Donating blood in Shepherd's Bush
A few days ago I donated some blood. I’d say this is because I am a wholly virtuous person, but I invariably spend a portion of my session looking up the various health benefits of getting rid of a pint of claret. The biscuits afterwards are a further inducement.
Yet on the whole, donating blood is one of those things that people take upon themselves to do for ‘the greater good’. It is a fairly miraculous process: the Volk of a country taking the time and effort to donate their precious bodily fluids so that others, unknown to them, after some wretched accident or some inner-city stabby-stabby enrichment, can have a stab at survival.
The notion that in some jurisdictions you are paid for your donation strikes many do-gooders as variously obscene, outrageous and/or American. Take this Guardian article, for example, which laments people being paid to donate plasma, asking ‘is that the kind of society we want to be?’ Presumably not paying them and hence not receiving the plasma would be a preferable outcome.
Even though we are morally superior in the UK – thanks largely to the totally free and totally awesome Our NHS (pbuh) – it has not escaped my attention that in my donating I am the only ‘free’ part of the whole process. In fact, for me it is a net cost in terms of time and energy. At every other stage – from the nurses to the technicians to the extremely-poorly-paid doctors (the most lamentable creatures, how do they survive?) everyone else is being remunerated handsomely (or otherwise) for their time.
So why the moral grandstanding? If it is so virtuous to donate blood, then why should anyone along the continuum of my vein to the recipient’s take any money whatsoever?
Still, I’m a dozen donations in so I don’t care a jot for the fake moralising of others about the topic. If someone wanted to give me a tenner for the trouble I go to, I wouldn’t flounce off in a hissy fit of self-righteousness.
I am fortunate enough to donate in various vibrant and diverse areas of Modern Britain. Plasma can only be given in three locations across the country, one of which is Birmingham.
At last official (and hence probably wildly inaccurate) count, Birmingham was around 48% white. Donating plasma twice, and seeing in the process about 20 other donors, I only observed other white-skinned devils.
I am no statistician, but if Birmingham’s population is roughly 50% white, then we can take the white-or-otherwise probability to be like tossing a coin. The odds of getting the same result 20 times in are miniscule.
Does this matter? I don’t know – but I definitely noticed it. Perhaps it was unfortunate coincidence: the number of non-white blood donors appears to have increased in recent years according to stats. Yet, a risk of diversity and the breakdown of our formerly homogenous society is the decline in civic-minded actions.
More recently, donating blood in Sheperd’s Bush, the whole experience represented a peculiar microcosm of modern Britain. As I wrote to a friend at the time:
“Just donated blood in Shepherd’s Bush. Odd experience. On the stairs there is a huge sign thanking you for 'helping the NHS' (not the patients - they are secondary - we let blood for the NHS like Aztec sacrifices to the sun). Upstairs everything is festooned with LGBT flags (contrasting nicely with the Muslim preachers on the street outside). The walls are plastered with 'BAME' Brits donating blood #dosomethingamazing #savealife but 90%+ of the donors are white - statistically significant in this stunningly diverse district. The staff were 100% non-white. The nurse who looked after me was a black guy called Livingstone. I said 'Dr Livingstone, I presume?' and I think he got the joke, so there is still some hope.
[…]
Another downside of Muh Diversity: I just ordered a coffee using the name 'Jimmy Saville' but because nobody who works in the coffee shop/customers are native they called out 'Jimmy!' without a batting an eyelid.”
In fact, ordering coffee under absurd names has become somewhat of a recent habit. I dislike the faux chumminess of people calling out your name instead of the impersonal number of yesteryear (I am not a man, I am a number!). Hence, the incidence of the aforementioned Saville, Gary Glitter and a certain ‘Benito’ ordering coffees in some districts of London has reached all-time highs.
Whether these same miscreants have recently donated blood or not, I cannot say.
What the fluff are 'Asian Welsh' and 'Black Welsh' - and why are there no 'Asian Scots' and 'Black Scots'?
Do the people who make these stats/label their findings have totally lost any connection to reality, never mind common sense?
As for donating blood in the USA ... heh, I could tell a story about that! Mind you, that took place in the 1960s, so it's now ancient history.
According to my husband (so it must be true!), non-white people are scared of needles. All of them. It's nothing to do with not being part of the community, not having a sense of the "greater good", not being altruistic. Just needles.
As for Asian and/or Black Welsh - aren't they identifiable by their lack of a Welsh accent and a fondness for knives?