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.

Are you in north wales? They hate anyone who dosent speak fluent welsh. I'm from South Wales and avoid going there tbh

@StoneofDestiny fair enough, I missed the nuance of your point.

Honestly? I'm 100% English, live in England and I am sick to death of the entitled, self-centred, xenophobic, tone-deaf attitude displayed by a lot of the English people around me.

Does that make me racist?

What a charmer!

'you're the one who didn't have anything to say after you goaded me about being proud of America'

The thread is about xenophobia. It is about hating people because of their nationality, it went on to discuss the slave trade and titch pointed out the UK ended it first. The US carried on for decades, without 'imported' slaves maybe however the actual slavery continued. So we can't really single out 'The English' for this historical atrocity when it carried on everywhere else can we?

Now stop mocking and saying fucking this and fucking that and just accept, we can't blame ourselves for what our ancestors did, can we?

@QuizzlyBear, no it ironically makes you xenophobic.

How is this so bloody hard to understand? You are minimising and dismissing racism by comparing it to something that is not remotely equivalent.

@Wroxie, it’s not you. It’s them.

@JaniieJones

'you're the one who didn't have anything to say after you goaded me about being proud of America'

The thread is about xenophobia. It is about hating people because of their nationality, it went on to discuss the slave trade and titch pointed out the UK ended it first. The US carried on for decades, without 'imported' slaves maybe however the actual slavery continued. So we can't really single out 'The English' for this historical atrocity when it carried on everywhere else can we?

Now stop mocking and saying fucking this and fucking that and just accept, we can't blame ourselves for what our ancestors did, can we?

@QuizzlyBear, no it ironically makes you xenophobic.

Who the hell do you think you are talking to? Are you for real?

@JaniieJones

'you're the one who didn't have anything to say after you goaded me about being proud of America'

The thread is about xenophobia. It is about hating people because of their nationality, it went on to discuss the slave trade and titch pointed out the UK ended it first. The US carried on for decades, without 'imported' slaves maybe however the actual slavery continued. So we can't really single out 'The English' for this historical atrocity when it carried on everywhere else can we?

Now stop mocking and saying fucking this and fucking that and just accept, we can't blame ourselves for what our ancestors did, can we?

@QuizzlyBear, no it ironically makes you xenophobic.

Really? My understanding was that xenophobia referred to a fear of foreigners.

My problems are with my fellow compatriots. They're often wankers. Foreigners I tend to find perfectly charming.

@TitchGreen did you just Godwin me? I would actually have responded in detail to everything in your (otherwise fair and well-written) response until you compared my objection to the spoils of slavery remaining in the hands of the descendants of slave traders until that point. But since you want to bring up Hitler for some weird reason - if my hypothetical Nazi grandfather had bequeathed me a Rembrandt stolen from a Jewish family, I would see that it was returned to that family and if that was impossible I would see that it was sold and the money used for good. If my hypothetical great-great-great grandfather bequeathed me a 23 bedroom house on 500 acres of the finest Yorkshire farmland which was built directly through the profits of slavery (and there are estates and fortunes to this day which can easily and directly be traced to that) then, to me, it's the same, morally. No, the granddaughter of the Nazi doesn't need to go to jail for the sins of her grandfather. But she does need to give back what he stole. It's only another 100 years between that and the fortunes built from slavery. If you can't at least understand why I feel this way, even if you don't agree, then I don't think we will ever find any common ground at all.

Totally playing devil's advocate here but was it acceptable for the English to take over Wales in the past, minimise their culture, beat the Welsh language out of the children, and are we grateful they've not asked for any form of compensation yet?

@MrsHuntGeneNotJeremyObviously

Tory politicians are not representative of the English any more than Nicola Sturgeon is representative of all Scots.

You need to fix your voting system then.

“My neighbour’s cousin is married to a black man and he said that racism isn’t a thing and it’s more in people head”

@HmmmmmmInteresting beat me to it.

It's not acceptable but it's been going on since as long as I can recall. I remember been on holiday with my parents age 7 and walking into a pub for lunch, as soon as other customers heard us, they all stopped talking in English abs started talking in Welsh. Hey ho! In my experience it's more common from the Welsh and french more than anywhere else. Never experienced it from the Irish though. But other than piss me off it doesn't affect my life in any other way. So it's not a prejudice worth giving much thought too! It's certainly not a prejudice comparable to others that are everywhere that really do impact peoples lives.

@WorraLiberty

I'm pretty sure you know

1. It's xenophobia

1. It's not acceptable

However, on Mumsnet English bashing is almost as popular as Londoner bashing at times.

Yeah as an English Londoner I can vouch for this!!

Wrt to seizing generational wealth accrued from slavery, can we also seize wealth accrued from exploitation of the poor. Or from men for the exploitation of our female ancestors? Can England put in a claim against Denmark because the Vikings invaded us? I'm not opposed to some redistribution of wealth - anyone owning vast amounts of land is immoral to me, but the idea of taking property away on the basis of ancestral behaviour opens up a can of worms and would be very difficult to implement fairly.

There are about 4x more slaves currently in existence than were imported throughout the whole 400 years of the African slave trade. Seems odd that people aren't interested in tackling this.

@Meraas I'll have to take your critisim of my atrocious spelling and grammar on board I suppose; would you like to discuss any of the points I made or are you happy to be a meme?

@Katefoster

Are you in north wales? They hate anyone who dosent speak fluent welsh. I'm from South Wales and avoid going there tbh

Only in pockets of n Wales fortunately. We live a 30 minute drive from one pocket I make sure they realise we are locals not tourists 😂

@Katefoster the North walians who consider themselves pure think fluent south walian speakers can't speak the language properly anyway. Only on the Lleyn is the language of heaven pure 🙄

@MrsHuntGeneNotJeremyObviously I think a good place to start is where you can directly trace the ill-gotten money or property to its source.

Can you trace all the wealth in the world that was made off the backs of women? Probably not, so we probably have to take that one on the chin.

Can you trace wealth and valuables stolen from victims of the Holocaust? Yes, in many cases. So as I hope you agree it's good and important to right those wrongs and return what is possible to return and to in every case remove these things from the people who stole them.

Can you trace many fortunes and endowments and investments currently active in the UK directly back to the sale of enslaved humans? In many cases, yes. And if that is the case, how is that different than what was stolen in the Holocaust? is it just a matter of the number of years? What's the cut-off? If I have a Stradivarius stolen from a Jewish musician under my bed, do I just need to hold on to it until I'm sure the last Nazi is dead and then it's mine, no takesies-backsies? What if I manage to sell it and buy a house with the proceeds, is the house now mine? I would hope not.

So these are all obviously hypotheticals not requiring an answer, but the point is - just because it's complicated to right historical wrongs doesn't mean we shouldn't think about it and try to do it. Just because I can't do all the right things doesn't mean I should do none of the right things.

I won’t apologise for what my ancestors did. It was a different era, with different expectations. People are obsessed with making us embarrassed to be who we are based on something that happened decades ago. It wasn’t done in my name, so I feel no shame about it.

@marmaladehound

It's not acceptable but it's been going on since as long as I can recall. I remember been on holiday with my parents age 7 and walking into a pub for lunch, as soon as other customers heard us, they all stopped talking in English abs started talking in Welsh. Hey ho! In my experience it's more common from the Welsh and french more than anywhere else. Never experienced it from the Irish though. But other than piss me off it doesn't affect my life in any other way. So it's not a prejudice worth giving much thought too! It's certainly not a prejudice comparable to others that are everywhere that really do impact peoples lives.

Eh? French people switch from speaking English to French when English speakers turn up?

Here's an idea, when you are on your hols in Welsh speaking parts of Wales or in France, greet people in their own language. Order your food in their language. It takes very little effort. If you have been visiting Welsh speaking parts of Wales since you were 7 on a regular basis, it's shameful that you haven't bothered to learn a few phrases. Or are you just judging the Welsh on one half remembered incident when you were 7?

Speaking your own language in your own country is not prejudice @marmaladehound

It's prejudice rather than racism but, yes, you're right, OP. I think if myself as British; born in England, one parent English and one Scottish. I live in Scotland and the way English people ste treated and spoken about by some in Scotland is appalling. The Scottish part of me finds it shameful. This prejudice, among our own countrymen and women, is completely unacceptable.