I am so glad to be moving ...

We spotted a hoard of cops hanging around the pub at the top of the street earlier. Didn't know why at first.

It turns out that there was a shooting. At The Pegasus, a pub that is less than a minutes walk from my house. The Pegasus, in fact, where on Thursday 1st May, election day, they held a huge 'Anti-Racism' rally/BBQ.

Now - I'm going to go out on a limb here and say, I bet it was two non-whites involved. I base this statement on some simple and obvious facts.

Whitmore Reans - the part of Wolverhampton that I currently live in - is predominantly inhabited by first and second generation Idians, Pakistanis, Iraqis, Saudis, Turks, Kurds and so on. The next level down is those of African descent, black people of all shades from such places as the Carribean, Nigeria, Zimbabwe, Kenya and so on. Right at the bottom of the list, is those of caucasian descent, the Polish, Romanians and then the Brits(we are the minority in our own bloody country).

The Pegasus is predominantly frequented by Asians and Blacks. Hence my statement.

This is not the first time this has happened, the pub five or so minutes walk away, down by the Avion Centre has also had a shooting, involving the same racial groups, just a few months ago.

A pub (in which I worked only one night and refused to go back to) in the centre of town, used to be host to frequent disputes between the same two racial groups. In fact, the most talked about incident involved a young black male answering his phone during a fight and blowing his own brains out, because he was holding an un-safety'd gun in the same hand!

I currently live not fifteen minutes walk away from an alley affectionately nicknamed 'Rape Alley' - I'm sure you can guess why.

The alleyway at the end of my block is frequnetly found covered in broken glass, dumped white goods and television sets. I once walked past it and spotted a drug deal taking place (between two middle-eastern blokes).

I happen to know for a fact that there are a great many dealers in the area and most can be contacted at the drop of a hat.

I was once followed home by a Turk on a bike. I have also been followed part-way home by a black youth who kept asking me to be his girlfriend. Turks and Kurds eye me up as I walk past. I once even had a very smarmy I'd-peg-you-as-a-Dealer bloke try to touch me when I stopped to sit on a bench on my way home. (I saw this same man not two days later, having a very loud argument with another man in the doorway of a dilapidated looking house - and from what I could hear, it seemed to be about debts...)

I feel uncomfortable wearing low-cut tops in this area, because I have been on the recieving end of stares and scowls from obviously Muslim men (obviously, because of the style of clothing, facial hair and scull-cap hat things.) I have never felt uncomfortable wearing low-cut tops anywhere else. In fact, I'm quite proud of my cleavage!

I hate having a front door that is almost completely made of glass. I have woken Matt up on many occassions to make sure no-one is in the house, because I've heard a noise in the middle of the night and had panic attacks thinking we're being burgled, because our front door is the poorest excuse for a door I have ever seen.

Now, I mention all this, because I am again complaining about that which sparked me off the other day. The lack of integration by immigrants into their host country's society.

Admittedly, not all the problems mentioned will have been caused by the rampant mini-countries within Whitmorereans alone. A lot of it can be blamed on the fact that this is low wage area (and that's another thing I can rant about for hours on end.)

What I'm getting at, for the main part, is that there is an awful lot of clonflict in this area alone, between the various different represented countries. And the main reason for that is the Tribalism.

The refusal by the various immigrant cultures to fit in with the host country.

You can walk down a street in this part of town and feel like you're in another country alltogether - you'll be the only Brit walking down it, for a start. You'll also be the only English (as your first language) speaking person there. If you're a woman, you'll likely be the only woman there wearing Western clothing.

And it's all segregated - a different street tends to look like a different bloody country. All the Kurds, Turks and Saudis hang out up by Stavely, for instance. All the shops in the area are run by Indians and Pakistanis (except for one or two Polish shops and those are very far and few between). All the various people of African descent are in the flats on Evans and Lowe (or near those streets anyway).

I don't know whether there was some purpose to this, or if it's purely by chance, but it really doesn't help the matter. And I don't know about anyone else, but I feel incredibly uncomfortable walking down Stavely street these days, because it's always full of Turkish, Kurdish and Saudi men, hanging around, smoking, playing with their hair and generally watching you as you walk past.

Each one of these groups of immigrants is perfectly fine for who and what they are, but the sheer numbers of them means they start building their own little communities/villages and segregating themselves off from everyone else, as if they don't really want to be here.

Call me xenophobic if you like, but I'm getting sick of it. England used to be England. Now it's a collection of other countries, slowly building up from within.

I honestly think something needs to be done about this, because I know it's not just Wolverhampton suffering. Most of the towns and cities in the Midlands are suffering exactly the same - and London is probably where it started. The Midlands isn't known as 'The Balti Belt' for nothing.

And it's not just the segregating of communities - there appears to be a policy of 'positive bias' or something similar in the government at the moment. I have repeatedly heard tell of new immigrant families being favored over british families when it comes to housing here in Wolverhampton.

Matt himself was moved into an empty, un-heated flat when he first left home, only to watch as an immigrant moved into a flat across from him, had the place refitted and refurbished. Matt had to cook his food with a camping stove, and lived in the livingroom on a mattress, with a radio/cassett player. Weeks later that immigrant moved out taking absolutely everything with him - illegally. But nothing was done, and the same thing happened three more times.

Currently, two family friends are still on the waiting lists to get new, bigger houses. One cuple has a son under 1year and another baby on the way but they are still living in a 1bed flat, while immigrant families are constantly being moved into bigger, better homes all around them.

Admittedly, most of the immigrant workers are willing to do and actually do do, the menial jobs that an awful lot of British people are currently unwilling to do. But that does not mean they should be favored over our own countrymen.

It's just ridiculous.

And you know what? I'm glad I'm moving back down south, where it is predominantly white and British. After living in this area for six years, I'm thoroughly sick of it.