Is racism against the English acceptable?

[BabyBearRus]

We are currently on holiday in Wales and have just heard an altercation outside our holiday accommodation blasting the "bastard English who come to stay here". I'm shocked. I am half Welsh and half Irish, and spent much time in both countries. But also spent half my life in England. There has always been a jovial criticism of the English, e.g. during rugby internationals etc, but in recent years the tone has become more racist. I also find this resentful attitude towards the English amongst my Irish and Scottish friends. The English seem to be an acceptable people to hate. Surely this should be classed as racism? And, I'm saying this from a predominantly Welsh and Irish heritage. Yes, I am aware of the history of these isles, but when are we going to get over this? Truly baffled.

@cuparfull

😂 😂
'The french hate the English because you saved there sorry ass in two world wars'.
What are you like 80 no french person things that's. 😂

On Brexit there laughing there fuckin asses off at our stupid short sighted decision.

'A race is a grouping of humans based on shared physical or social qualities into categories generally viewed as distinct by society. The term was first used to refer to speakers of a common language and then to denote national affiliations.'

So yes.

Article 1 of the United Nations International Convention on the Elimination of All Forms of Racial Discrimination defines "racial discrimination" as any distinction, exclusion, restriction or preference based on race, colour, descent, or national or ethnic origin which has the purpose or effect of nullifying or impairing the recognition, enjoyment or exercise, on an equal footing, of human rights and fundamental freedoms in the political, economic, social, cultural or any other field of public life.

Catholic communities were hunted for 100's of years in England - no wonder they didn't build immediately!

If you are going to make comments like this, you should remember how Protestantism started, and look up Huguenot history.

Everything comes down to persepective, everything is lost when you band every person from one nation together, or only view history based on one side.
I am English, and damn proud to call myself so, I have Welsh and Scottish ancestry (Grandparents), but would never assert that it has any inherrant meaning to me. In fact, I'd more likely call myself a Yorkshireman first, English second.

I cannot stand the football fan issue, it's the greatest game in the world, with the worst fans in the world. Every nation has this problem, Any true footbal fan HATES the behaviour of the Yobs and hooligans, it tarnishes the beautiful game. While from what I have seen, a lot of other countires don't seem to know they have a problem. Russia world cup, the population seemed to be actively cheering the Ultras as they caused chaos to all participating nations and their fans, who brought their own versions of Ultras, who caused more chaos.
But it's the English fans who get the stick.
The turkish league had the delightful issue Gunmen attacking the Fenerbahce team bus in 2015, and fan violence if still prevalant, Togo team bus attacked by gunmen. Liverpool fan attacked by Roma fans. The Copa Libertadores violence between the TEAMS on the tunnel after the game (last week).
It is not a unique problem, but it's one football has failed to deal with, not the English.

The terrible crime of having pride in the Empire? You can have pride in the good things the empire did for our nation. It provided the stepping stone for the working class and women to vote. It came to it's senses and abolished Slaverly in 1807, was that too late, yes, but it still happened, the West African Squadron would go onto patrol slave routes and liberate 150000 people from slave ships, over 50 years.
Travel and communications changes, Sport travelled globally, 6 of the 10 of the worlds most popular sports are British. The outlaw of Sati (Widow Burning). All of this is a positive in my book, and something I'm going to be proud of.

While yes, the English were dicks, but so were the French, the Belgians, the Spanish, the Portugese.
Then there's the small matter on that tiny Monglian Empire, I seem to recall they were great to their subjects, or the Babylonians, or the Byzantines, the Romans, the Incans
The Dutch, The Danish, The Iranians (There have been a few empires based in the Iranian region), Tunisia, Ethiopia, China, Japan.
All of these and so many more, but it's the English who should feel guilty for having had an empire.

The comparison to Nazi Germany is not the same thing, and of course the germans are appalled by the Holocaust, but they brought the Germans out of the Depression era, created the Autobahns, had a huge programe of public works and built schools and hospitals. Fanta, they gave us Fanta.
What happened was appalling and now in the contaxt of history, we can see what that, but blindly ignoring any good thing they did is ignorant, no matter how small it was.

To reiterate, I'm English, and Damn proud to be.

Wales doesn't seem to have much appetite for independence
About 1 in 3 are pro-independence, up from 1 in 10 a decade ago. I wouldn't be surprised if it's the majority view come 2030.

@TitchGreen when I was a child and I got in trouble, and then tried to call out my sister for all the things SHE had done wrong, but which currently weren't under discussion, my mother would tell me to worry about myself. Which is what you need to do instead of whinging about the "Portugese" or the "Monglian Empire".

Being proud of England for abolishing "Slaverly" is especially fucking rich. As a Black woman from the United States, let me be exceedingly clear about this: YOU DON'T GET TO BE PROUD ABOUT THE FACT THAT YOUR COUNTRY STOPPED SELLING AND MURDERING AFRICAN PEOPLE AFTER A FEW HUNDRED YEARS. Jesus fucking wept.

@EvenRosesHaveThorns

I'm Welsh (can speak a bit and am re-learning currently) but have quite an English accent. I've absolutely experienced language-switching too.

The English are reviled even by the English. How many of you recoil in horror from the sunburned lager guzzling twats on holiday abroad?

My experiences of the Welsh are very much ones of a lot of xenophobia though. I guess the English and Welsh share a sense of entitlement to land. The Welsh to Wales and the English, historically, to everything they can stick a flag in. All bonkers really. You can't own land for real

My experiences of the Welsh are very much ones of a lot of xenophobia though. I guess the English and Welsh share a sense of entitlement to land. The Welsh to Wales and the English, historically, to everything they can stick a flag in. All bonkers really. You can't own land for real
Going to news you to come to a First Nations event with me here in Canada, help set them straight.

'The English are reviled even by the English. How many of you recoil in horror from the sunburned lager guzzling twats on holiday abroad?'

Yes not because they are English though, because they are twats on holiday. I have also seen many England tourists behaving perfectly. See, the thing is it is this judging people on their nationality rather than their behaviour that is the actual xenophobic problem. Imagine if we made widespread generalisations about the behaviour of black people, we wouldn't because it is racist.

A nationality or race does not equal a certain behaviour. Please read @titchgreens excellent post.

Not RTfT but looking at OP’s post -
Yes, ignorant eejits insulted and abused the English people you mention. In other parts of the country ignorant English eejits insult Scots, Welsh, Irish, Polish, Rumanian, Black, White people etc etc. It never takes much for it to kick off if you have brainless knuckledraggers about - just a recognition of ‘difference’. Ignorance sadly isn’t confined to one nationality!

The English are reviled even by the English. How many of you recoil in horror from the sunburned lager guzzling twats on holiday abroad

Rude Russians and loud Americans are much worse. In fact Americans are the reason I won't go back Mexico

The French don't like us cos we saved their sorry asses in two world wars and they've never got over it!

I thought it was cos of the Battle of Agincourt?

(Tongue in cheek - but at the same time, goes to show that there has been a fierce rivalry between the countries for many hundreds of years)

The terrible crime of having pride in the Empire? You can have pride in the good things the empire did for our nation. It provided the stepping stone for the working class and women to vote

British women did not get the vote equal to men til 1928 - well behind other countries. In fact the ‘class system’ has a lot to answer for in Brit history for suppressing working people and women’s rights.

It came to it's senses and abolished Slaverly in 1807 [sic]

That's like being proud of someone because they've managed to stop beating their wife. A truly warped way of looking at the world.

Wroxie you can't tell other people what they are and aren't allowed to be proud of. Britain did a terrible thing (and wasn't alone in doing so) but acknowledged it was wrong and put a stop to it.

But they didn't acknowledge it was wrong. They didn't have a moment of 'reckoning' - that's not how it worked at all. Up until 2015 we were still repaying slave owners for loss of their 'property'. UCL has an excellent database set on this. There was a survey in which it was shown a majority of people think overall the Empire was a good thing. If anything the English seem to think they bought civilisation and order to otherwise jungle lands.

To the apologists saying that it is not racism, because English are not a race, they need to open their eyes a bit. Firstly, there are no 'races' of humans. There is just the human race. Secondly, racism is defined as prejudice, discrimination, or antagonism by an individual, community, or institution against a person or people on the basis of their membership of a particular racial or ethnic group. English is a defined ethnicity, so yes by definition, anti-english comments like these are absolutely racist and should be treated in exactly the same way as any other racism.

I say this as having parents from Scotland and spending some of my life there.

I wish to fuck Scotland and Wales would get independence and lose any funding from England.

Pay for yourselves fuck off and shut up I am so bored of it from my family who still live in Scotland.

@thedancingbear

It came to it's senses and abolished Slaverly in 1807 [sic]

That's like being proud of someone because they've managed to stop beating their wife. A truly warped way of looking at the world.

It's like noting that whilst everyone else is wife beating , one has decided not to

The compensation was a legal/practical decision iirc - it was seen as the most expedient way to bring about an end to slavery.

@VladmirsPoutine

But they didn't acknowledge it was wrong. They didn't have a moment of 'reckoning' - that's not how it worked at all. Up until 2015 we were still repaying slave owners for loss of their 'property'. UCL has an excellent database set on this. There was a survey in which it was shown a majority of people think overall the Empire was a good thing. If anything the English seem to think they bought civilisation and order to otherwise jungle lands.

No, that is not true. We were repaying the loans we had to take to repay the slave owners. The slave owners were repaid at the time.

I'd quite happily never see either country again. Not missing much

@MrsHuntGeneNotJeremyObviously I can and I will tell an ignorant gammon that he's an ignorant gammon. Would you like some, too? Why the fuck do you think Britain stopped actively selling humans? It wasn't a crisis of conscience, it was conveniently politically and financially expedient at the time. The Americas had, by that time, a self-sustaining slave population, there wasn't money in it anymore. Being proud that they stopped when there wasn't any money in it any more is astonishingly idiotic and ignorant.