Big Brother is asking the nation, are you really racist, the basis of the question being the behaviour that was shown by Jade G to Shilpa S on the latest Big Brother reality TV show.

Let's do a quick comparison between two young ladies having a cock fight and the reality of times gone past and the current times in this country,

Compared to times gone past when ethnic minorities who came to this country had to struggle to find descent jobs, and had to face a lot of racial remarks about their accent, their food, their dress sense etc. And kids from ethnic backgrounds had to stand their ground in mainly white dominated schools taking abuse and dishing it out. Current day situation is not so bad, ethnic minorities hold down some top jobs in this country and run some very successful business. Curry is the favourite food in this country, and ethnics are as comfortable in a Sari as they are in Armani.

Compared to times gone past when you would hardly see a non white person on television and the only non white person on telly was a white person all polished up to do a poor representation of an ethnic, and done in poor taste. Current day situation, not so bad, the television is full of ethnic minorities from TV presenters, soap stars, pop stars to reality TV stars all dear to the nation's heart. No making fun of accents any more. In fact in reverse you have shows created by ethnics were the ethnic is making fun of the white culture, is this reverse racism?

Compared to times gone past where you had hardly any ethnics participating in the nation's favourite sport pastimes. Current day situation, not so bad, give me any sport where you won't find a substantial ethnic contribution.

Nothing is ever perfect but things have certainly improved over the years and surely ethnic minorities have never had it so good in this nation state. Of course all this progress has not happened overnight, and progress has only happened due to a real desire by all parties to move forward in a positive direction.

Funny isn't it though how progress takes many years of real hard work by real people struggling in the real world, whereas it only takes a few misplaced comments in the fantasy world of reality TV, for a nation to start questioning it's own fabric, and worse still for other nations to start pointing fingers. Possibly the people who should be most upset by this whole fiasco are those who have worked and struggled the most to overcome and succeed in the face of real racism, and I am sure that many people would fit this bill.

Coming back to the programme that ignited this whole discussion, isn't the level of hostility between the two ladies on the Big Brother show just passions running wild in the heat of confrontation, and a confrontation and its impact which may have been pre-determined to a certain extent for the sake of reality TV and its ratings.

And when any two parties confront there is always a possibility of the confrontation becoming heated with a mention of cultural differences used not so much to be racist but to get an upper hand in the confrontation. This tactic being used whether it is between an Indian lady and a White lady or whether it is between an English person and a Scottish person etc.

The irony of this whole situation being that responsible ministers in India were making judgements on the race relations situation in the UK based on a reality TV programme instead of any real factual basis. And these statements, being made by a country where worst kind of racism, the caste system still exists in many aspects of daily life for many people.

Anyway, have we reached a verdict, is the nation really racist?

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