Racist abuse in the UK, how likely is it?

[BowermansNose]

My SIL lives in rural southern England, and she claims to get a lot of racist abuse in the shops, and in the streets with people shouting at her to go home. She claims that since Thursday, two people have shouted at her.

The thing is, my SIL is white.

Actually, it's a bit more complicated than that. She doesn't know who her father is, and her mother has never told her (or doesn't know herself). My SIL has dark hair, and so her father could be anything from Greek to Iranian to maybe South Asian, but to me at least, it's really not obvious.

I'm sheltered from racism, being white, and I'm skeptical. I don't know if my SIL is being abused racially, or if she's being a fantasist about this. For reasons I won't go into, I have some reasons to suspect my SIL has fantasist tendencies. What do you think?

I'm an EU immigrant from a Scandinavian country and it was only after the referendum others from my country started reporting xenophobic comments/abuse. Mostly it happens when the native language is spoken out in public rather than being judged by looks alone. I don't think I personally look "foreign", not in London anyway and haven't been subjected to any comments on looks alone (have been otherwise though)...

Certainly in the local Facebook group for my area people are always saying "it's those Romanians" or similar when antisocial behaviour is mentioned so clearly a lot of assumptions are being made and people are being grouped together...

Despite going downhill, The UK is still regularly classed as being the least racist country in Europe still.

Just because you have never experienced it doesnt mean it doesnt happen. This is the reason why people of ethnic minorities are afraid to speak out in this country for fear of not being believed.

I have experienced the overt racism and in a large multicultural city.

Just because u dont see it doeant mean it's not there. And it looks like you dont want to believe it anyway.

Just because you have never experienced it doesnt mean it doesnt happen.

I think you're missing the point I am making. My point is not whether racist abuse happens, but whether it is likely that a particular white woman is being regularly racially abused.

I've been verbally abused in the street for being ginger regularly and on many occasions.

Not comparing gingers to race but I feel this is evidence that there are nobheads out there that shout insults at anyone for anything!

I don't know. I'm mixed race have a very strong English accent as I was born here.
But regardless of this I've experienced racism and I don't even think I look that mixed race bar the olive skin and dark hair.
It's hard to say. But I grew up in a very white SE area and one set of neighbours said we lowered the tone of the neighbourhood and we were completely middle class.
I think brexit has made it more noticable though.

'A white woman with brown hair'....I'm an Italian white woman with brown hair, and I'm a sort of pinky colour rather than olive skinned. When I went to Egypt with some English and Egyptian friends...market stall holders would shout at me in Arabic not English, like they did at my English friends (who were also brunettes).

Not anything to do with racism but just shows that white people can obviously 'not English' faces.

*can have obviously 'not English' faces.

Same goes for Scottish notes being refused in shops
That could be because in some parts of England they are very rarely used (I haven't seen one for about 10 years) and staff are not familiar enough with them to know whether they are legitimate or forgeries. In any case, apparently - according to Google just now - they aren't legal tender.

I just see her a White British woman with brown hair.
That's just what you see though, others may see differently especially if they're looking for different. I've never seen one my friends as anything other than more olive and darker haired than me, but others having assumed differently. It shocked me tbh, but for them it wasn't that new.

It depends entirely on the area where she was. In a town near me (in an otherwise naice part of Southern England), there was an incident the other year when a (white) woman was racially abused for wearing a headcovering. She was going through cancer treatment and wasn’t even Muslim, and had come to the seaside for some respite. There are a lot of awful people out there. There have certainly been other reported incidents near me. It definitely happens. Who knows though what’s happened with your sister though.

Mind you, even if this woman is a serial liar, it might still be true that she has been abused in racist terms...