The point must continuously be hammered home that multiculturalism is not the presence of different coloured people - that would be multiethnic, not multicultural - but the belief that the presence of various cultures in close proximity is not only desireable but essential in a modern society, but only if they remain distinct.
This article attempts to burst that myth.
Encountering younger black people who regard themselves as activists of one kind or the other, I’ve become accustomed to hearing the mantra: “Nothing’s changed.” How would you know? is my instinctive, irritated response. But I tend to keep that thought to myself, because while a great deal has changed, we are still living with a confused and potentially damaging welter of ideas about race, ethnicity and identity.
Today, any person’s identity is, of course, determined by the people they know, the circumstances they encounter and the different kinds of knowledge they acquire. With the ongoing revolution in global communications, and the unprecedented levels of migration and travel, no one can be a simple and irreducible unity. Inevitably, then, national identity and national self-image are constantly changing, and British citizenship is now a political formula that has outstripped ethnicity and racial origins.
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