Can white people ever experience racism?

[LittleRedCourgettes]

Following a discussion on this topic with some students, I was reading this article and am interested to hear your honest thoughts on this question.....

https://www.nas.org/blogs/article/wherediddwegetttheideaathatonlyywhitepeopleecanbeeracist

How were Irish people treated in England probably up until this century (and in some cases may still be)? Signs in the seventies 'no dogs, no blacks, no Irish'? I'd call that racism.

Most Jewish people in the UK are white

Travellers definitely experience discrimination caused by their heritage.
On the whole though, I think "racism" is shorthand for people being treated as inferior on the basis of darker skin and stems from a history of exploitation of black and brown people by the white oppressor class historically. I don't think discrimination aimed at white people comes from the same root cause so I wouldn't call it racism.

Yes I think so. I come from a BAME background and have heard derogatory remarks about white people.

Yes. The girls abused in Rotherham were targeted becuase they were white and considered easy

Try being English in Scotland, OP!
One of the consultant surgeons from my hospital had an SNP supporter spit in his face, shouting “Bloody English” - for daring to chat (to his own wife!) in an English accent in a shopping street in broad daylight.
I have been intimidated by a Scottish van driver while campaigning against the independence referendum.
I have been warned to stay silent by Scots friends, and hustled out of a cinema for my own safety during a screening of Braveheart, where the atmosphere was turning distinctly ugly.

And when I was a newly qualified junior doctor, I overheard two of the nurses on my ward discussing me: “How’s the new doctor?” “ Well, she’s English.” Said in a tone of disgust. Before adding grudgingly: But she’s all right.”
My DD had to report one of her high school teachers for anti English racism, and suffered regular abuse from pupils during the football world cup.
So yes, white people can also suffer racism.

Should add, have also had a retired church minister tell me on Facebook that I “should go back to England” if I don’t like the SNP. Imagine the reaction if he’d said that to an Indian or Pakistani member of the congregation.

Agree about Scotland. During the 2014 referendum I had a Tesco checkout worker sneer at me that I'd soon have to go back where I came from.

That doesn't mean it's the same experience as racism against non-white people – but I don't understand the argument that it can't happen. I suppose it partly depends on what you mean by race as well –Jewish, Irish, Scottish, Latino, English (in Scotland) etc are all white but can be attacked and persecuted for their nationality/where they come from by other white people – whether or not that's race is debatable.

I think that in cases yes, but it has to be discrimination with a backdrop of oppression e.g. being Irish/Jewish.

Most white people don't experience racism, even if they are treated differently, because there isn't that backdrop.

Certain acquaintances of my Chinese XBF thought it was okay to slag me off because I'm white.

It stopped when I told them I understood what they were saying about me in Cantonese. I didn't, but it was easy to get the gist.

I personally think it's helpful to distinguish between racism and xenophobia but the equality act is quite broad in how it defines race. Ethnic or national origin from what I remember. So it depends how you define racism.

It's nothing at all compared to what I saw my boyfriend go through. It was an annoying one-off. He was racially abused in Ikea, in the streets...

I studied abroad in another English speaking country and when someone heard my British accent I was once told to “fuck off back home” followed by mumblings of various racial slurs. Roast beef, go and drink your tea with the Queen etc in an OTT English accent kind of thing.

Not sure if that “counts”.

So we discount thousands of years of oppression of white peasants, miners, etc? I have done a lot of family history research. Most of my ancestors lived a very impoverished life with no prospects.

I think that wherever one group of people are the minority, they can experience racism.
If a person is targeted and abused because of their skin colour or nationality, then that is racism, whoever it is happening to.

Yes. Just to add to the excellent examples above, it can also happen in places where white skin isnt predominate.

I think people can experience something equivalent to racism wherever they're a minority. When I lived abroad I was openly told multiple times they didn't hire foreigners, and got racial and sexual abuse in the streets because white women were seen as impure and lesser.

I had the excruciatingly toecurling experience during a meeting of having to stop a black person in the middle of being really quite racist to a chinese person.

I'm white. So was everyone else. I don't know what else I could have done.

Yes experienced it in Scotland from a police officer no less.

Yes. I have been called ‘gweilo’ to my face in Hong Kong.

The belief that Romanians are all criminals and Polish steal all our jobs

Often that's white on white though. I recently heard the term "colourism" which I'd never heard before, but is when blacks discriminate against other blacks that are darker than they are. Lighter = good, darker = bad.

Ultimately it's all bigotry and discrimination. As a PP said, despite the official definition, socially 'racism' is discrimination against black and brown people based on the systematic oppression of white people, so really we need a new word to describe other forms, out of respect of that historic oppression if nothing else.

No

By white people, not of white people!!

@MrsHuntGeneNotJeremyObviously

I think that wherever one group of people are the minority, they can experience racism. If a person is targeted and abused because of their skin colour or nationality, then that is racism, whoever it is happening to.

This^ is my view also.

Of course they can