To think a white person can be racist against another white person?

[haveamooch]

I'm white. I have dark, deep olive skin. I'm darker than all of my close friends, two of which are Pakistani. My background is white - Mediterranean. I've been mistaken for Palestinian because of dark skin but light eyes.

Throughout my childhood, teens and occasionally as an adult, I've had 'racist' comments from school mates, other adults, etc. But it isn't actually racist, as far as I know, since they're white just like me.

A few comments that I've received off the top of my head are

'You're just like them, but darker so not as porcelain like and angelic!'

'You could pass for an Asian 100%'

'Katie looks better in the same swimsuit, she's blonde and whiter'

'You're just like us, really. But your skin isn't! Haha, must be nice to be brown all the time'

'I think whiter skin looks purer'

'Is your fanny dark then?'

'I've never fucked a foreigner before'

A few more that I won't repeat that are just hurtful.

AIBU to think white people can be racist towards other people of the exact same race that just look different?

I grew up in the EastEnd.

I mean even Irish or Scottish people face negativity from the English.

And of course it's never the other way, is it? The English have to grin and bear it!
I stopped taking the race industry seriously when a young teacher went on a course. always an indication of a new fad coming up, and she said that 'black people can't be racist'. This was a school with little diversity at the time and the young teacher had never taught anywhere else. Those of us with a wider experience rolled our eyes and went back to the crossword.

www.parliament.uk/about/living-heritage/transformingsociety/private-lives/relationships/collections1/race-relations-act-1965/race-relations-act-1965/

and then keep going until you get to the Equality Act. They all mention "colour".

So while you may be white, the society you live in does not perceive you as white and you get racist comments due to your skin colour.

DH and the DC have British/Dual nationality
They’ve had some awful comments from other white people, not sure it’s racist strictly speaking as Germans aren’t a race but awful comments all the same.
I’m sorry OP, people can be dicks

Im Scottish but worked in England for 18 months and although it was considered 'banter', I was subjected to being referred to as the 'smelly sock' regularly, my accent was mimicked to make it sound like I'm masculine (I don't have a deep voice at all) and several references to me eating haggis and being tight with money because I'm Scottish. It really wore me down. This was years ago and I really regret not doing something about it

25 years ago two genocides were hitting the headlines.

One in the former Yugoslavia, white people slaughtering white people for their ethnicity.

One in Rwanda, black people slaughtering black people for their ethnicity.

Only the most pig ignorant, blind, deaf, stupid idiot on the planet would suggest racism is purely about skin colour. Of course it isn't.

Yes it is possible, the Irish have had a lot over the years, and some UKIP voters no doubtless feel this about people from some or all of the countries who joined the EU in 2004.

It is racist because a lot of ‘white people’ from the mediterraean to Western India are visibly a different sort of white to the light skinned northern european types.

Slavic people are fair skinned but visibly different from Nordic people.

The Batwa pygmy people of Uganda are as dark skinned as the majority population but visibly different and amongst the most discriminated against people on earth today.

Skin tone is by no means the only visible difference between ethnic groups.

Funny you should say that hopping we're all white, fair and English, but all being tall too when abroad occasionally people will ask if we're Scandinavian/ German if they haven't heard us speak.

However once following an England vs Germany match, a large family at an airport felt it necessary to randomly inform us in their eastenders accents that we might have won the football but they won the war. Repeatedly, with jibes about us reserving seats with our beach towels, despite the fact we were clearly a family with dcs rather than football fans. Naturally, in rather ott rp we replied that even allowing for the Croydon facelifts they didn't look quite old enough to have fought in ww2. And then laughed at their confusion and promptly forgot about it. But even though it might only be intended as an insulting joke, rather than racism I can imagine it would be very different if you're German and frequently endure that type of attitude.

Oh yes - English against Irish, Protestant against Catholic.
I had a boyfriend at Uni who said he would never marry me because he wanted to marry an English person ( my parents are Irish).
At a work meeting in London an English bloke started going on about "bloody Fenians"/"fucking Catholics" - he didn't seem particularly bothered when I told him I was Catholic.
Horrific service at a very chic tea place in N Ireland (back in the 90s) - I was getting very cross but my mother gently explained that she and I look very Catholic and it was a protestant place.

I’m half Italian, and had this my whole childhood, growing up in the north of England. People used to shout the P-word at me in the street. As a result, any form of racism makes my blood boil.

My dad had black hair and a mustache in the eighties, complete with dark olive skin. Absolutely he could have been mistaken for Libyan etc. on first glance, and was also the subject of “on sight” racism.

@ stopgap - my Indian parents were the opposite. Passed for white until they started talking in their native languages. So never experienced the racism me and my brother did and couldn’t understand it - Dad actually blamed me the first time I was called the P-Word saying I must have done something to trigger it!

Of course its racism as they perceive you as different and so you are "othered".

The fact you are white makes no difference as they are perceiving you as "not like us" and making comments to let you know about it.

Classic racism actually, but love the people on this thread falling over themselves to say it's not racism.

Well it would be odd for one white person to call another a white bitch.

But to call someone a Scottish/Irish/Russian bitch obviously it happens.

You're being mistaken for a WoC though by white people which is possibly misdirected racism?

My son looks not white British and is sometimes questioned by PoC about his unusual looks, especially by mixed race people.

Of course people can be racist against other white people, whether they have the same complexion or not. A lot of people hate on Eastern Europeans. I have a friend who's Greek, and she gets mistaken for an Albanian or Romanian and gets racist abuse. After the Brexit vote, she also got other abuse.