Trump’s Angry America meets Brexit’s Racist Britain (video)

It is famously said that the United States and Great Britain are two nations separated by a common language, but when it comes to the vocabulary of racism it seems we are not that different at all.

Of course, it would be remiss not to mention the parallels that many are drawing between the Brexit movement and Donald Trump’s campaign rhetoric. Trump has publicly supported Britain’s vote to leave the EU, and folks told NPR’s Frank Langfitt that “similar issues — globalization and economics — are driving the Brexit and U.S. presidential campaigns.”

In an article called “What Do The Brexit Movement And Donald Trump Have In Common?” the New Yorker‘s John Cassidy wrote:

“Certainly, a parallel factor in both men’s rise is racism, or, more specifically, nativism. Trump has presented a nightmarish vision of America overrun by Mexican felons and Muslim terrorists. UKIP printed up campaign posters that showed thousands of dark-colored refugees lining up to enter Slovenia, which is part of the E.U., next to the words ‘breaking point: The EU has failed us all.’ “

NPR 25 June 2016

The far right are on the rise in Europe and the US and the following two videos give a glimpse of a possible future for both continents that is more reminiscent of the 1930s than the free and optimistic millenium we were once promised.

Trump’s Angry America (BBC Panorama)

As Donald Trump becomes the official Republican candidate for America’s presidency, Panorama visits the racially divided town of Bakersfield in California. Reporter Hilary Andersson meets the Trump supporters who back his calls to oust 11 million illegal immigrants and ban Muslims from travelling to America. She talks to those who fear what a Trump White House would mean for them and asks why America is so angry.

Password: imincorrigible

Video © BBC Worldwide

Reporter Hilary Andersson
Producer Matthew Hill
Director Matthew Hill
Editor Ceri Thomas

Racist Britain (Channel 4 Dispatches)

Channel 4 Dispatches reveals the reality of the impact of the EU Referendum on xenophobia in the UK. For the past six months Dispatches have been tracking a rising tide of hate – online and on our streets, and can reveal the true scale of racism in Britain.

Racist Britain, fronted by Seyi Rhodes, reveals:

There were more than thirteen thousand tweets that used terms that could be seen as Xenophobic and racist in the week immediately after the EU referendum.

There were 2413 original accounts of hateful incidents, which were shared over fourteen thousand times.

After the Brussels attacks there was a tripling the number of Islamophobia messages that were being sent in the UK, from around 216 tweets per day before the Brussels attacks to on average 680 a day after the attacks. In the week following the attacks, Demos identified and captured almost 60,000 tweets from people in Britain using words that could be seen as Islamophobic.

Almost five thousand of these were angry, severely derogatory and explicitly anti-Islamic.

The National Police Chiefs Council recorded a 400% rise in hate crime in the week that followed the referendum.

Terrorism, ISIS, the Rotherham child grooming scandal, and now Brexit, have all resulted in sharp increases in Islamophobia.

DEMOS – study of xenophobia post-Brexit:

Demos have developed software that recognizes abusive language on social media, they have created a study, with Dispatches, to monitor racist and Islamophobic tweets.

Immigration was a leading topic of conversation in the referendum, and in just one week there were more than two hundred and fifty thousand tweets discussing the subject matter.

After the decision was announced Demos saw a very large increase in discussion about migration and immigration on social media.

There were more than thireteen thousand tweets that used terms that could be seen as Xenophobic and racist in the week immediately after the vote.