Are you concerned that the white population is declining ?

[Leobynature]

I am not white and this is a healthy discussion!

The last consensus in the UK showed a decline in the white British population. This is similar to the USA which will see only around 50% of a white population by 2045. Whites are also on the decline in South Africa.

Putin has recently called for Russian women to have 8 or more babies.

Is this the right approach, what action, if any should be taken or is this just part of ‘evolution’?

i just wondered how white families felt about this? I would be quite upset if my race was on the decline

I must admit that Morris dancing, like incest, is something I'm happy to see consigned to the bin. Others may not agree of course?

'Tearing our culture apart'

Depends what you think our culture is. I think there's a lot of pride in our literary culture, our theatrical/performance culture, there's huge interest in our history, pride in English music though it must be said you never seem to need to dig very far to find a Celtic basis to that. I don't think it's a bad thing that we are finally looking at English history in a more nuanced way, either. A lot of countries have had to do that long before we really engaged with it.

I don't think you see this opinion in many other cultures, is my point. How many Scottish people want to consign highland dancing to the bin, or Spanish with flamenco dancing etc.

And would you say the same to all Morris dancing or do some variations annoy you more than others? Would you allow rapper Morris because they have cool swords?

Spanish flamenco is actually good dancing to watch and I love the music too. Ok, I'm missing the point a bit. I think your point is a valid one though. Hadn't heard of the rapper kind of Morris so can't comment on that.

I am still bemused and puzzled by @Leobynature 's assertion that Eastern Europeans aren't white. Trying to get my head round that one.

Flamenco, the stranglehold of a nations backwardness. https://www.smithsonianmag.com/travel/complicated-history-flamenco-spain-180973398/

This seems to be the new far right bile, no wonder it's bleeding into our right wing press. https://www.theguardian.com/world/2022/jul/24/viktor-orban-against-race-mixing-europe-hungary

I don't give a shit what colour my descendents are. I'd be sad to see one my languages decline and disappear, but I don't think it matters what people look like.

And anyway there are obviously plenty of people around right now who look like me, including loads of children, so even if that was important to me somehow why would I worry about what people look like hundreds of years after I'm dead?

What this discussion does show up is a lot of misunderstanding about the concept of ‘race’ and which ‘racial features’ get passed down genetically. Skin tone doesn’t necessarily blend in down the generations so we all end up the colour of a latte, for example - it’s a lot more variable and patchy than that - and red hair is well known for skipping several generations and popping up at random. Green eyed parents can have brown or hazel eyed kids. Two dark skinned afro haired parents can theoretically have a pale skinned child if their inheritance is more mixed than it appears from their colouring. The whole concept of ‘race’ as a biological classification is a crock, when you examine it scientifically.

Now culture and religion is a different matter and I do worry about losing some aspects of those, but I won’t go into that here.

This is not a “healthy discussion”. I hope we have learnt something since the 1930s.

I'd never really thought about this before, but I've just realised that unless things change, in "my little family" (as Mumsnetters say) my children will be the last white people. I think that's exciting and interesting. I'm a bit sad that I probably won't have a red haired grandchild, but I'm delighted to be contributing to the melting pot. I'm English by birth but I don't find anything particularly attractive in English culture. I think largely because most of what we think of as English culture is artificially constructed fairly recently from half forgotten scraps. There's no through line as there is, for example, in Irish and Scottish dancing and music. Perhaps because oppression and attempted cultural obliteration makes you cling harder to your heritage.

You are a little ignorant about English culture, folklore and history- it is more perhaps based on different regions of the country, and there is a lot of similarity and crossover with Welsh, Irish and Scottish in some respects, we are after all part of the same islands, and also much bigger in population terms so there are more likely to be differences - but Irish and Scottish culture is also regional, the the homogenous "through line" you pronounce with a wave of your hand is more wavy than you might imaginr. Just because you don't know about something doesn't mean it doesn't exist and can be dismissed. And the great thing about culture, and particularly English culture in England is it doesn't stay the same - it has evolved to take in the culture of whoever has arrived here, and that's a good thing. It's not just something to be preserved in aspic.

We are also an incredibly safe country, relaxed, tolerant, open-minded lot in general, and use humour as currency. Even the French find their own culture stifingly conservative compared to here.

I also think people across the world are pretty similar and we have more in common than what separates us.

@shearwater2 Not sure which bit of your post to pick up on! For starters, what do you mean by English culture? And what does "using humour as currency" mean?

I had forgotten that bit. And the doing it in vest and pants… Ritual humiliation probably covers it!

The UK is something like 89% white so I am not sure white Britons will be dying out any tine soon.

I am white British and it doesn't bother me if there are more non-white people in Europe.

White British people are often very mixed anyway due to our history of trading and invasion (both invading and being invaded). White British people like me - pale olive skin that tans well, dark brown eyes and very dark brown hair - are probably not "pure white British" (what ever that means) anyway (I know this as my genetic ancestry contains French Huguenot, Ashkenazi Jewish and some unspecificied southern mediterrenean).

On culture, it is important to preserve cultural traditions but they are not pickled in aspic. A lot of things we see are very British - fish and chips, Christmas trees, morris dancing, tea- were originally nothing of the sort.

Not one tiny bit

Loads of things. What do you mean by "Irish culture?" Is there a quick answer to that? Perhaps do some reading on it yourself, there are plenty of books on it.

Using humour in many situations is something we do all over the UK and Ireland in my experience. Not so much in other cultures. It was just something I thought of immediately.

On culture, it is important to preserve cultural traditions but they are not pickled in aspic. A lot of things we see are very British - fish and chips, Christmas trees, morris dancing, tea- were originally nothing of the sort.

Borrowing things from other incoming cultures has surely always been a part of English culture.

I'm contributing to the "white decline" but until now hadn't even considered it in that way!

Why would you care if your race is in decline? Does it matter what colour you are? I don't think it does.

@shearwater2 Ah-the old"educate yourself" line. Usually means "I have no idea what I'm talking about"!

And "using humour" is often a euphemism for bullying.....

Also- there is a bit of a "I don't see colour" vibe on this thread. Which is always a worry.

I don’t think some dismissive responses on this thread represent anyone I know or work with or am neighbours with, none of those people would dismiss a loss of culture and history with a ‘who cares!’. I think, though, that this doesn’t have much to do with ‘being white’ and I think as pp has said if you had not made the question about skin colour, there might be a different discussion. Maybe people are scared of being 'white supremacists' (I have seen a few on facebook but they don't seem very supreme, or even sober).

My family has long working-class roots in Northern England and Eastern Scotland, and through marriage, a sizeable part of the family is Punjabi. Some of our family are farmers, some are factory workers and others have small and medium-sized businesses, all go way back. The things we value about family and its various heritages and languages and the landscapes our family has lived in – including townscapes – are important to us and give us a sense of belonging, of continuity and community as we, inevitably, go forward into the future. I would never dismiss the white heritage of the family any more than I would the brown or the migrant history of it.

It is sad to lose sight of histories, joyful or troubled, and a sense of the places we are and have been because this can rob us of meaning. I don’t understand people who can’t wait to be rid of their ‘whiteness’ – I have never heard any black or brown colleagues or friends, all very attuned to racism, celebrate fewer people being white-skinned, it would seem bizarre.

Usually means that the other poster is so far from likely to agree on the point that it's not worth expounding.

Yes there is a culture of banter which can be bullying. How curious that you see it that way, so negative. It wasn't what I meant at all.

If you see everything about English culture as negative or think there isn't any, no wonder you are so ready to throw it in the bin.

You could say the same for any extremely multicultural cities eg Berlin, Amsterdam, Paris, Stockholm, Brussels for example. These cities are sadly very segregated.