To ask where ethnic minority Brits holiday in U.K.?

[CluelessBint]

I know I'm going to be flamed for asking this, but I can hardly ask irl!

I live in south devon in a very popular holiday area. The area is very white middle class. I noticed a few years ago that almost all the people who holiday here are also white Brits. Since noticing this I keep wondering where all the ethnic minorities British people go on holiday.

I travel to other south westerly holiday resorts a lot with my work (hotel industry) and it seems to be the case there too.

If 82% of the population are white, why are at least 95% (a rough estimate from looking out at the harbour the last few days) of grockles white?

Because if you only get one holiday a year would you?:

A) spend it in a country with guaranteed warm weather that is used to diverse visitors and you are treated just like everyone else. Or:

B) spend it in your country of birth where the weather is sketchy and you are stared at, sometimes with hostility (and everyone knows it's rude to stare)?

I'm mixed race and holiday in the UK. I've had mostly positive experiences but there are towns where I've been biting my tongue when gawped at or where I've been treated with suspicion. I've waltzed out of shops where the owner seems to be fixated on what I'm doing whilst the locals are probably shoplifting them blind knowing I could easily afford to buy the entire contents of the shop so have no need to steal their shitty trinkets.

BTW I've been to Southwold and never experienced negativity but have visited other places (several parts of Kent) where I've felt uncomfortable and have thought to myself 'why am I putting money into the local economy to be made to feel unwelcome, I won't be returning and I'll tell my friends'. However, this county is beautiful in parts and I will continue to attempt to see most of it (apart from areas which voted heavily for Brexit) but can understand why some are put off. If you can only afford one holiday a year, why take the risk on bad weather AND poor treatment? It's easier for my family as we can afford more than one so if the UK one doesn't work out we've always got a foreign one lined up.

There are plenty of posters of ethnic origins on here saying they weren't stared at and didn't feel alone.Are we going to ignore those?

A lot of the posters describing negative experience are giving it second hand - my..., I have a friend.....

Saying going into Devon is like entering a different country is offensive and a prime example of Home Counties snobbery you continuously see on MN.

Apparantly now we're all pro UKIP and voted out too. Massive,massive stereotyping. Devon is enormous. Many,many people aren't landowners or owners of Brexit loving tat factories aka Trago Mills.

I'm second generation

My dad had a corner shop and we never went on holiday - shop would have had to close and so couldn't afford the loss of business.

I know shop ownership has gone down since my childhood, but I wonder if the impact of self employment is a factor here.

There are plenty of posters of ethnic origins on here saying they weren't stared at and didn't feel alone.Are we going to ignore those?

Again Ironing that's a straw man argument too. No one is ignoring that. I clearly did say even in an earlier post that it isn't a universal experience and lots of BME people clearly have said they travel around Home Counties and enjoy it.

Not sure what you're getting agitated about though. No one thinks everyone is pro-UKIP and racist and horrid in Devon. And I personally haven't seen a shop selling golliwogs. But I was relating my first-hand experience which you're dismissing as "people are giving second hand experiences".

I don't understand why you're more upset that some BME posters are telling you they have personally experienced casual low-level racism, and less upset that such casual low-level racism persists. Do you see the problem with that? You're either saying I'm a liar, or I'm mistaken in my own experience, or I shouldn't talk about it because it is statistically insignificant.

You're right I shouldn't use my experience to tar all people in a region as racist white UKIPpers, but absolutely no one in this thread has done that!!

Bisquick.
It had been said on this thread Being stared at when you leave the capital is no fun and horrid for the kids which surely implies that every outside London is a white racist.

I would no sooner go into a pub covered in Brexit posters and St George's flags than you would. There sadly are a great many racists in this country. I can't deny that.

I'm sorry if me giving my observations as a white person are offending anyone.

I think what I am getting agitated about is the idea that comes from many MN Londoners is the idea that outside the m25 is a cultural and social wasteland.
People on MN have said before that they don't want to live outside London because they like going to the park and the cinema.
And now we have people saying don't leave London, you'll be stared at.

I live on the edge of the Lake District and there are absolutely tons of Asian visitors, fewer black visitors but still a fair number.

A few years ago there was an article in The Sunday Times about why Asian families tend not to visit the national parks, it was written by an Asian man and he was explaining the cultural reasons and highlighting a campaign within the community to raise awareness and access to the national parks for ethnic minorities.

I can't find a link to the original article but the scheme was not without it's critics - www.spectator.co.uk/2006/01/a-question-of-ethnics

"It had been said on this thread Being stared at when you leave the capital is no fun and horrid for the kids which surely implies that every outside London is a white racist. "

No, it does not imply that.

Being stared at when you leave the capital is no fun and horrid for the kids which surely implies that every outside London is a white racist.

No it doesn't. I've been stared at. By one or two or five people. Doesn't mean EVERY person is racist. Just means there is a sufficient small quorum of racists which is enough to put me off wanting to holiday there! How is this so hard to understand? Saying we encounter some racism is not equivalent to saying everyone we encounter is ipso facto racist.

What does it imply then?

Ironing: there is snobbery about 'outside London ' yes. There is also massive prejudice and disdain for Londoners from non Londoners. The country. The issue of ethnic minority people sometimes being stared at, sometimes being fiddled with, answering naive questions in some parts of some counties is a seperate and distinct issue.

The reality is that if people in places like Devon don't see many ethnic minority people then they will be looked at, not because people are racist but because they're curious. When I've been in Africa as a white person I've been stared at and pointed at because I'm different. I'm afraid it's part of life. It didn't really bother me apart from making me a little bit self-conscious, but I didn't consider it to be racist.

But it is rude to stare so maybe we should all watch ourselves and make sure we don't stare; it can make people uncomfortable.

*Today 10:17 SnickersWasAHorse

I think what I am getting agitated about is the idea that comes from many MN Londoners is the idea that outside the m25 is a cultural and social wasteland.
People on MN have said before that they don't want to live outside London because they like going to the park and the cinema.
And now we have people saying don't leave London, you'll be stared at.*

Statistically the people saying "we don't want to live outside London because of cinemas and parks" are likely to be overwhelmingly white people. Quite irrelevant to this thread. You're conflating what you perceive as middle class London condescension (largely expressed by white people) with discomfort over lack of diversity (expressed by BME Londoners). And I get that it feels frustrating to be a non-racist cultured non Londoner and hear your home and favourite places being "disparaged", but it's not remotely as frustrating as the lived experience being recounted by some minorities on this thread.

There were a few BME family's at the Sussex Haven I went to recently. I noticed them because there were so few and it was weird to be in a mostly white place having come from SE London. I prefer more mixed areas.

Snicker: "I think what I am getting agitated about is the idea that comes from many MN Londoners is the idea that outside the m25 is a cultural and social wasteland.
People on MN have said before that they don't want to live outside London because they like going to the park and the cinema.
And now we have people saying don't leave London, you'll be stared at."

Snicker Please read the thread more closely.
It is filled with people's experiences.
I'm sorry that makes you feel uncomfortable.
However, I am amazed at the generosity and openness on this thread. People are sharing and talking.

Listening, learning and thinking; reflecting back on one's own personal experience; thinking about connections, forming those: these, I would suggest, are better ways to respond to this thread that getting pissed off because you think it's about some weird shit about Londoners' supposed sense of cultural superiority.

It isn't.

Don't make this about you.

I'm finding this thread interesting, by the way. It's reminding me of a recent experience I had but I'm going to have to work out a way of sharing it without 'outing'.

Oh dear Mittens - there is a difference between being stared at as a white curiousity in "Africa" and being stared at as a person of colour in Britain in 2017. And please can the white people stop explaining to me what I should feel like when this happens? I'm not carrying placards and marching through your villages calling all of you racist. I'm just saying this is why I don't like wasting my precious holiday and hard earned money on visiting a place where (based on prior experience) I might experience this. If you said you chose not to visit "Africa" because you get stared at as a white person I wouldn't be commenting saying you're wrong for feeling uncomfortable etc etc.

I'm white British, by the way. The experience I had recently really did open my eyes a bit, and gave me an experience of what I guess I already kind of knew, conceptually. That is part of what drew me to this thread.

Do share catfromjapan. Curious now :)

Ok, sorry, I don't know exactly how you feel, of course I don't. That's not what I meant. I'm simply suggesting that people might not be doing it because they think you shouldn't be in this country, they might be curious.

I did say it was rude though, if you read my post and I understand if it makes you uncomfortable. I'm sorry you've had to deal with that.

I'm Asian Muslim, we go to Cornwall, Devon and recently Northumberland (Harry Potter mad dc wanted to go visit Alnwick castle).

I find in Cornwall and Devon people stare at us, then realise DP is white and stare a bit more but everyone is always friendly thankfully.

When younger with my parents we spend holidays 'back home' in India where I hated it, Dubai or Saudi Arabia loved the latter two. And dad would save his holidays for us to take one big holiday usually in winter as weather was more bearable then. So we'd not go anywhere else other than that.

"What does it imply then?"

It implies that SOME people in SOME areas of SOME counties have behaved in a way that has made SOME visitors feel uncomfortable or irritated or spotlighted enough to prefer somewhere else for their holiday.

I am reading comments about the rich middle class Londoners with second homes. I am not getting myself up in a heap about a slur on Londoners - I am a Londoner, I have no second home, I do not swoop into a narrow cobbled street in Devon or Norfolk in a massive Range Rover and demand olives in truffle oil at the local shop...I know this sort of thing to be an irritant and I understand why, I have not taken it personally or assumed it applies to all Londoners including me. LIkewise there is no need for you to get defensive about hearing people's other experiences.

Yeah fair enough Mittens - sorry for getting a bit testy with you!

And exactly @TestTubeTeen

Racism comes in many forms.

For example when I went to a shop in Cornwall recently, the assistant was falling over herself to be friendly and helpful to the German tourists in front of me. However when it came to me, she didn't say hello (or a word except for the price), refused to make eye contact, and didn't help me put my shopping in the bag. It happens enough that I'm used to it by now, but I absolutely loathe the comments made by the goady white people on this thread that implies their experiences in anyway compare. They really don't.

When we were younger we went back packing around SE Asia, a couple of towns we passed through we were the only white people, we got a lot of stares, so many that it makes you feel a little uncomfortable and on edge.
Now as a white person I know that it's just curiosity it I would imagine as non white person you never know if those states and whispers are because people are curious or because they are racist.
So I imagine most people don't want to spend their relaxing holiday on edge wondering if they are going to get insulted or worse. Do they will want to holiday somewhere they feel happy and relaxed.