The City of Liverpool has one of the oldest established Chinese communities in Europe. Trade between the port and China dates back 175 years – and the first Chinese immigrants settled there about thirty years later in 1866.
Nowadays it’s easy to fall into the trap of thinking that economic migration into Britain is a relatively new thing. It’s easy to forget the many waves of immigration over centuries – creating the diverse society we are today.
Each community was new once, so I wondered if there are therefore some lessons to learn from such a long-established community about how such to settle and become part of the scenery.
Alan Seatwo came to Britain to study and settled here. He’s now vice chair of the Liverpool Chinese Business association, so I thought he was the ideal person to discuss this.
On Monday 26th October this year a large gang of youths surrounded and attacked a 22 year old gay man, James Parkes, as he left a bar in Liverpool City Centre. He was left with serious head injuries.
The attack is being treated by Police as a homophobic hate crime and some arrests have already been made.
This was not the first attack of its’ kind. Recently another gay man was beaten to death in Trafalgar Square London. Going back further there have been many other such atrocities, including the murder in Liverpool of Michael Causer last year.
Liverpool’s Lesbian and Gay community is holding a vigil in the city on Sunday November 1st as the nation increasingly wakes up to the reality of homophobic violence.
In my official capacity as Chair of the North West Region’s Equality and Diversity Group I agreed with my associates that I would make this statement of support to the organisers of the vigil.
There are several ways you can listen to Just Plain Sense Podcasts. You can play them in-situ just by clicking on the control at the bottom of each item; you can download the MP3 file by clicking on the link for that; or you can subscribe via iTunes or an RSS reader.
Last week I included a new kind of content - a so-called Audio Boo from a man you wouldn’t have heard of before. This is all well and good for those of you who come to the web site. However, as Audio Boos get included in the show’s feed, it might have come as an unannounced surprise to those of you who subscribe to hear a strange voice and a different format. I’ve explained more in this Audio Boo of my own.
I’m featuring this short Audio Boo blog piece by @Documentally because of the salutory tale it contains.
Suppose you’re blind and take the guide dog you rely on to Paris for the day? What if someone told you that you couldn’t bring it back because of quarantine regulations?
Just Plain Sense provides a mix of talks and interviews about Equality and Diversity in Britain today. There is a particular emphasis on the 'developing' areas such as LGBT but overall I set out to capture a truly diverse range of voices to talk first hand about what it means to work towards and live in a tolerant, diverse society -- and what we still need to do to get there.
Christine Burns
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