vbfg wrote:I agree with all of those. But what do any of them have to do with the success or failure of multiculturalism in Bradford?
Then I can only say that you're blind. Especially so if you think the Pakistani / Bangladeshi part of the city is one when it's as fractured as everything else.
You've really never come across people who've never left the housing estate they grew up on? I grew up with people who were proud to say that.
You've never met the Pringle jumpered Volvo driver who hasn't been into the city for years?
Would you be also telling me that you've never come across professional middle class people from Asian backgrounds? Are they all Indian or something?
You really are blind.
I don't think such a thing does exist. It's one of the reasons I haven't said it does. What I have said is that Bradford highlights the way all modern society is segregated and alienated from itself, and that race and religion are just two other means by which that happens. There is nothing unique about the problems Bradford has except perhaps degree.
I did give examples of where people from different backgrounds but with similar outlooks work together, if that's what makes you think I do believe it exists. Here's another. I work at the university. We have the highest proportion of students from the same city of any in the country. I see thousands of young people from this city with similar outlooks in life integrating just fine.
In all the places I have lived I have also seen it happening, and that includes Manningham and Great Horton. I lived in the latter for ten years, right in the middle of BD7 - the worst of the post codes you mentioned. I've also seen it not happening in those places, as well as the estates I grew up on, and it's always the mouth breathers with no idea of what they could be other than what their parents were. We have many of those of every stripe and it doesn't matter if your parents conceived you in a Kashmiri mountain village, a middle class suburb of Lahore, Ilkely, or under the pool table in the Holme Wood Bound.
There are plenty where schools are allowed to discriminate on the grounds of religion, if that's what you mean. I think it's disgusting, fwiw.
For just shy of forty years.
I'm not claiming it's a paradise. I'm saying if you look at things through a race coloured lens then race is what you'll see. It's *way* more complicated than that.
Again your view of Bradford and mine are polarised - what you see in university - which you seem to hold much store by - is hardly representative of the culture as a whole. Do you honestly see a raft of cross culture marriages?
The fact the city centre is dead suggests issues of access i.e. one culture simply will not use it - as a result the whole suffers especially as those that will not use it gain in numbers - integration it is a fallacy. In Bradford you do not see retail cohabitation - it either all white or all Muslim - take Leeds Rd, why is their no white-owned shops from Thornbury to town and no Asian shops in Saltaire/Baildon?
I would suggest there are no issues with the Indians - perhaps their numbers - approx 8k - are too small to notice the issues they may cause. Although I do think they feel integration is important whereas the P/B Muslims see domination as the key.
The fact the council pays for and allows Feversham girls college is a tangible example of how integrated Bradford really is? It would be interesting to see what might happen if Carlton Bolling banned girls and Muslims?
For me you are oblivious to the real concerns of certain sectors of the community - how successful have the Bulls been in attracting a multicultural audience?
It doesn't help that the white population has a chip on its shoulder and large elements of Holme Wood, Ravenscliffe etc have generations of families where maximising benefit monies is an art form.
As I said we must agree to differ - I see the race/religion as a huge issue in this city you dismiss is blip and that the city is a model of multicultural integration - as you say you see everywhere you look.
2. Scottish is the national language of these fare Isles mate. Didn't you know ? 
