Elf Blood

Now, as many of you know, I’m not originally from Manchester, or even Glasgow. No, I hail from the far-off magical land known as Hong Kong. While I was born there to one British parent and while it was still a colony, I still consider myself (and have had to deal with many of the issues pertaining to being) an immigrant, having moved when I was about five or so. Okay, I’ll happily admit that much of it has worn off, having lived in the UK for a good number of years. But I still get bloody angry when I hear people complain about immigration.

Now, I understand that unchecked immigration does not a prosperous country make; Care must be taken to avoid a country’s social care system is not overloaded, or at the very least that every user makes a contribution towards its upkeep. What irks me, no, pisses me off, is the attitude that all immigrants are the root cause of so many problems with the country.

Admittedly, it’s not exactly the upper echelons of intelligence breaking out this attitude, but enough people I used to know have expressed this view that it worries me. Why is there this attitude that people are ‘coming over and stealing our jobs’? In my workplace, there’s a lot of diversity, but the majority of employees and new employees are white Brits. Seems about the right level of mix, if you ask me. On the flip side, if some people (often the same people making the ‘THEY TUK URR JRBS” argument) are to be believed, all immigrants do is hoover up social benefits while providing nothing back to society. Interestingly, if you asked somebody to describe the stereotypical picture of somebody refusing to work and having children to survive on the benefits, you’d receive back the image of an uneducated working-class white Brit, whose family have probably lived in the same town for centuries.

Obviously, none of these stereotypes are anywhere NEAR an accurate reflection of life at large. My query is, why the hell do these preconceptions persist? I thought it was 2013, not 1813; Surely, at this stage in human societal evolution we should just treat everybody the same? Why haven’t we reached the point at which we are able, as a community and a system, to educate people that they don’t NEED scapegoats to blame their problems on, rather to accept responsibility for the obstacles we ourselves have put in our own paths? Like me, for instance: I’m not climbing the corporate ladder as quickly as I could be, and I don’t have a girlfriend. I could blame not going to the right uni, or all of female-kind for not noticing me, but the reality is much simpler: I choose to be a writer and an artist, and I choose to do a good job in that path. Thus, I’ve had to sacrifice the extra hours I might otherwise work, or the time in which I could be finding the right person. Rather than blame, blame, blame, I’ve come to the realisation that it’s my own decision that has put me at a disadvantage in these other fields, and because I own that decision I feel like I’ve got a little more power over my life.

Anyways, I shall tidy away my soapbox for now, and hope you enjoy today’s page! Cheerio for now, and I’ll see you on Friday!

M.