Talk:Red Clydeside
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I was asked for the source of information about Emmanuel Shinwell's racist agitation by 195.92.168.171 Jacqueline Jenkinson has wriiten an excellent little article "The 1919 Race Riots in Britain: A Survey" published in Under the Imperialist Carpet: Essays in Black History 1780- 1950 Rabbit Press, Crawley, 1986. Harry Potter 19:38, 28 Sep 2003 (UTC)
[edit] Shinwell and racism
I don't think the bold assertion that Shinwell's pronouncements were "racist" can really be supported. The employment of Chinese and Lascar labour was a legitimate concern for merchant seamen and their trade union representatives in this period. Though many did indeed make some quite odious remarks on the subject, Shinwell was usually extremely careful in laying the blame at the feet of the Government and shipowners rather than the foreign seamen themselves. This is indeed what Jenkinson suggests in another of her articles 'The Glasgow Race Disturbances of 1919':
"Shinwell... directed attention to the large number of British seamen and firemen who were at present unemployed and the large number being demobilised who would find it difficult to secure employment aboard ship. This he attributed to the refusal of the Government to exclude Chinese labour from British ships, and it was essential, he said that action should be taken at once."
The very real fear of unemployment at the time should also be borne in mind. Likewise Shinwell's Jewish background and the widespread anti-semitism which he encountered in the labour movement (surely engendering a little sensitivity?). Perhaps an article on the race riots themselves would be the best solution, as this would allow the context to be properly put?
I'm sorry it has taken so long to correct your erroneous alteration. When you suggest that the "employment of Chinese and Lascar labour was a legitimate concern for merchant seamen" it is almost as if you imagine that Chinese and Lascar Seamen are somehow not involved as sentient beings, let alone being given the dignity of being regarded as workers. The article you quote shows Shinwell to be an arrant racism. Why should Chinese labour be excluded from British ships? Why should the problems of unemployment be shouldered by one section of the working class, a section of the working class which has in fact historically shouldered more than its fair share of woes? Do you imagine that the "very real fear of unemployment" was not experienced by African and Chinese workers, just as much as European workers? And you suggestion that Shinwell's Jewish background should have engendered some sort of sympathy is, I feel, somewhat pious. Bearing in mind how racism manifested itself at the Social DemocraticAmsterdam Conference of 1904, with people from Jewish background such as Morris Hilquit amongst those proposing that African and Chinese workers should be treated as sub-human, I find it hard to see how this effects the issue at hand.Harrypotter 00:58, 9 August 2006 (UTC)
