My best friend has been attacked today.

[Cadela]

She’s Brazilian and white, but because she has an accent whilst we were waiting for a taxi a group of very young, around 10-17 year olds white kids spat on her and started shouting fucking horrific abuse.

Police were there within a minute of our call THANK GOD and loads of people on the street stepped in to help, and if you were in Norwich today on Gentleman’s Walk. - THANK YOU for helping.

I cannot believe it has got to this point where my settled status friend is now having to give statements and recover after having a glass of wine and going home. What the fuck is this county?

“Frequency · Today 19:59
Mammajay · Today 19:55
I think we are all whatever our ethnicity going to have to step up and speak out when we encounter this rather than stay silent. It will take courage but we must do it. Then these idiots, a small minority of British people, will shut up.
Agreed.

The sooner these thugs learn they are a minority and they are the ones who are not welcome in our communities the better.”

We’re abroad at the moment but I really wish we were in the UK do we could be part of the fight back against the racist thugs.

I just think it’s so sad to hear kids this young being involved. What has gone wrong for them?

I am not downplaying what’s happened to your friend OP by saying this, how horrific for her, she doesn’t deserve this. I just think it’s a sorry state of affairs for children who are so young to be assaulting people for any reason, but especially this. And spitting on someone is an assault, she should report it.

I hope your friend is ok op. I hate all this hatred, im disgusted by it.

My husbands grandparents were immigrants. We have a very obvious Eastern European surname and I worry about my children encountering negative reactions because of their name 😢

My mixed race children have encountered racism with alarming regularity ever since they've been at their predominantly white secondary school. Them being believed has been an uphill struggle because of the perception by staff that 'racism doesn't happen here.' Most pupils who are racist know how to go under the radar and not get caught in the act but the capacity of some of the teachers to fail to act or pretend they haven't heard beggars belief. I'm really worried about September and how much worse the racism will be for children everywhere.

I am surprised at kids of these ages even noticing someone with an accent.

My DC17 & 18 friends are mostly not English. Their senior school is hugely diverse and if you are racist you’d be alone and have no friends.

Every school has a book to record racist remarks or incidents. This goes to the governors.

Ensure it’s filled in.

Can you maybe look at it from a different angle? We now do culture days at work and school - each one demonstrating either a celebration, food, music etc maybe suggest it as a school celebration under the inclusive banner? Maybe instead o fearing the issues, maybe hit it head on with something positive?

I’m so sorry for your friend and hope she is recovering. It’s sick that this is happening and by boys so young as well. There’s always been some racism - I remember being followed in a tube by teens standing behind me just saying “chink chick chink”. But before I used to think it was just a very very small minority of people who did this, the fact that there are large groups doing this now has definitely made me want to leave this country asap even though I’ve lived here for most of my life. It’s heartbreaking.

Anyone else think it’s so depressing how racism seems worse in many ways now? I feel like we have taken a step backwards in the past few decades. I went to a predominantly white school in the late 90s. Had the odd racist name in primary school but Didn’t get one racist name in high school .

Don’t get me wrong I know at least one girl in our year group held racist views, as a few horrified people mentioned it and also I overheard her saying something awful about a minority group one day.

But anyway she didn’t say anything to my face and I wasn’t in her friendship circle, so racism wasn’t really part of my school experience. It was an all-girls schools, maybe that helped.

Indeed --- and this is while right-wing agitators, and indeed some people in politics and the media who should know better, go on about "two-tier policing", by which they mean "Letting the lefties and Muslims get away with it". I think the police have done an amazing job, all things considered.

OP, I'm so sorry this happened to your friend. I'm amazed that there's anyone on MN who can't believe this stuff happens anymore! We're not in a post-racist society. We're not in a post-sexist society. We're not in a post-homophobic society. All these problems still exist.

So disgusting. I hope your friend will be alright. Silver lining - people, good people stepped in to help.

This this and fucking this.

People are not stupid, the teachers are clearly aware of the racism. They just choose to gaslight and not act on it.

Well, of course I get that there has always been racism in the UK. I doubt there is a country anywhere which is completely free of it, in one form or another. I meant what is happening that there are these awful riots (I don't live there btw). It just seems a whole other step up.

I think white people just don't see or believe how widespread racism is.
I have a very anti racist friend who's lovely but even she's been minimising what happened as just a few bored kids. She lives in a small white village and hasn't seen the hate I've seen directed towards blacks and Asians in my city.
Absolutely racism has ramped up 1000% in the last week (I remember the same after brexit) but it's always been there.
People from norwich saying they can't believe it's happening there - I mentioned upthread the racism I witnessed when we lived in Norwich against my Indian husband and Indian waiters. I've just remembered another thing that happened there. I had a Japanese friend who was pushing her baby in a pushchair. Someone spat on the baby (!) and screamed "Get back to Africa". This was I'm about 2010 so pre-Brexit and riots. If you're white you're often oblivious to all this.

I am of Asian descent and live in Norwich. My kids are mixed heritage. Their friends are from Poland, the Phillipines, India, South America of various sorts, China, Hong Kong and Nigeria. Norwich is hugely diverse now, and very 'woke' for want if a better word. I am from London. To say just because London is ' diverse it is not racist is hilarious. There is huge amounts of racist violence in London. Stephen Lawrence was murdered in London. OP I'm glad bystanders inervened and the police got to them

I've heard about loads of racist abuse in Norwich.

Its definitely a place where its friendly if you are white, middle class and from the area.

If you are not, Norwich is not friendly at all.

My mixed race friend moved out of Norwich after being told to "fuck off home" loads of times.

I have another friend who's eastern European who lived in Norwich. She was white but had an accent that was not British. She was also told to fuck off home

Read back on the thread.

No one anywhere said that "because London is diverse its not racist".

Did they?

I said that I personally know people who've moved from Norwich to London, as they feel they get less racist abuse in London.

That's how they feel and it's valid.

Racism definitely exists in London.

But London is much more multi cultural and diverse than Norwich. That's for sure.

There's racism everywhere though.

Ireland also just had mass riots against immigrants.

Far right parties are rising in lots of European countries.

I know a black woman who moved from the USA to the UK to escape the racism in the USA.

There is racism everywhere.

It seems to be embedded in a lot of human culture

we have problems with the illegals at the moment housed in a hotel in the town they are from Afghanistan and Iraq …views on young white females are abhorrent and have been spitting on women in shorts/summer attire..people are v afraid! It’s a dangerous situation and going to get worse …this is outskirts of London and white females being put at risk …problems are across the spectrum !

I've done so for many years. If I sit silently and witness such behaviour, I'd be complicit and this is not something I can live with nor want to set as an example for my child. The sauna in the gym is shocking. The conversations I overhear are none of my business, but I'm not going to sit in silence and listen to racism. I've twice got up and left, telling those fellow-members that others don't want to hear it.

'Public transport' rage is horrible, and I've been pleased to see when footage has gone viral that fellow-travellers can and do stand up to this. I actively spoke up for two veiled Muslim women who were harming no one yet found themselves subject to a horrible verbal assault on a tram.

We were at the coast having a wonderful day out when some idiot tried to involve me in 'banter' that a boat trip going by was the next load of unwanted 'guests' arriving. I asked him tersely while he was making me complicit in his racism and informed him he wasn't big or clever.

All I can say is it must be hell for PoC having to navigate this shite on a daily basis. How exhausting: how soul-destroying. Then white people start 'helpfully' explaining to them what racism is and is not. No wonder Eddo-Lodge felt compelled to write her book.

As women, however, we always have to risk-assess. There is a very real danger we are putting our own lives and safety at risk.

We have them - or did, until two months ago - in a large hotel located in the quiet Yorkshire village in which I live. So it's pointless stating 'you'll be complaining when they're in your white, middle-class neighbourhoods' - they are, and their presence isn't just restricted to the city.

There was a fuss kicked up by some locals and our MP when they were moved here. Other than seeing them walking to the local grocery store we have barely even known they were here.

They have not caused one moment's bother. We can be sure that if they had, the media would have been all over it.

It’s fucking disgusting. Our service sent all of our BAME staff home at 3pm on Wednesday for safety as we discovered that there were planned riots that evening in our town. As one of our nurses was walking to her car at 3pm, someone screamed racist abuse at her (in a hospital car park)

We’ve now established an emergency buddy system where we all go as a group to escort BAME staff to their cars, or someone will drive them home if they usually walk or use public transport. Everyone then reports in via our group chat that they have arrived safely at home.

Those are two paragraphs I am embarrassed to have had to type as a white British woman, and the irony of essentially being a white knight is not lost on me. I’m also not entirely happy that I’ve even used the outdated term BAME as I’m aware it essentially means ‘non white’, but I couldn’t think of a different expression whilst typing to convey that I have colleagues from all over the world, so I sincerely apologise for using it and would welcome a correction!

@WetBandits Some people use the term "global majority" but I hate that term too!

Hope your friend is feeling better, OP.

If I saw you getting racist abuse in my shop I’d stand up to it. So would most others. These scum are a tiny proportion of this society and don’t, in my view, deserve a place in it. So sorry you are experiencing this. Sending you an unmumsnetty hug. X