99% of my landlords don't want Afro-Caribbeans or other troublemakers

[fractionMan]

Weak.

I had a job once, with a UK company but recruiting for a company based abroad. I was doing the interviewing, up until I was asked not to send any black or gay people, anyone over 30 or any men with long hair. I quit and was very sad to see a colleague take over the role and agree to do it. (The UK company's contract was coming to a close and they apparently weren't going to renew it.)

I've been turned down for a job because I had long hair. I was astonished tbh.

 

[8ball]

I've been turned down for a job because I had long hair. I was astonished tbh.

Duncan Goodhew lookalike?

 

[J Ed]

I'm a bit surprised at this tbh. I never even had a white landlord when I lived in London

Who says the landlords are white? On the piece they did on this on BBC News, the letting agents going along with the racism weren't though they didn't show the landlord.

 

[krtek a houby]

Don't troll this thread, please.

I'm not. I hate racism. It's one of those things that makes me see red and almost deviate from my pacifism. Anyone who actually knows me, will know that. This morning's report made me despair, it really did. So, when I see certain people on certain threads trying to play it down and bringing fucking class fucking oppression into it; that drives me nuts. So, I apologise for going off tangent.

Racism is ignorance, hatred and fear - it affects us all, directly or indirectly.

 

[Mation]

I've been turned down for a job because I had long hair. I was astonished tbh.

That's a bit shit. But at least you didn't end up working for people who'd turn a man down for having long hair.

 

[Corax]

I just heard a report on You and Yours, longer report tonight on Inside Out London on BBC1 (it'll be on iPlayer later - no link at the moment).

A reporter went undercover and found that several of the estate agents they approached undercover were prepared not to show flats to black people - to say they'd been taken already - if they were asked to. The programme tests this with two prospective tennants, one white, one black, and finds that, yep, they do.

It doesn't surprise me, but I know that lots of people (perhaps not so many on here) think that this kind of blatant racism is a thing of the past. Does it surprise you?

Initial response to the OP:

I'm not surprised, but my first reaction is that it's because letting agents are unscrupulous salesbastards, and would probably fulfil similar requests from asian/black landlords if it would line their pocket.

I'll now read the rest of the thread though.

 

[revol68]

I'm not. I hate racism. It's one of those things that makes me see red and almost deviate from my pacifism. Anyone who actually knows me, will know that. This morning's report made me despair, it really did. So, when I see certain people on certain threads trying to play it down and bringing fucking class fucking oppression into it; that drives me nuts. So, I apologise for going off tangent.

Racism is ignorance, hatred and fear - it affects us all, directly or indirectly.

You think racism is separate from class? You think racism is just about ignorance, hatred and fear and not about structural issues of power and dispossession?

An analysis that doesn't understand race within class dynamics and vice versa leaves us with an impoverished notion of both, reducing class oppression to some sort of flat homogenous relation involving a "default working class" disembodied from concrete qualities and experience ie it becomes defacto a white/male/straight working class. Racism and sexism are produced by and reproduce class society, there has never been some pure class oppression, no simply neutral relationship of exploitation that hasn't mediated racism or for that matter been mediated through racism.

 

[revol68]

I mean on arrival in London the first thing you notice is the composition of those working in service industries (no not the trendy hipster bars and shops staffed by rich kids supplementing their "allowance"), the tube station workers, bus drivers etc

 

[Corax]

Okay, thread and article read now, and I've seen nothing to contradict my first impression tbh.

One big caveat though - I'm full of manflu so my head's even more full of fog than usual...

There are certainly plenty of racist people. Some of those will be landlords. It's no surprise that letting agents will facilitate their prejudice in exchange for the commission.

It's obviously a problem, but I'm not sure the article presents it in the most useful way, as it makes it look like a situation where it's solely about discrimination against certain ethnic minorities. IME that's not the whole story. I know that down this way some very big ethnic minority landlords won't consider tenants that don't fit certain cultural criteria, which will automatically exclude those from different ethnicities, or even variations in creed/culture within the same ethnicity.

I'm not doing a White Whine thing I promise - that's really not the point I'm struggling (probably badly) to make. I think the article highlights a despicable practice. But perhaps that despicable practice is more generically vile than it's presented as being.

 

[8ball]

Okay, thread and article read now, and I've seen nothing to contradict my first impression tbh.

One big caveat though - I'm full of manflu so my head's even more full of fog than usual...
<snip>

Nope, I have no idea what you're talking about. Double the Lemsip dose and try again tomorrow.

 

[Corax]

Nope, I have no idea what you're talking about. Double the Lemsip dose and try again tomorrow.

Oh dear... Took me bloody ages as well. Fucking bastard manflu.

 

[Smyz]

apparently so. isn't it ironic that they decided to use that landlord!

I thought the landlord was asian?

The estate agents were all asian.

They couldn't find any white estate agents?

They couldn't find any white estate agents who would agree to discriminate?

The reporters were racist in the way they selected targets?

 

[Agent Sparrow]

I'm not shocked that it happens. I will admit to being a little shocked that it seems to happen so much. Were there any estate agents who actually said no? And the A to Z man whose quote is the thread title...

 

[Prince Rhyus]

Note the new Home-Office-sponsored Immigration Bill at http://services.parliament.uk/bills/2013-14/immigration.html

 

[taffboy gwyrdd]

Racism only exists inside the minds of Cultural Marxists (tm) and the like.

It may sound racist to judge someone on their race, but in fact it's closing down to debate to say so.

A bloke down my street got 3 years in a gulag for teaching his kids to sing "Baa Baa Blacksheep". You couldn't make it up.

 

[FridgeMagnet]

If you're trying to do your "funny" thing here, I'd advise against it.

 

[killer b]

reckon taffboy's satire is so crushingly shit, posting it should be a bannable offence.

 

[farmerbarleymow]

It doesn't surprise me that this goes on. You can have all the laws and regulations you like, but the world is full of twats who will continue to find ways to circumvent them so they can continue to behave like twats. Monitoring and enforcement is key, but it is impossible to monitor everything all of the time. But it also depends on people being able (and willing, obviously) to stand up for their rights. Lots of reasons why this doesn't happen though, many perfectly understandable.

 

[ItWillNeverWork]

If you're trying to do your "funny" thing here, I'd advise against it.

 

[krtek a houby]

You think racism is separate from class? You think racism is just about ignorance, hatred and fear .

Got it in one. Racism is practiced in all social strata, by people of all colour and creed. Trying to contextualise it within some kind of nebulous class struggle is to dampen it's ugliness.

 

[TopCat]

I mean on arrival in London the first thing you notice is the composition of those working in service industries (no not the trendy hipster bars and shops staffed by rich kids supplementing their "allowance"), the tube station workers, bus drivers etc

I thought it was everyone being taller than you.

 

[likesfish]

Tbh, letting agentsneed to be set on fire.

Fixed it for you

Not because they pander to racists just because they are letting agents

 

[nino_savatte]

Race is socially constructed. It's a shame some folk can't see this.

 

[ViolentPanda]

No doubt some cunt apologist for racism will be along now in a moment and say it's not racism, it's about oppression of the working classes etc

It can quite obviously be both at the same time, you dolt!

 

[ViolentPanda]

If letteings agencies were run by ex prisoners they would have more integrity than at present.

There are many differences between estate agents and ex-prisoners - the fact that most ex-prisoners have a sense of decency and honour being primary - but the most obvious one to me is that ex-prisoners have paid for their crimes/paid their debt to society, whereas estate agents haven't.

 

[TopCat]

There are many differences between estate agents and ex-prisoners - the fact that most ex-prisoners have a sense of decency and honour being primary - but the most obvious one to me is that ex-prisoners have paid for their crimes/paid their debt to society, whereas estate agents haven't.

In a nutshell.

 

[ViolentPanda]

...and then on top of this you add in employment discrimination, police discrimination etc

And then if you look at the system holistically, you realise that discrimination (whether "racial", gender, class, cultural) is institutionalised into the very structures of our society, and not as accretions of custom, but as actively-functioning exclusionary factors operating on elements of the population.

 

[ViolentPanda]

In a nutshell.

When I worked at the Home Office, one of my tasks was to review prisoner complaints (at least, those that couldn't be resolved satisfactorily in the actual establishment where they were made) for the region. The prisoners were often more believable, and better able to support their claims of mistreatment etc by the prison authorities, than the staff of the prison were to defend their side of the story.

 

[frogwoman]

people are never more serious than when they say they're joking

 

[ViolentPanda]

Fucking hell. I must be totally naive as yes, it did surprise me. I knew estate agents were cunts, but this is another level of cuntery.

It's all about money. We shouldn't be surprised that lettings agents, already the dripping snot on the manky nose of estate agencies, are prepared to transgress both law and decency to make money.