The Daily Telegraph reports:
The British countryside is a “racist colonial” white space, wildlife charities have claimed.
Wildlife and Countryside Link, a charity umbrella group whose members include the RSPCA, WWF and National Trust, made the claim in evidence provided to Parliament on racism and its influence on the natural world.
MPs in an all-party parliamentary group (APPG) were informed that the British countryside has been influenced by “racist colonial legacies” which have created an environment some fear is “dominated by white people”.
The country’s green spaces are governed by “white British cultural values”, the report argues, and the perception that the countryside is a “white space” prevents people from other ethnic backgrounds from enjoying the outdoors.
The Wildlife and Countryside Link report was submitted to MPs on the APPG for Race and Community, which had called for evidence on the links between “systemic racism” and climate change.
The call for evidence comes in the wake of academic “hate studies” experts launching a 2023 investigation into “rural racism” in the British countryside.
‘Cultural barriers’
One section of the new Link report seen by The Telegraph argues that there are “structural, experiential, and cultural” barriers preventing ethnic minorities accessing the countryside.
It states: “Cultural barriers reflect that in the UK, it is White British cultural values that have been embedded into the design and management of green spaces, and into society’s expectations of how people should be engaging with them.”
It adds that “racist colonial legacies continue to frame nature in the UK as a ‘white space’”, and claims that “the perception that green spaces are dominated by white people can prevent people from ethnic minority backgrounds from using green spaces”.
The report suggests that there should be a “rights-based approach” accessing green spaces, suggesting that the Government create a “legally binding target for access to nature”, possibly by ensuring everyone has a green space within a 15-minute walk from their home.
“Cultural barriers reflect that in the UK, it is White British cultural values that have been embedded into the design and management of green spaces, and into society’s expectations of how people should be engaging with them.”
What does this word salad even mean? Let me translate:
The British countryside consists of farm fields, hedgerows, moors, mountains, footpaths, tracks, bridleways, quaint villages, and stunning coastal cliffs, sand dunes and salt marshes. All that stuff (natural and man-made) is embedded into its ‘design and management’, which is of course influenced by our British cultural heritage and history. How the f*** could it not be?
So, I suggest a simple user guide for beginners re. “expectations of how people should be engaging with” the structurally racist and colonial white space countryside:
Keep to the footpaths (unless on open access land), don’t eat the sheep, don’t have sex with the sheep (unless in Wales) and don’t rob or rape passers-by.1
On the issue of whether brown and black people should legally have a right to access to the countryside within 15 minutes of where they live (mainly in towns and cities), it seems to me that you can’t move the countryside to the city, so you’ll have to move a legally binding quota of brown and black people to the countryside. Because if you don’t do that, they will be ‘imprisoned in inner city ghettos by their fear of traveling to the countryside for a nice walk and a picnic and finding themselves surrounded by a discomfiting majority of white people plus structurally racist fields, woods, meadows, sheep, cows, rocks, rivers, hills and mountains’ - or something.
In its defence, our racist and colonial white space is not totally unwelcoming to non-whites. There are many place names for instance which are diverse and inclusive:
Some black and brown people who love the British countryside and quite rightly do not feel out of place there are understandably pissed off with this virtue-signalling woke nonsense coming mainly from white middle class lefty charities. I quote:
But Mrs Braverman, the former home secretary, rebuffed the claims on social media and wrote: “No, the countryside is not racist.
“Since my childhood, I’ve spent countless holidays camping, trekking, fruit-picking, orienteering and enjoying the British countryside. My ethnicity never posed a problem.”
Mrs Braverman, 43, is of Indian origin, with her family belonging to the Indian diaspora. Her mother and father immigrated to the UK from Mauritius and Kenya respectively in the 1960s.
She continued: “The great thing about the UK is that people are welcome if they have a positive attitude and respect others. Let’s keep it that way by focusing on character, not skin colour.”
Wilfred Emmanuel-Jones, the founder of The Black Farmer food range, has also slammed the charity’s comments.
He said that people researching alleged racism “tend to be from white liberal backgrounds” and are “always pushing the narrative that blacks are victims”.
He added: “That is my greatest frustration – if you’re black, somehow you’ve got to be a victim of something.
“It’s going to perpetuate the idea that parts of Britain are a no-go area for people from a certain background. People might assume it’s racist, but they are listening to the narrative – I could tell them the reality.”
He added: “You can’t go to rural Britain and expect it to be the same as being in an urban environment, but because it’s different doesn’t mean it’s racist. If you want to advance diversity in this country, you can’t keep presenting the countryside as racist.”
Well said Wilf and Suella.
British natives used to engage in such scurrilous activities on lonely rural paths and byways in days gone by but it is generally frowned upon now.
I think they have a point. I'm sure the countryside would be less dominated by whiteness if memberships of the WWF, RSPCA and National Trust were to experience a massive efflux of any horrible white people who help fund them.
Yes, up here in the Yorkshire countryside we really could do with some cultural enrichment.
We are very short of muggers, stabbers, acid attackers, ULEZ schemes, grooming gangs and all the other advantages that city dwellers enjoy so much!
I can't imagine how we have survived for all these centuries without all the advantages of the inhabitants of the Khanate of Londistan.