if it was the other way round.
I'm sure that if enough people make fun of them over this they'll drop it.
ReplyDeleteWho is insane? Either way, you are.
ReplyDeleteSailer is insane for not keeping his mouth shut up about race. It really hurt his career in journalism for saying something that's gonna brand him as 'evil' and 'racist'. In this day and age, what sane person would says certain things that are surely to derail one's career?
On the other hand, Sailer would be insane if he ignored the biological basis race and pretended it has no impact on society. To be PC is to be deluded and hysterical. One would have to pretend to see what's not there and pretend not to see what is there.
So, you see, either way, one can be declared nuts.
does schizophrenia really vary by that much between groups?
ReplyDeleteand thanks to whoever linked to that article in a previous topic about the czech scientist investigating toxoplasma gondii and how it infects humans. it was fascinating to read that he has implicated it in playing a role in schizophrenia.
the infection hypothesis of disease could really be on to something.
Hey, guys,--
ReplyDeleteNot to worry about the Irish. They're bound to be wealthy (their capital's been doublin' for years and years).
Carol:
ReplyDeleteYour parents may have been right on the amount of control exerted over you by your subconscious. Or maybe not.
The answer to that question is, for all of us, beyond cmprehension.
Maybe--just maybe--that's why it's called "the subconscious."
"No Irish" was something I saw in the late '30s (in Buffalo, NY--on "For Rent" signs).
ReplyDeleteAs to why Welsh felt the need to import blacks ,perhaps because they would feel whiter in comparision!
ReplyDeleteThe Welsh in general tend to be darker and shorter than the average Briton as they are of mostly Ibero Roman(King Arthur) extraction.
So much so as recently as the early 1900s when a blonde was born in a Welsh family,the child was refered to as Sassenach(the Saxon)
English emigration and intermarriage mustve changed that.
The Welsh were also responsible for the Tudor dynasties and were disproportionately represented in the infantry on Norman side in the Battle of Hastings.
Also Cather
ine Zeta Jones is Welsh...they can offically rest on their laurels
Castor oil enemas, with a generous addition of fluoride!
ReplyDeletehilarious since wales is one of the whitest areas of the uk.
ReplyDelete96% are native white. 0.5% are black or mixed, a smaller share than iris citizens
"Irish people don't do well in Britain. Never have. Most Irish people who go there tend to want to stay for a brief period to work so they never set down roots. Brief periods tend to turn into not so brief periods and the guest worker condition tends to become permanent. Add in a nice dash of racism and you've got problems."
ReplyDeleteI thought I've read that a quarter of the English population has Irish ancestry. Lennon and McCartney are of Irish descent.
>Your parents may have been right on the amount of control exerted over you by your subconscious. Or maybe not. The answer to that question is, for all of us, beyond cmprehension. Maybe--just maybe--that's why it's called "the subconscious."<
ReplyDeletePoison. The proof of the existence of the subconscious is precisely the fact that it (piecemeal) can be brought into conscious awareness. If this weren't so, then "the subconscious" would indeed by a religious construct, ascertainable only by blind faith, mystical penetration, the Inner Eye, etc. (i.e., undemonstrable assertion).
And there is an onus of proof issue here. It's invalid to demand evidence for rejection of x, unless some evidence in favor of x is presented first. Mr. A: "Elves live on Venus. Prove that they don't." Mr. B: "Why do you think elves live on Venus?" Mr. A: "I just do - now prove they don't." Mr. B: "I can't." Mr. A: "So elves DO live on Venus. Or maybe not. The point is, you have not established that they don't." Psychologists aren't called shrinks for no reason.
Columbia Univ study on Blacks in Alameda County California found that "African Americans were about 3-fold more likely than whites to be diagnosed with schizophrenia"
ReplyDeleteInt J Epidemiol. 2007 Aug;36(4):751-8. Epub 2007 Apr 17.
Race and risk of schizophrenia in a US birth cohort: another example of health disparity?
http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/17440031
Of course it is a totally unrelated fact... but research psychiatrists have repeatedly found that lower IQ is strongly linked with higher risk for schizophrenia. Even back in 1984 they were already conducting meta-analysis review studies.
http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/6382590
Whites (not Asians), especially lower IQ whites, have the highest rates of suicide.
Quibbles:
ReplyDeletePsychologists aren't considered shrinks and don't much deal in intangibles like the subconscious.
Research psychiatrists?
Reverse the two terms, please, they are anything but interchangeable.
lower IQ whites, have the highest rates of suicide.
ReplyDeleteThat's news to me, considering that life, and society, are so good to them.
" thought I've read that a quarter of the English population has Irish ancestry. Lennon and McCartney are of Irish descent."
ReplyDeletePaul was entirely Irish descent. Lennon's mother was Scottish & English. His father, who was raised in an orphanage, was of dubious parentage and one bio I read said Lennon Sr.'s Irish ancestry was uncertain.
George Harrison's mother was Irish entirely. Not sure about his father. There are pictures of George in Ireland visting relatives as a child.
David:
ReplyDeleteIn no way do I insist (nor even suggest, for that matter) that there's no "subconscious"--only that I have no way to establish whether or not such a thing exists. And, though I also cannot answer such question for other folks, I have no basis on which to believe (or even suspect) that their "ways of knowing" differ from my own. It's much the same as belief/disbelief in existence of a deity or "supernatural" forces in general, for that matter.
We do know there are conditions within ourselves of which we may have no at-the-time awareness, which become known and explicable as autonomous responses to one or another condition but I don't think that those who believe there's a subconscious would include such phenomena.
In speaking and constructing our vocabularies, however, we are not limited to only those concepts we can explain or justify on some rational ground; the sky's the limit! Thus, we have numertous words to signify things whose existence we're not at all sure about (magic, demons, ghosts, telepathy, clairvoyance, telekinesis) and even some of which we can make no sense whatever (omnipotent, omniscient) but attach to a concept of deity.
"Subconscious" seems, to me, to be just the same sort of concept.
I don't remember the context, but this line from 'The Commitments' now seems insightful: "Do you not get it, lads? The Irish are the blacks of Europe."
ReplyDeleteI don't know about Europe. But in in Britain the Irish are very overrepresented in music and sports and entertainment, so in that sense they can be considered to be "the blacks of Britain".
The British snooker champion Ronnie O'Sullivan is of Irish descent. So are the Gallagher brothers of the band Oasis. So is Elvis Costello, and Alan Rickman, and so on.
I'm surprised to see so much stuff here about the Irish. I expected to see the usual slagging on Jews, gooks, geeks, and religious heretics.
ReplyDelete"Dr Van Nostrand said...
ReplyDeleteThe Welsh in general tend to be darker and shorter than the average Briton as they are of mostly Ibero Roman (King Arthur) extraction."
That is a ludicrous assertion.
"......and were disproportionately represented in the infantry on Norman side in the Battle of Hastings."
Completely false. There were no welsh at the Battle of Hastings. It was a contest between the Saxons and those frenchified vikings known as the Normans.
You might ought to reconsider using movies and graphic novels as historical sources.
gene said: Paul was entirely Irish descent.
ReplyDeleteHunsdon replied, with shock: The walrus is dead?
"gene said: Paul was entirely Irish descent.
ReplyDeleteHunsdon replied, with shock: The walrus is dead?"
No comment. But among the top best short stories of the 20th century: "The Dead" by quintessential Irishman James Joyce who died the year John Lennon was born.
People asked about source data for claim that lower IQ is linked to higher suicide rate, and that suicide is highest in Whites.
ReplyDeleteLower IQ is associated with higher suicide rates in males:
http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/21296426
http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/20522657
http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/19606920
http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/18626557
http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/18331576
Rates of suicide (age adjusted rate per 100,000) are higher in adult Whites than other ethnoracial groups:
______________Asian_Hisp_White_Black
2001-2003 Male 10.7__12.7__27.6__12.7
2001-2003 Female 3.8__2.1__6.5__2.3
2004-2006 Male 10.1__12.0__27.8__12.5
2004-2006 Female 4.4__2.3__7.1__2.2
2007-2009 Male 11.4__12.7__29.7__12.1
2007-2009 Female 4.7__2.4__7.7__2.2
Data source is CDC's Health Data Interactive
http://205.207.175.93/HDI/TableViewer/tableView.aspx?ReportId=166
People asked about source data for claim that lower IQ is linked to higher suicide rate, and that suicide is highest in Whites
ReplyDeleteObviously, suicide being highest in whites is not consistent with suicide being linked to lower IQ. If it were linked to lower IQ then we would expect that blacks and Hispanics would have higher suicide rates than whites.
Your links are to studies in Sweden mostly, plus one each in Britain and Australia. But one of the striking things about suicide is how variable it is. From the wikipedia list of countries by suicide rate, we see that Hungary has a male suicide rate of 40 per 100,000. Italy's rate is a quarter of that - 10 per 100,000. Romania is in between, at 21 per 100,000.
The Hungarian rate used to be even higher than it is now; it has been dropping since the end of communism.
New Zealand (20 per 100k), Australia (15) and the UK (11) show a significant variation, even though they are genetically very similar countries.
I know it's heresy to suggest this around here, but there seems to be a sizable non-hereditary component to suicide.
I'm surprised to see so much stuff here about the Irish. I expected to see the usual slagging on Jews, gooks, geeks, and religious heretics.
ReplyDeleteI don't suppose it ever occurred to you that you're not as smart as you think you are.
The Welsh in general tend to be darker and shorter than the average Briton as they are of mostly Ibero Roman (King Arthur) extraction."
ReplyDeleteResponse by
"Anon":That is a ludicrous assertion."
Go to Cardiff and announce loudly in the town square the King Arthur was not one of theirs and please info me on their reaction.
That the Wales are considerably darker than the average Briton isnt exactly a state secret or a wild conspiracy.They take pride in their exotic appearance!If you are unaware of it or if it pains you that a European ethnic group isnt as white as you would like them to be-thats really not my problem!
"......and were disproportionately represented in the infantry on Norman side in the Battle of Hastings."
Response by "Anon":Completely false. There were no welsh at the Battle of Hastings. It was a contest between the Saxons and those frenchified vikings known as the Normans.
You need to brush on YOUR history.There were many non NOrmans who fought on the side of Normans, including the Welsh and Bretons and the non Norman French from the South.The Welsh were still seething from the Saxon conquests.
Response by "Anon":You might ought to reconsider using movies and graphic novels as historical sources.
Oh dear,I hope you are not implying that King Arthur was an Englishman unlike those pesky movies and graphic novels which portray him as a Roman gone native!
Much talk about Irish ancestry in England - yes, it is substantial, but it's probably a lot higher in Scotland, where real etho-religious tensions between the two groups still exist. Also, how many of the Irish ancestors of this or that English person were themselves English? There is a good chance that the answer is "some" or "many", but virtually no chance that the possibility will be entertained, still less investigated. For the purposes of the propagandists, as soon as one ancestor who can by any standard be described as "Irish" is found, the guillotine slams down on the need for any further research. In the wikipedia age, an informal one-drop rule appiies to the English and the Anglo population of the Anglosphere: any trace, however small, of Irish/Scottish/Welsh (and indeed any other non-English) ancestry is pushed front and centre and the person becomes "of (implicitly 100%) x ancestry".
ReplyDeleteGeorge Harrison is a good example: a man from the north of England with an archetypal, old, northern English surname - but these two dots are apparently impossible to join, so his Wikipedia entry is instead swathed in purple prose about his "deep roots In Ireland" (or at least it was for a long time - I think it's been toned down now).
It just starts to feel like the deliberate erasure of the English(-descended) identity. Which is bad enough in the US or Australia, but intolerable when it happens here.
Londoner:
ReplyDeleteVery true!
Dr Van Nostrand:
Although I cannot prove it, I have no doubt that the Welshies are on average shorter than the English. Just ask any (extremely rare) tall Welsh woman/girl where she feels a freak - England or Wales?
This makes sense when you consider that the Dutch (cousins to the Anglo-Saxons) are the tallest in Europe.
A lot of Welsh have dark hair and eyes (Tom Jones, Catherine Zeta Jones etc) but they tend to be very pale, like the Irish, not swarthy.
*how many of the ancestors of the Irish ancestors of this or that English person*
ReplyDeleteby the by, I find that Irish incomers into England and their descendants generally assimilate and eventually become proud to be English a lot more readily than do the Scots and perhaps even the Welsh. Not altogether sure why, but IMO the English have more in common with the I than with the S or the W. Peter King types will doubtless disagree furiously from their country on the other side of the world!
I read once a study on ECT, electro-convulsive therapy (electric shocks) and who will get it, in terms of ethnicity (and probably gender and social class, education etc.)
ReplyDeleteAs I've had learned from movies, ECT is administered often as a disciplinary measure against difficult patients, I expected the Black males to receive a lot of electricity, but surprisingly, turned out they get less. Is it a symptom of an inequality, are they deprived of quality care?
Then I started to ponder that it might be interesting to crosstabulate the ethnicity (and religion...) of the psychiatrists and the patients in ECT treatments, is there different patterns for instance with Jewish psychiatrists and Goim?
_ ---
that was written because somebody was missing comments about Jews ...
Obviously, suicide being highest in whites is not consistent with suicide being linked to lower IQ. If it were linked to lower IQ then we would expect that blacks and Hispanics would have higher suicide rates than whites.
ReplyDeletePerhaps a dumb Hispanic or black man finds himself surrounded by people just like him and they all feel dumb & happy together, while a dumb white man is more likely to find himself facing persons considerably smarter & unsympathetic to his plight (look at how smart white liberals love to deride dumb whites) and the awareness of his shortcomings & isolation becomes intolerable.
I generally find the physical stereotype of the Welsh to be very true. Relatively short, dark skinned, black-haired and pale-eyed. There is a secondary pale-skinned stereotype too, but the very dark hair and squat stature is a constant.
ReplyDeletePerhaps surprisingly, there is also a fairly prominent population of blonde (and often very attractive) Welsh women. Singers Katherine Jenkins and Duffy, TV presenter Lisa Rogers, model Lucy Whitehouse, more. Blonde Welsh men, however? There are hardly any. Two rugby players - Andy Powell and Alix Popham - spring to mind, but Popham has a solid Anglo-Saxon surname. Obviously this is an approximation of what you'd expect in most (northern) European populations - Steve's articles about the "fairer sex" are still some of his best IMO - but the darkness of the males is not seen in England, Scotland or Ireland.
The predominance of coal-mining in south Wales, where the majority of the population is concentrated, must have had an impact - tall men simply cannot mine coal, as 6'4'' George Orwell discovered when he spent a day down a mine, being struck equally by the shortness of the miners and the obvious impossibility of his ever being able to work in those circumstances. I don't know if the north Welsh are taller on average.
What divides the English from the Welsh, racially speaking, is a very interesting question. The Anglo-Saxons were heavily concentrated on the east coast, the midlands and the north, and while there were secondary concentrations in the west, largely frontiersmen in the centuries-long conflicts against the Welsh, they never settled the south, south-west or west anything like as heavily. And yet the physical differences between the Welsh and the English - of every region - remain obvious. I suspect that the pre-Anglo-Saxon inhabitants of what became England were never simply the same people as what became the Welsh - that they were substantially different ethnically and physically before the Germanic incomers were ever heard of. And most interestingly of all, there are faint suggestions that the pre-Anglo-Saxon population of what later became England may even have been a Germanic people of a vastly older stock. There is one mysterious area in Gloucestershire in the far west where the place-name evidence for this is compelling. The almost total lack of Welsh/Brythonic words in Old English - at least a few borrowings would have been expected if the conventional narrative of gradual settlement and some intermingling is even close to true - is also interesting.
Anyway, sorry to drag this off topic, just thought I'd throw a few ideas out there.
Londoner
ReplyDeleteSwansea was a founded by the vikings and the Welch Marches were ruled over by Norman Lords - 3rd generation vikings.
Also, in the other direction, if you go to St Davids Cathedral in Pembrokeshire, you will see the tombs of the local lords from the 12th century. Their surname was Wogan. And, as you might have guessed the Wogans invaded from Ireland and took the area over.
Maybe the Wogans were descended from the vikings who founded Cork and Dublin, or maybe they were also Celtic types.
St Patrick was Welsh and was kidnapped by raiders from Ireland, who could also have been vikings.
Also, back to the Germanic Eastern English, prior to the Anglo-Saxon invasions, the possibly Germanic Belgae could be found not just where Belgium now is, but also in Dorset:
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Belgae
For the purposes of the propagandists, as soon as one ancestor who can by any standard be described as "Irish" is found, the guillotine slams down on the need for any further research. In the wikipedia age, an informal one-drop rule appiies to the English and the Anglo population of the Anglosphere: any trace, however small, of Irish/Scottish/Welsh (and indeed any other non-English) ancestry is pushed front and centre and the person becomes "of (implicitly 100%) x ancestry".
ReplyDeleteI suppose that can be looked at from either side. Plenty of propagandists exist who are intent to claim any accomplished person of mixed Irish/English ancestry as English. Several months ago there were people here arguing vehemently that U2 are an English band rather than an Irish one.
George Harrison is a good example: a man from the north of England with an archetypal, old, northern English surname - but these two dots are apparently impossible to join, so his Wikipedia entry is instead swathed in purple prose about his "deep roots In Ireland" (or at least it was for a long time - I think it's been toned down now).
You're overreacting. The relevant passage from wikipedia reads:
George Harrison, MBE (25 February 1943 – 29 November 2001) was an English musician, guitarist, singer-songwriter, actor and film producer who achieved international fame as lead guitarist of The Beatles.
..
His mother was a Liverpool shop assistant, and his father was a bus conductor who had worked as a ship's steward on the White Star Line. His mother's family had Irish roots and were Roman Catholic; his maternal grandfather, John French, was born in County Wexford, Ireland, emigrating to Liverpool where he married a local girl, Louise Woollam.
Even "deep Irish roots" is hardly "purple prose"
As for your archetypal, old, northern English surname ..
As chance would have it, my sister (Irish) works in Britain. As a psychiatrist.
ReplyDeleteHer husband, also Irish, is an ob/gynie.
Apparently the bulk of doctors in Britain come from other countries in Europe. Or perhaps just the bulk of the doctors in the NHS.
Not altogether sure why, but IMO the English have more in common with the I than with the S or the W. Peter King types will doubtless disagree furiously from their country on the other side of the world!
ReplyDeleteI don't disagree, but have to observe that you seem to be pretty free with your imaginings of what you think Peter King believes from your vantage point in your country on the other side of the world.
Recent anonymous: I know the Harrison wikipedia article has been amended - I was referring to an earlier version of it. Interesting to read about G. Harrison the Irish Republican - of course in the old days the movement was not synonymous with the ethnically Irish/Catholic - many of its prime movers were Anglo-Irish Protestants of sometimes very recent British descent (that hasn't been the case for a while now, although Sean MacStiofain (actually John Stephenson) was a fairly big player in the IRA in the 1970s. Good website for surname mapping here: http://worldnames.publicprofiler.org/Default.aspx?region=!WORLD-EUROPE. A search for "Harrison" makes the origins and dissemination of the name pretty clear.
ReplyDeleteAnd yes my Peter King comment was trite and a bit cheap, so I withdraw it.
A search for "Harrison" makes the origins and dissemination of the name pretty clear.
ReplyDeleteI don't dispute the origin of the name. I'm just pointing out that you said this:
In the wikipedia age, an informal one-drop rule appiies to the English and the Anglo population of the Anglosphere: any trace, however small, of Irish/Scottish/Welsh (and indeed any other non-English) ancestry is pushed front and centre and the person becomes "of (implicitly 100%) x ancestry".
You said that by way of arguing that certain "Irish" people born in Britain should not be considered Irish, but British. Even if their last name is "O'Sullivan". So you can hardly turn around now and appeal to the ancient roots of the Harrison surname.
Could you clarify what you mean by ""Irish""? My contention has to do with people of (specifically) English AND another ancestry, and the systematic downplaying of the former and amplification of the latter. The specific point wuth regard to surnames is that an obviously Irish (etc) one will generally be co-opted to demonstrate Irishness etc, whereas an obviously English one is pretty likely to be ignored as signifying anything much.
ReplyDelete