You're making me really angry at this point - particularly because you're dismissing the experience of my friend in such an arrogant way, and in wider terms again reducing structural racism to "a couple of dickheads". So genuinely scary and upsetting racism is all just ' a couple of dickheads' if there aren't any "ethnic ghettos, widespread racialized street gang violence or regular EDL rallies"? Right. That does make you pretty blind and deaf, tbh.
I obviously concur that that this blindness and deafness has no necessary connection with your being white, again demonstrating that you have understood nothing of what I have said before; it's that your worldview is impervious to new information, and you can safely ignore/not listen to any new information on the subject because you are white (as of course can I, whenever I choose to; if I wanted to I could then blame all racism on 'a couple of (thousand) dickheads', and round and round we go while nothing changes). What's that phenomenon called again..?
You have absolutely zero sincere interest in discussing the subject - well, maybe your own interest is in not having to acknowledge how the world is and feel difficult feelings - so I am finally making good on my promise and withdrawing at this point.
https://exepose.com/2019/02/27/misogyny-and-racism-in-exeter/ - Tea's response: "Oh that's really bad, just some random dickheads though!" The writer is comparing Exeter unfavourably TO PORTSMOUTH. And her friends live in Exeter too, probably for three years
just like you (read the piece to understand, if you're bothered).
And interestingly, she rebuts the exact point you try to make: "Even before this incident, I was more scared here than in my hometown where murders and assaults happen frequently."
It's not about intellectual arguments and pointing to statistics; it's about visceral fear and whether or not you are forced to feel it because of how you appear.
Discriminatory violence from structural racism/misogyny/ableism etc cannot be 'measured out' against ordinary violence, and as it happens, Owen Jones is particularly good on this point...
But I think even your full original sentence is incorrect. Or at least a gross exaggeration. Yes, I'm white, but that doesn't make me blind and deaf. Exeter does not have ethnic ghettos, widespread racialized street gang violence or regular EDL rallies - all of which are found in some cities with much bigger ethnic minority populations, where black and brown people still live despite an obviously higher likelihood of hassle or violence.
It's not 'civic pride' - I don't come from this part of the country and have no particular spiritual bond with the place. It's just annoying in that I've lived here for three years and have some idea what it's actually like, and you're telling me I'm wrong because you've visited occasionally and had run-ins with a couple of dickheads.