To think my friend was racist, rude or both?

I am white and born in South Africa. I have a British passport because my parents are English. I live in England.

What this story, and similar stories I've heard or sentiments exressed, remind me of (in a very scary way) is the way many white people used to behave in South Africa. The casual assumption taht everyone "like them" think the same as them, and therefore they can/should say anything they like.

I have a very clear memory of being 18 or 19 and standing in a queue at a bank. This was shortly after Nelson Mandela had been elected as president. There was an elderly black man in the queue in front of me. Bear in mind, that for a man like him, being allowed into a bank like this was still a relativelt new thing. He was trying to draw his pension. The documents he had were not from this bank. the woman was rude, patronising and unpleasant. The WORST part was that one point she looked at me - a TEENAGER - and rolled her eyes in a "oh god, look at what we (white people) have to put up with" kind of way. I didn't know what to do. If that happened now, I'd complain to a manager but obviously I was young and dumb so all I knew to was refuse to meet her eye, do my business and get out.

This sort of casual racism that's coming into this country is the same and it scares me. And as a white South African I have had one or two comments along the way elines of, "we don't mean people like you" when talking about immigration. It's not okay.

Asked and answered, many times over. When people are struggling they are ripe for the introduction of a scapegoat. If people were well housed in decent neighbourhoods with work that provided them with a decent standard of living they wouldn't need look for a group to blame. Sort out the scandal of wealth inequality and everything else follows.

I would actually tell ask her to leave. Explain that her remarks really hurt you. Having slept a night on it, you no longer feel comfortable spending the entire weekend with her as obviously she sees you as a lesser human. You do not want to be accepted only because of who you’re married to, you want to be accepted for you. If she can’t understand how her remarks hurt you she isn’t a very good friend.

I’m afraid I would have asked her to leave, I wouldn’t be able to get past that.

As for Reform, people really need to go back and re-read their history of 1930s Germany if you think that a political movement which points at a particular social group and blames them for the economy and society’s ills isn’t extremely worrying.

It isn't about awareness. It will be the case that she has her own personal definition of what she regards as British.

She was being both racist and rude. Now you know exactly what she thinks about you and your “place” in the UK. She thinks you are here under tolerance, not by right. I would never, ever, stay friends with someone who thought like this.

Tbh, it sounds a little like you were ok with her opinions when they didn't cover you, and only now you're taking notice.

Im with the above poster. You don’t need to be aggressive but you could point out to her how offensive her comment is.
i honestly despair. The level of ignorance is astonishing. I am mixed race (half and half). It’s 2025 and it feels like we are long way from parity. It’s disgraceful. I couldn’t be friends with an ignorant racist.

Is she not aware you are British???

Social media. Loads of great research around this.

There was a time when politeness would make people hold back on what it was they were thinking - and maybe think twice about saying it. Clearly the national rhetoric is changing and what people think it's okay to say has changed with it. It also means that what people think it's okay to believe is also shifting as well.

The real question is do you let it pass and gently ghost the person out... or do you tell them that you find what they say unacceptable and offensive. Courage because such people need to be called out.

What people need to ask themselves is why it is shifting, and so fast.

I'm half Irish and have an Irish passport - your "friend" wouldn't have said anything like this to me would she?

It is racist.

They do... stealing all their ideas.

Tommy Robinson was a member of the BNP. It's pretty obvious what he stands for.

You’re not being unreasonable at all. What she said wasn’t “reassuring,” it was othering. Even if she didn’t intend to be racist, it was still rooted in the idea that you’re somehow less British and need “protecting” because of where your ancestors came from. That’s a very uncomfortable thing to hear, especially when you’ve lived here your whole life and see yourself as no different from anyone else.

The fact that she said you’ll be “okay because of your husband and children” makes it even worse. It implies your acceptance depends on who you’re married to or who you’ve given birth to, rather than the fact that you’re a citizen and belong here just as much as she does.

She might not have meant to offend you, but intention doesn’t erase the impact. Your reaction is completely normal. It’s upsetting when someone you consider a friend reveals they see you through a lens of “not quite one of us.” If you want to keep the friendship, it might be worth gently telling her how it made you feel, but you’re absolutely right to feel shocked and angry.

That will be the next step.

Commentators on the right are now openly saying that non-white people aren't British - Farage originally said that the British public "wouldn't accept" mass deportations" but now he's adopting that.

Reducing immigration won't actually make the country better in any way so the next people to blame will be all non-white people.

This isn’t really the point though. It’s about the whole mood music of the debate, and people like OPs ‘friend’ saying things that are, to many people, racist and unacceptable.

The issue is that now the window of what it’s deemed acceptable to say, is shifting. And this shift is uncomfortable for many people in the UK. Especially if they were born abroad, or aren’t white, etc.

I've never met a Reform supporter who doesn't sort people into ok and not ok based on a yardstick they've taken to that persons skin colour, ethnicity and length of residence. If you want to be friends with Reform supporters all you can do is keep your fingers crossed you meet their bar.

Is this the political equivalent of "I've got black friends"?

The fact that they want to, and have said so, is enough. It changes the tenor of public conversation and opens a doorway even wider to a kind of othering, dehumanization, disregard for human rights, and isolationist policy which is absolutely out of the fascist playbook.

Reform are bad fucking news- for all of us. And the fact that so many “patriotic English” wearing their poppies and waving their flags, can’t see that the “war our boys fought for our freedoms” was against exactly this sort of disgusting bullshit, is ASTONISHING to me.

i say it often on here, but I really do despair.

At best, you're being very naive.

Oh DD gets this all the time. We are of Indian heritage, but she looks European because she is light skinned, light eyed and has a 'universal'name. So people tell her things like " We need to get the Indians out". And then she tells them.

Helps to sort out the wheat from the chaff. Bin your friend.