Would you say non-white people born & raised in England are English?

[rack909]

Just thought I should hear people’s perspective on this.

Some say it’s an ethnicity, some say it’s a nationality & others say it’s both of them.

I personally think it’s both a Nationality & ethnic group.

If someone says they are from England, they are denoting their nationality as English even if they don’t say it outright. It’s the same thing.

Do you really think a French child of French parents will really consider themselves English? Really?

You are American. Do you consider yourself more or less American than Native Americans?

From the whole thread my take away is that people mean many different things when they say that they are “English” or “Scottish” or “British”. Some mean nationality, some ethnicity some culture or more than one. And in most cases I don’t think it actually matters.

Ethnic background can be useful for government or organisations in the equality questions to see whether they are reaching different groups. That includes White English. I would never say my ethnicity was White English or or anything but Asian British Indian. It has only come up in one context apart from purely statistics for the organisation asking. Asian Indians have a lower healthy weight range.

I am culturally British or English - eat food broadly the same as most of the population (which now includes a much broader range with traditional roast but also many people make curry and pasta/pasta sauce from scratch) My music and cultural references are British/English. I sang in a choir, badly danced around maypoles, school in England in a place I was the only person that was not white.

If that child is born in England, raised in England, educated in England, works and lives in England, then why the hell not?

They likely will just be bilingual and influenced by two cultures and have dual nationality, which is quite common for many people who live in England these days.

Native Americans did not create the country you call ‘America’.

But to answer your question, they became fully American after the 1924 Indian Citizenship Act, because ‘American’ is considered a nationality, not an ethnicity.

Of course you seem to have trouble with the distinction between nationality and ethnicity. British is the nationality, English is the ethnicity.

But they will generally not consider themselves English, even if you believe they are English because they tend to be white.

But they will generally not consider themselves English

How the heck do you know? Do you actually live in England? You make a lot of assumptions about its people.

In most of these countries you would not be a citizen by birth. You would only get citizenship if one of your parents (in some cases your father only) was a citizen. So it is not that clear cut.

Tend to be white?

That doesn’t even matter, because there is a difference between nationality and ethnicity.

For instance, there are more ethnic Mongolians in China than in Mongolia itself. They are Chinese nationals, but not ethnically Chinese. They are Mongolians. And will be very angry with you if you say they are Chinese lol

An awful lot of word salad to suggest black and Asian people born and raised in England can not call themselves English.

Thankfully not a widely held view.

"More in Common’s new polling found that three quarters (74 per cent) of English people believe that someone can be English regardless of their skin colour or ethnic background. Only 17 per cent say these factors are important to English identity, while 9 per cent are unsure." March

Yes

While my personal view has always been that English is an ethnicity, British is the legal category, black and brown (and white!) people born and raised in England whose parents were also born and raised in England and have no real ties to the historical land of origin - yes actually, why deny them to say they are English, perhaps with x heritage.

Bob who turned up last week from Indonesia isn't English.

There's a big difference.

So you speak for everyone who has parents who were born abroad?

French people are not all white either.

Bob who turned up from last week isnt claiming to be English.

Its all there in the OP - born and raised in England.

Yes, without question.

So only non-white? What of you are white but your family was from Italy or Ukraine or Sweden . Are you somehow more English than someone in the same scenario who is not white?

So you don't mind insulting people about their heritage then, and pigeonholing them into a category defined by you. I see.

Going back how many generations. And are you only thinking of non-white people? What about someone with German parents who was born and brought up in England?

and what of it was say one English and one German parent?

English people are a bit German/Scandinavian, that’s why we’re generally taller and fairer haired than the rest of the UK. Makes no sense to say you can’t be English unless you have this or that gene, or if your parents are French.

That’s why I said ‘tend to’ not that they are. It’s an observation of fucking reality

No, Joanna Lumley was born in India but I don’t think that she is Indian.
I think that English is the race and anyone born here is British.
It doesn’t make any group better or worse than any other it’s just the English have a racial heratige as do every single person on earth.

How would you define "English racial heritage"?

None of them are ethnic English because English isn’t ‘generic white person’ but an ethnicity just as distinct as Japanese, Han Chinese, Nepali (Bhutan knows this one lol), Burmese, German, etc.

A lot of you pretend not to know but it’s actually important that you learn the difference between ethnicity and nationality.

Why is it important?