To think that no racist ever admits they are a racist

The correlation between education and liberalism isn't bigotry, its a fact supported by emperical evidence. The patronising slant you gave that, by suggesting that clever and educated people can see the left wing light is your work, not mine.
The correlation I am making is that the more advantaged a person is (and high education is an advantage) the better their lives are likely to be. The less need they will have to fight over scarce resources with other groups, the less impacted they will be by social problems, the less likely they are to be personally angry with the world, look for a scapegoat and punch down.
The point being that disadvantage needs addressing at its root so that people have no need for the discontent that leads some to these behaviours.

Did they say the word'racist' or did they just make obviously racist comments?

I mean, the middle classes are very much in white saviour mode. There are the deserving victims of racism and the undeserving. In their minds it’s like two homgenous groups, POC and white people.

The PoC must be so grateful for the support of the white middle class. They are defined in the middle class mind as a group who are victims of nasty white people the aspirational classes are desperate not to be part of, supporting PoC was a badge to distinguish them from the less aspirational white people.

In their mind, supporting other victims of discrimination, eg Jewish people (who are often white and therefore not part of the homogeneous PoC “victim” group the aspirational classes value) doesn’t carry the same social cache.

None of this is actually about supporting people actually needing support, otherwise we would see these aspirational saviour group standing outside Jewish schools to protect them, outside synagogues. Marching to help the people of Sudan.

it’s all about how it looks to other aspirational people, being accepted. It’s not about understanding differences. it’s about groups of people they are very unlikely to have and real contact with.

i would say our brown Hindu friends are far more vocal about Muslims than any white person I’ve met. Look at the various black v Asian race riots.

"It is of course possible to have legitimate concerns about the actions of the current Israeli government without being antisemitic in any way"

I fully believe you are not anti semitic. But my problem is how eaily accusations are thrown around. If someone on this thread said they had "legitimate concerns about immigration but weren't racist in any way". I think they would have accusations or insinuations of racism directed at them pretty quickly.

I find it really helpful when the racist fuckwits are honest and open about their racism. At least we know what we're dealing with then, and we can sideline them accordingly.

Most who are opposed to racism are opposed to it in all its forms. Including antisemitism.

Anyone who claims to be antiracist while seeking to justify or excuse antisemitism is a raging hypocrite. They do exist, of course, and they are every bit as wrong as any other racists.

It is of course possible to have legitimate concerns about the actions of the current Israeli government without being antisemitic in any way. Just as it is possible to find the actions of Hamas on 7th October utterly abhorrent without being Islamophobic in any way.

Personally, I do have concerns about the actions of the Israeli government - as indeed I have concerns about actions of many other foreign governments - but I would never have contemplated going on any of the marches because there were clearly antisemitic elements amongst them.

But I think anti - semetism is against the Jewish religion. Surely that's appropriate for all Jews then no matter what their race. .

Absolutely! For far to long callling someone a racist has been used by the left to shut down any debate they don’t like. Well now it’s coming back to haunt them because people genuinely couldn’t care less about being labelled racist anymore.

I realise that that doesn't sit easily with right wing people, given its their own ideology that leads to the less advantaged finding life difficult in the first place, and its their own parties that have stirred up racial tension by using immigrants as scapegoats.

Let’s compare ideological left and right wing governments shall we, and how immiserated their less advantaged were, and how their minorities and outsiders have been treated.

There is plenty of shame on both sides. But it seems a specifically left-wing cruelty to believe the harms done by their own side “don’t count.”

The coloration between wealth/education and liberal views is often presented as an “if only you were clever and not an undeserving poor person this is how you would think” is probably yet another example of bigotry a certain group think is ok.

Just let’s stop and think how this could have happened. We could go back to a bunch of bored upper class Victorians desperate to be a bit edgy and piss off Daddy (eventually leading to the Fabian Society), the infiltration and enforcement of leftist ideology in universities brain washing lots of people going through them,if you wanted to push an ideology what better way than to access a group of vulnerable young adults, often away from home and hometown/family influences for the first time looking to establish their own identities. Then peer pressure sets in, including on Mumsnet, other social media. - often driven by groups targeting the aspirational - the trope is, if you want to be seen as intelligent, middle class, kind, perfect, then think XYZ. If you disagree be prepared to be ostracised because you’re not one of us. Don’t even begin to question the irony of this because then you’re not intelligent and you’re on your own (unless, of course you want to join with the uneducated, and god forbid, white poor people)

The ridiculous group think from those reading off the barn conversion (with John Lewis interior) wall is laughable.

And this also applies to white people feeling that way. . Contrary to popular belief it's not only white people that are the perpetrators of racism

Anyone who has been to the far east can often verify that

What if the migrants are also the racists?

The idea that other races or religions are inferior is far less common in the UK than in most countries in the world.

If you want to increase the number of people here who think that, immigration from those places will do that.

Yes, I think this is a very relevant point. All these people on Hamas support marches are probably also the ones on here drowning on about intent doesn’t matter, it’s about how people feel. Yet despite Jewish communities constantly saying they find these marches hateful and intimidating this is irrelevant- someone needs to think about the poor Gazan babies (just not the poor Israeli babies killed on Oct 7 or the implications for Jews as the useful idiots bleet “from the river to the sea”. No they’re all sat there, holier than thou, because they’re too stupid to go away, and as they keep telling others to do, reflect hard and deep on their actions and views.

Like it or not, support those marches, support Hamas, directly, or indirectly, consciously or unconsciously you’re racist you’ve just naively bought into the idea some racism is ok.

Are you suggesting all right wing young men are a homogenous mass, with no degree as to their extremity? Or would you allow for the possibility that your 'they' and mine are different people, with different life experience and different motivations? That I know my 'they' from living amongst them and hearing them first hand, as a politically aware, white WC woman in a Reform town? That when I come to cast my vote, its not your 'they' I'm thinking about, given they have no representation on the ballot paper, unlike Reform who my 'they' can and clearly do, vote for.
I don't discount your worries about those even further to the right. However rather than thinking we're past the point of no return and so should throw in the towel and accept more 'moderate' forms of racism for fear of making racists worse, I think we need to look at what has caused the rise and address that. I'm sure your 'they' are playing a major role, but their propaganda is only taking hold because of the socio economic discontent of their target audience. Disadvantage almost always offers fertile ground for the right and their racist scapegoating. Which is why better educated, more advantaged people are more likely to be liberal/left.

I dislike the OP’s post for the same reason I dislike the “no one ever admits to being a transphobe” style.

It’s blinkered and smug. All OP is inviting is lots of people to come and congratulate her and themselves on being one of the good ones.

And it’s worse than the transphobe example, because it’s so plainly false. You have to be pretty cocooned to think the most overt racism in the world is people who say they aren’t but disagree with your politics on this or that.

100 times yes.
The last socially acceptable form of racism.

It’s an undeniable link. Wonder why? 😁

The obvious contemporary example of people being racist but refusing to acknowledge it, is anti-Semitism ( which is racism against Jews obvs). Open anti-Jewish racism, often violent in rhetoric and action, has been rebranded as a social justice virtue. Just like so many racists throughout history, these racists think their own special brand of racism is justified and rational.

Of course, repeating longstanding anti-Semitic tropes word for word and simply replacing the word ‘Jew’ with ‘Zionist’ makes these people feel their racism is especially justified. Even when Jews doing normal Jewish things in UK, USA and Australia are murdered thanks to the ‘anti-Zionist’ messages being spread.

If you are looking for racists who don’t think they are racist, it’s this lot you need to be looking at.

If you're automatically assuming that people have "certain values" because they have a different skin colour, then that makes you racist.

If you're automatically assuming that people have "certain values" because they belong to a particular community, then that makes you prejudiced against that community.

I don't assume that all Christians have the same values as each other. I don't assume that all white people have the same values as each other. I don't assume that all British people have the same values as each other.

If you're lumping everyone from a particular community together and making assumptions about what they're like, then you're a bigot and frankly a bit stupid.

I’ve tended to find that people who are not racist, do not feel compelled to say “I’m not racist but…” in any context, so in itself that phrase is a tell.

Hmmm.

Thank you. Thats very interesting as its the opposite of what my son said (he's 26 and i very often take his advice about this sort of thing, doesnt mean that hes always right, tho!). I'll do some reading around the subject. 🥰

Presumably Roma people would rather be called Roma.

The Gypsy people I know do not want to be called travellers and would take pretty short shrift at people patting themselves on the back for ‘not being racist’ for refusing to use the word gypsies use to describe themselves. Gypsy is not an insult, and it’s insulting to gypsies to say it is.

Sorry, I really want to hammer this point home. Saying ‘Gypsy’ is an insult is like saying calling someone Irish or Gay is an insult. It’s only an insult if you think there is something ‘wrong’ with that group of people.

Its not anti-racist to say it’s an insult to call someone a gypsy, it’s racist to refuse to use that term ( of gypsies, it’s just polite to use it accurately)

I think my son meant that many Eastern European Romanis perceive the word gypsy to be a racial slur. And where I live (Wales) there are a large number of people whose home of birth is EE

Wha if you you don’t like the values of a certain community that predominantly included people with a different skin colour

Are you racist then?
Does it depend on the specific words said when being negative about values?