To take Brexit personally?

[Fiep]

I’m preparing to be flamed but I really want to hear views from all sides. Do try to be kind though.

I’m an EU citizen. I’ve lived in the UK for all my adult life and have spent most of that working with NHS patients. I’m a qualified professional and there is a skills shortage - we never manage to fill all our posts.

Most people can’t tell by my accent that I’m from the EU and instead assume I’m from another English-speaking country unless I tel them my name (which sounds foreign) or speak in another language.

Before the referendum I felt the UK was my home. It was the place I’d spent most of my life and I’ve always loved the British humour and quirky way of looking at things.

Nobody ever gave me grief about being foreign and I felt welcome and valued.

Shortly after the referendum, someone verbally abused me on a bus when they overheard me speaking in a European language on the phone. It really upset me. I’m privileged by most measures and I’m white, so I was not used to racist abuse. I now have a baby and struggle to talk to her in my language in public as I feel people are giving me judgemental looks when I’m out and about and speaking “foreign”, especially as I live in a rural place where the majority of shoppers at the big Tesco are White British and I see quite a few Union Jack / St George’s flag tattoos. This denies her the chance to grow up bilingual and I feel guilty about that. I do speak / read / sing to her at home but it’s not enough immersion in the language for it to make a difference.

On the other hand, most of my colleagues in health have always been immigrants too and I struggle to see how the NHS would run if it was just White British staffed.

AIBU to feel really angry about Brexit? To feel it’s just vitriol and wanting the country to be white? To take it personally and to let it affect me in that way? To look around the shops and feel that prejudice has been legitimised?

I’d actually be really keen to hear from Leavers as well as Remainers as I really can’t get my head around how anyone could have thought this was a good idea for something as woolly as “sovereignty” or whatever.

braces self for impact

@vemvet telling me that my experience is confirmation bias is telling me that my experience of an increase in abuse is factually incorrect. Don’t be patronising.
And regarding my other point I think your response proved it.

It’s not your views I have a problem with but only you telling me my experience is not what I think it is.

@vemvet what you’re saying is “no, there isn’t more abuse, you’re just noticing it more”. You may have never experienced abuse but it’s not something you just filter out via a perceptive bias when you’re not looking for it. Someone telling you to “fuck off back home we don’t want you anymore, didn’t you read the paper” isn’t very ambiguous.

Hm, I suggest you try living in pretty much any other country in the world and seeing if you experience less 'abuse' there...

And it's not very validating to call other posters 'defended and unflective' because you don't agree with them.

I'm off for a period of deep reflection.

@vemvet I have lived in various other European countries thank you. And I did experience less abuse. Have you? But even if it hadn’t been less, does that make it ok here?

Can you not see how refusing to acknowledge another group’s experiences (it’s not just me: read the rest of the thread) is unreflective/defended at best and offensive at worst? Would you tell someone from another more marginalised group that it was “abuse” not abuse?

I have a curious question though. Why is it so important to you that it should be untrue that the rates of abuse have gone up?

“I'm off for a period of deep reflection. wink“

FWIW I can see why people struggle with this concept and my meaning is probably not easiest conveyed without being face to face and having the benefits of nonverbal communication and trust

It's not important to me, and yes, I have lived in 3 other countries, which is why I know for sure that Britain represents more or less the least racist society I have ever heard of (also what other people tell me who have lived in the UK).

Also, all this talk of 'abuse' - because you've had a few comments on the bus? Please. I've had worse myself. Just...so...snowflakey

@vemvet it seems important to you as you’re not willing to consider that it could be true.

As for snowflakey - wow. You sound like a nice person

Thanks 😉

YANBU! Brexit is a almighty clusterf@ck. There are no benefits. We had the best deal as full members. We need to vote the Tories out and stop their hard Brexit. Vote tactically. There won’t be another chance to change course after this.

No, my very strongly Eastern European accented parents haven't experienced any racism since Brexit and neither have I (English not my first language). Tbh I'm very sceptical of claims - from white people - they've experienced more 'racism' since Brexit. I agree as someone else said above it's probably confirmation bias. And if you think most other EU countries aren't at least as broadly racist/xenophobic as the UK - if not more so - you're having an absolute laugh.

My family had a number of reasons for voting the way they did. But put it this way - someone with first-hand knowledge pointed out to me that it was more difficult to leave the Soviet Union than the EU and that tells you everything you need to know about what a rotten institution it is.

someone with first-hand knowledge pointed out to me that it was more difficult to leave the Soviet Union than the EU and that tells you everything you need to know about what a rotten institution it is.*

The Soviet Union collapsed, that's a ridiculous comparison. What happened in Prague then when they rebelled in '68? What happened in Vilnius as late as '91? How were satellite states all over the Soviet bloc treated over 70 odd years?! You can't compare the EU's response to brexit to the brutal oppression of the USSR!

Some of those comments would be hilarious if they were not so awful.
I am a EU citizen and I have not experienced any abuse , as explained previously.
Which obviously means that no one elsw has, my anecdotes trump anyone else's, OP is being a snowflake, it's just a few comments on the bus, etc.
Jesus.
And of course let's hide our bigotry behind claims of ' just giving the OP what she wants and sharing honest opinions '.
God some people are twats, and proud of it!

Also, it's okay to be racist in the UK cos they are more racist in other countries. Priceless.

Describing the OP's experience of racism and the hurt caused by it as 'snowflakery' is straight out of the DM denial handbook.

Trump and people like Farage with his anti migrant Brexit campaign have gone a long way to legitimizing Racism. The bias some people used to keep quiet about can now be expressed more freely.

There is racism in the UK and it works both ways. In fact I have one German friend who is regularly telling me how bigoted, f£king stupid and what a bunch of racists we are. I have to sit there and take this crap by biting my tongue very hard. She should really think about the plank in her own country's eye before shooting her mouth off.

Can’t be arsed to read the full thread as I’ve read the idea of the thread 100 times by now, but just wondering what EU(?) country the OP comes from? I’d like to know if I would feel safe and welcome there as a mixed race person compared to the safety I feel here in the UK, as a lot of EU countries have a serious problem with hostility towards non-white people.

The people quick to deflect by pointing out other countries are racist too are missing the point. The question is has Brexit and all the rhetoric around it made it easier for people to feel able to express out loud their inherent racist views?

ChristmasAngst I used to have a couple of " friends " from the same country as me, who would regularly bad mouth the UK in the same manner as your friend. I severed ties basically. It's not acceptable and you shouldn't have to listen to this and bite your tongue.

I have to sit there and take this crap by biting my tongue very hard.

Er... no you don't! Being called racist by your 'friend' is no more ok than OP's neighbour telling her to go back to where she's from.

To feel it’s just vitriol and wanting the country to be white?

Well, it's not about colour, as you're white and are still being made feel ostracised.

But Brexit did seem to give bigots more confidence in picking on "foreigners".

At the risk of sounding like a school teacher, treating others with empathy and respect and expecting the same in return should really not be that hard...

@tenredthings
The people quick to deflect by pointing out other countries are racist too are missing the point. The question is has Brexit and all the rhetoric around it made it easier for people to feel able to express out loud their inherent racist views?

I think my post above yours is valid. Especially how the OP laid it on thick how they were white and “passable” and people presumed they were from an “English speaking country” and why are they now experiencing racism on the bus with people with Union Jack tattoos (). OP has defended their argument, from what it seems, throughout this thread, hence the reason I asked what country the OP comes from, so I could look at the history of its treatment towards its non-white citizens and visitors and compare them to the post-Brexit “racist” UK.

It’s not deflecting. The OP says they are white and accuses the UK/Brexit of wanting to be white, when the UK is arguably the most multicultural country within the EU and, from my experience, the most welcoming to multicultural people out of ANY country in the EU. I don’t think it’s unfair to ask the country of origin of the OP to “hold up a mirror”.

Have you ever visited countries in the EU as or with a non-white person, FWIW? (Don’t have to answer that if you don’t want to, I’m just curious)

The people quick to deflect by pointing out other countries are racist too are missing the point.

Riiiiight.

The UK voted to leave an institution where many, probably most, member states fall behind the UK in most of the ways that we measure 'civility'. Eg treatment of women, incidents of racism, places of non-Christian worship, treatment of animals, environmental regulation and the like. But we're constantly told that the UK is nothing but a racist backwater without the EU, like North Korea it was suggested a couple of pages back.

Much of this tolerance has been cultivated and refined under a Tory-led coalition, which is now leading the charge to leave the UK.

But this is not relevant to remainers, I know, let's keep on point: the UK, and leavers in particular, are racist.

I do not think YABU. No.

DH wanted to return (he's English).
I don't want to....
I've had 2 really nasty encounters there (even just as a visitor) and I simply won't move there.

Well, also because I'm a bit worried about Brexit related instability, tbh.
(well, I suppose I wouldn't be too opposed to Scotland. If/when things have properly settled down.)