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AIBU?

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Original poster

To be shocked and frustrated with the Islamophobia that's bursting out all over Facebook today?

672 replies

Seekingsense · 22/05/2013 21:38

Following the awful tragedy in Woolwich today.

I have seen everything from "We want our England back" to "Kick out all the foreigners" to "Islamic infiltration of the UK" etc. I have paraphrased as some of the stuff is so horrible I do not want to repeat it.

This is from normal everyday people and lots of them. Is this really what people think?

I, like most people am horrified by what has happened to this young soldier in Woolwich, but why is everyone so quick to blame an entire religion for it and to jump on the 'kick out all immigrants' bandwagon.

What can we do about it? Ignore, delete, post, report?

OP posts:
ATJabberwocky · 23/05/2013 15:15

YANBU,

it resulted in a de-friending of many bigots

unfortunately the family members who uttered the same things will just resulting in biting my tongue and taking a deep breath

Flicktheswitch · 23/05/2013 15:15

This reply has been deleted

Message withdrawn at poster's request.

FloralPuddles · 23/05/2013 15:15

if people are too stupid and ignorant not to be racist then it is entirely THEIR own fault and their responsibility to stop being an offensive twat.

Whoa! Are you serious? So instead of taking the opportunity of challenging a persons misguided view and maybe, just maybe as a result educating a person with towards a more truthful and right way to think about what was a a gruesome crime, you write them off? How do they stop being a twat if no one shows them how?!

cory · 23/05/2013 15:16

I don't see this thing about communities being lost because a certain percentage of the population has a different skin colour. If people stayed the same colour, would we have the same community as our grandparents remember? Of course not. It's a different age. Things were always going to change, people move in and out of an area, nobody who gets to middle age will live the life they lived as they lived as a child.

The village community I remember from childhood was very Christian, teetotal, very conservative in their life. When I go back and talk to the younger generation, they might as well be a different culture. But the only immigrant is the same one who was there 40 years ago.

LastTangoInDevonshire · 23/05/2013 15:16

You're all banging your heads against a brick wall because it doesn't matter whether you scream 'racist' or shout 'bigot' - it is STILL what people think and those people (judging by how many people each of you say you have deleted from Facebook) are in the majority.

PatPig · 23/05/2013 15:16

"Yeah right - what you are saying is that it's reasonable for people to want the UK to be 100% white British."

That's not what I said.

I said it is natural to feel some regret at change. In this case, the change, in certain areas - not across the country as a whole - has been fundamental.

amazingmumof6 · 23/05/2013 15:19

vivi and now you are quoting it...and so it spreads.

flick best post. end of thread

getyourheadout · 23/05/2013 15:19

ATJabberwocky why didnt you delete ALL of the people who you class as bigots ?

Thisisaeuphemism · 23/05/2013 15:22

Eh, the schools in east London 30 years ago were mostly Not 100% British. The east end has been full of immigrants like my grandparents (Poland and Dutch Jews) for the past 150 yrs or so....

SolidGoldBrass · 23/05/2013 15:22

I have been kicking arse on Facebook - hopefully a virtual twatting will shake some of these people up as most of them are just unthinking idiots rather than active racists.

Also got going on the blog - why aren't Fathers 4 Justice labelled as terrorists every time a man murders his children?

lottieandmia · 23/05/2013 15:23

'it is natural to feel some regret at change'

Why?

Meddlinkids · 23/05/2013 15:26

Those of you whose FB feeds are filling up with this uneducated foul drivel - they do say you can tell a great deal about someone by the company they keep Wink.

Not had to delete a single friend on mine but then, I don't share friendspace with thick bigots.

Chipstick10 · 23/05/2013 15:29

Believe it or not immigration is a massive concern to a great many of the people in this country, and that isn't confined to white British either. It's a fact, that's why ukip are on the rise. People often make remarks about immigration, it doesn't make them racist no matter how much you scream bigot at someone. People feel uneasy, and frightened and threatened. They feel there services are under pressure and they want to debate it without the Gillian Duffy effect. My sil is the only white face in her road. She feels isolated, does that make her a racist? Some people need to grow up and stop making people feel scared to air their views. Doesn't make pat pig a racist.

Spice17 · 23/05/2013 15:30

YANBU.

I'm no leftie but some people's comments have been disgusting. I've had to stop myself angrily responding to several (without thinking first) and instead stated my position on it, including the line ' It's hard to see the 'Fuck off back to where you came from' stuff considering my Great Granddad was a Black man coming to live in the UK many, many years ago'.

Have had a few contrite people commenting, including relations but now mostly think they're ignorant pricks!

HeffalumpTheFlump · 23/05/2013 15:31

I have to agree that deleting these people isn't going to help in any way. They probably won't notice and if they do probably won't connect it with their horrible comments. It all seems a bit pointless.

PatPig · 23/05/2013 15:33

IME, in respect of middle class people, non-white people are much more opposed to immigration, and more likely to say 'X race/group is bad', than white people are.

amazingmumof6 · 23/05/2013 15:35

lottie change can be scary?

SolidGoldBrass · 23/05/2013 15:49

Just a little bit boggled at the people bleating that this is a particularly awful crime because 'our soldiers should be safe.'

Erm, part of the job description of being a soldier is that you risk getting killed. Your job involves killing other people who will be trying to kill you. Of course this doesn't mean it's acceptable that this poor squaddie was murdered in the street by a couple of nutters (who apparently may have been crackheads, as well) - but it is just another illustration of how profoundly stupid some people are.

gordyslovesheep · 23/05/2013 15:50

no they are not Patpig - that's rot

cory · 23/05/2013 15:55

Am a little puzzled by these references to an all white London of yesteryear. So who lived in Victorian Chinatown then? And the lascars that feature in Victorian literature- were they a figment of the writers' imagination?

plainjaney · 23/05/2013 15:58

I deleted most of DH's family a few months back, his sister actually started it with one of the wonderful Daily Mail meme's of "IMIGRANTS CLAIM BENIFITS AND OAPS GET NUFFINK".

That started the ball rolling really and while I was at it I culled about 20 people who shared the same views including my SIL and BIL.

As I pointed out on Facebook at the time I don't have anything in common with someone who thinks like that so it's pointless keeping you on my friends list.

It probably is pointless and ignorant people tend to remain just that, but its my Facebook and I don't want to read a timeline full of vitriol, hatred and half truths so I just keep deleting them :)

needaholidaynow · 23/05/2013 15:59

This reply has been deleted

Message withdrawn at poster's request.

PatPig · 23/05/2013 16:00

London was not 'all white'. Chinatown is and was a very small area.

It was however 'white British' in character. It is not today.

For example, over the last 10 years, almost half of the white British people several parts of London left the area. www.bbc.co.uk/news/uk-21511904

FloralPuddles · 23/05/2013 16:00

Solid:

Erm, part of the job description of being a soldier is that you risk getting killed. Your job involves killing other people who will be trying to kill you.

He hardly stood a fair chance yesterday did he?! Unarmed and unassuming walking down a street before being hacked to death. He could hardly try and do his 'job' in return!

No one I have come across have 'bleated' that its a "a particularly awful crime because 'our soldiers should be safe.'" I think in actual fact what people are trying to convey but struggling to find the words for is that ANYONE should be able to walk down the street without fear of attacked with a machete and maybe this feels so shocking because we are use to hearing of the sad deaths of our service men and women serving abroad, it wasn't expected whilst minding his own business walking up a London street. Nothing as macabre as this was expected to ever of happened to anyone.

SarahAndFuck · 23/05/2013 16:07

Floral - I agree 100%.

Just will repeat and add I think in actual fact what people are trying to convey but struggling to find the words for is that ANYONE should be able to walk down the street without fear of attacked with a machete just because of the job they do

They sign up knowing they might have to fight, might have to take lives, might lose their own. But nobody signs up to be run down in the street and butchered. That's not part of anybody's job description.