To despair at the growing level of racism and xenophobia in this country?

[AlexaShutUp]

I have just been told by the security guard at my local shop that the coronavirus is a "good thing" because it will stop people from traveling and it will therefore "keep them foreigners out". I am ashamed to say that I couldn't think of a good response quickly enough, and just muttered something disapproving but pretty incoherent back to him. Have so many much better responses going round in my head now, and I am annoyed that I didn't challenge him in a more articulate manner.

I know that there have always been racists and xenophobes, but I'm sure that there was a time when such hideous views would not have been expressed to a stranger in public. Over the last few years, it seems that there have been more and more comments of this nature, and it makes me so sad to see the ignorant, unwelcoming little nation we have become.

What sort of fuckwit thinks that a global pandemic is good news? And what sort of society makes people think it's ok to voice such opinions?

@Pixxie7
As you say, that's a misconception too. So-called health tourism is reckoned at 0.3% of the NHS budget.

@Pixxie7

And as for the 'coming here to take advantage' EU migrants bring more net income to the country in the form of tax paid than do natives Brits.

Twillow@ oh I know but people are worried over the previous austerity measures and the nhs.

You aren’t making allowances for other people’s experiences & situations.

If you have a warm home and a good job, but the man you were speaking to has struggled to find a home or work, then his views will be different.
Wanting a better housing:population ratio is not racism.

And I’m not saying racism doesn’t exist, because clearly it does. But you are doing a “Gordon Brown” and making a pretty unpleasant assumption yourself.

I have a friend who's said to me twice that she thinks Britain needs to become a Christian country again. That was her reason for voting leave. A very thinly disguised way of saying we should get rid of all the Muslims. We were out shopping in our nearest city one day and she didn't want to walk to the shops a particular way because last time she'd walked there it had been full of foreigners. This city built it's success with a foreign workforce and was one of the first multi-cultural/ethnic cities, which it prides itself on (well, officially anyway).

This from someone who has a strong Christian faith. She must have gone to a far, far different Christian church to me because I was taught that Jesus preached tolerance and mixed with the people no one else would go near. I'm atheist now but still remember what I was taught in Sunday school.

She and her husband also come out with some whoppers of soundbites and are probably the Daily Mail's target audience. For the time being I have to bite my tongue because of circumstances, but I've lost all respect for her.

I've also noticed more people in this area are making comments about foreigners, about the chinese all carrying Corona virus and muslim men being paedophiles etc. It turns my stomach.

I can certainly confirm that some of my family members seem more emboldened to make racist comments these past couple of years.

As for strangers, I dont actually live in the UK anymore but came back last summer to get married. I'm told by some guests that the DJ we hired for the reception had a couple of racist rants about muslims and how black people had ruined London. Really angry about it still tbh.

Always been that way just more permissible to express those views now as mainstream politicians have set the tone and when it comes from them it's viewed as "refreshing ", "straight-talk" "no nonsense" and just being honest

Also funny how British people are allowed to happily move anywhere in the world as "expats" to better their life in whatever way, better climate, job opportunities (even historically colonizing entire countries) and that's perfectly okay. But let anyone brown or black immigrate and they are "dirty immigrants" who should go back where they came from. And you say there is no such thing is privilege...sure

Yep people have definitely become more emboldened where I am - again it is and can only really be anecdotal but it’s true. Conversations in my local shops - lots of “well that’s it, we’ve voted, we won, time to stop the immigrants coming here” hard to put my finger on but there’s a scary shift happening - even a few years ago you would just roll your eyes at the odd one and move on - now it seems like to dismiss these views and you will be rounded on by racists and challenged for daring to say they are racist.
This post has been a perfect example of that

British history
Britain invades scores of countries and enslaves people.

These countries are plundered of their wealth.

The commonwealth really means collectively the wealth of these countries are stolen to enrich Britain.

Invaded countries become impoverished.

People migrate to Britain because it’s Great Britain. It must be great there.

There are labour shortages in Britain; people from the common(de)wealth are actively asked to work in Britain.

Britain become more diverse.

Morals of the story
1. Don’t invade other countries. You didn’t like it when Germany tried to do that.
2. Embrace change. Like it or not, things change. Nothing stays the same.
3. Diversity is what makes Britain great now. Enjoy your curry.

It's impossible to deny that people are more freely expressing racist and xenophobic views in recent years. I know other countries might appear to have a bigger problem with racism but that doesn't mean the UK doesn't have a problem. People who can't see it are lucky but it doesn't mean there's no racism, just that they haven't witnessed it. I most definitely have witnessed it (I'm married to an Asian and have seen some horrible behaviour directed at him). I've also seen people yelling at Muslims in the street, on more than one occasion. You just have to read some comment sections on news reports to see that racism is alive and kicking.

I don’t think Germany invading is a very appropriate example.

I think what people could be missing is that it is now possible for people from all over the world to move to other parts of the world. Thus causing an 'immigrant' problem everywhere. Or instead of immigrant say someone wanting a better life.
The pop of India is 1,380,004,385
The pop of Indonesia is 272,481,54
The pop of Uganda is 45,181,751

I remember reading that 1 million migrants entered the US per year.
Certainly the US is stricter on migrants now. Maybe a million a year is too much for even that large country.

Perhaps racism is growing world wide due to the burgeoning population moving - it would not be surprising.

We didn't used to have illegal immigrants arriving by boat on a weekly basis.

But as that doesn't suit the left wing bias we just berate 'racist' Britons and ignore what happens in the rest of the world.

Imv the baby boomers had it good. To now fill the country with cheap immigrant labour to care for them in their old age - thereby passing the buck because the milennials will have to provide the care for the immigrants as they age/ or bring in more cheap labour to do that. That is pretty unfair, I say this as a nearly boomer myself.

I don’t believe for one minute that a random security guard told you this. You just wanted brownie points from the virtue-signallers

I want to ask people on here a genuine question. Have you ever felt "better" because you were English?

I feel increasingly embarrassed to be English. Britain has made a complete tit of itself over Brexit, and the English within Britain seem to have been at the forefront of the shit show.

I hear stuff all the time about 'them foreigners' in my job, so I am astounded that a pp has not heard this type of phrase. There is a lovely Jamaican man works where I work and often come in to the shop to take photos of clothes to show his wife, then returns a couple of hours later to buy them for her. At Christmas time, he was walking past, saw me, and stopped to wish me a merry Christmas and God's blessing on me for my kindness to him. I haven't done anything out of the way for him that I don't do for my other customers. When I told my colleague about this, and her boyfriend who works directly with this man, there were all sorts of racist comments directed at him. Believe me, by the time I had finished with them, it made for a very uncomfortable shift (I am her immediate boss).

Unfortunately, I appear to know a lot of the worst kind of Brexshit types and it makes me despair.

But let anyone brown or black immigrate and they are "dirty immigrants" who should go back where they came from. And you say there is no such thing is privilege...sure

I'm 64 Blubelle and never come across that attitude in my life in the UK. I'm sure it's there if I look hard but that would have been 30 years ago.

Look at the facebook posts on the dark tone plasters tonight - full of white people saying 'what a waste of time' etc

Perhaps this is largely the cause of blatant racism. FB etc I mean. People get away with whatever they like on FB then carry on, as they now think their views are the norm, as they read those with similar views, when off the internet.

I don’t think they’ve become more racist but have instead felt more comfortable expressing that racism.

Because now they feel they have backup.

To all the people saying this didn't happen
Why not? I bet some of the racist/xenophobic fuckers on this thread think this sort of bollocks.
This comment is innocuous compared to the bile spouted the comments page of newspapers. This man was just saying it rather than writing it down.

@contentedsoul you really need to do some historical research. It makes me laugh when Brits talk about arrogancy and entitlement. Yet hostorical facts proves that Britain was a small destitute island, needing to go to other countries and take from/terrorise them to be able to survive. Even looking at the recent Windrush scandal, Britain did a massive campaign to get Jamaicans over here to essentially save the destitute aftermath of the war. Jamaicans came over, worked hard, faced racial abuse, assault, murder, etc. and put up with it. Are they arrogant if they want certain rights? Are people coming here from countries we have bombed arrogant?

It is the Brits who are arrogant and we need to humble ourselves as we would have fuck all if it werent for the historical theft and enslavement of other countries.

I don’t believe for one minute that a random security guard told you this. You just wanted brownie points from the virtue-signallers

The number of posters who have come on here to tell me that I'm lying is the most interesting thing for me to have come out of this thread. I hadn't realised how quick people were to dismiss stuff that's outside of their own experience, but it actually explains quite a lot.

If you choose not to believe me, that's fine - I don't really care. However, I do have to question this notion of posting for "brownie points". How does that work exactly? What virtue would I be signalling exactly in saying that I witnessed someone doing something crap and failed to respond in an articulate way? Why would I even care about getting approval on an anonymous forum for something that didn't ever happen? And if I was going to make up a story to make myself look good, don't you think I'd have cast myself in a slightly more flattering light, say, by scripting a witty and virtuous response?

If you think the whole thing is made up, by all means, report the thread to MNHQ. I don't need your validation.

Yeah how ridiculous, people coming on to say they don’t believe it. Of course it happened. And as someone with an Indian ex, of course racism is alive and kicking. And now people feel emboldened by the dangerous buffoons we have in government - they can express it more freely.

No wonder EU citizens have left in their droves - leaving the NHS etc understaffed. Would you stay here if you felt so unwelcome?

And let’s not forget the recent Windrush scandal - the government had promised redress but are doing very little and simply could not care. As far as they are concerned the people affected do not matter.

I think it's very damaging to dismiss someone's account of a racist incident as "not happening". It's dismissing and minimising the experience of many people in the UK who are the victims of direct and indirect racism. I worked for the Council once. There was one particular Tory Councillor who was a very wealthy and well to do lady. She's one of those people that's so posh and regal in manner that you feel like you're speaking to the queen. I remember we had a meeting with a local Muslim group. One of them started describing an increase in racism against the Muslim community. They were describing specific incidents that had happened to them. This Councillor interrupted in her imperious manner and said "Don't be ridiculous. Racism doesn't exist." and that was that. The conversation ended. This Muslim person had been trying to explain their experiences to their local representative and they'd been dismissed and shut down. People breezily claiming that OP's account "didn't happen" and saying "Well other countries are more racist" really remind me of this Councillor. It's like dismissively waving your hand when you hear something you don't want to acknowledge.

^People breezily claiming that OP's account "didn't happen" and saying "Well other countries are more racist" really remind me of this Councillor. It's like dismissively waving your hand when you hear something you don't want to acknowledge.

No doubt if the UK were shown to be objectively racist/intolerant in comparison to other EU countries you'd (quite rightly) say 'the UK is objectively racist'?

Whether you like it or not, the usual way of drawing generalisations about a country is how it compares to other countries. This is how we measure health outcomes, road accidents, animal welfare standards, literacy and so on - it is impossible to make any kind of meaningful assessment in isolation.

Why is it that we're not supposed to do this as it relates to racism?