AIBU to loathe the people here?

[OnenessWithAllStrife]

Some people say that feeling a negative emotion or having unpleasant feelings about something shouldn't define you, that you should let the thoughts flow and then let them go. OK. I hope this to be true :(

But i have lived somewhere for the past 6 years that has brought me to conclusions and created feelings in me that I am not proud of. For the first time in my life I have actually come to loathe people and feel a sense of terror about being stuck with them. This is not particularly politically 'correct' when put into words, unfortunately, but I can't think of any other way to express it.

I moved to a town6 yrs ago in which I don't have much in common with the residents. It isn't unusual, just an ordinary large town which at one time contained more diversity, but in recent years has become very insular and homogenous. Everyone is angry, anti social, or depressed. If you don't openly discuss some sort of prejudice (racism, sexism, anti-intellectualism) you're 'soft in the head' or a 'bloody weirdo'.
Wherever I go here, in any direction, you will either see kids or drunk adults destroying property, or else screaming at each other in the street. There are a few select areas that are less challenging and rough, but the vibe is somehow the same.

Education or reading is a mugs game, football is the only passion, kids are yelled at for merely existing. Any conversation with a seemingly friendly stranger results in them wishing all the foreigners to go home. There is a general air of brutality to everything, a leathery, hard resistance to any kind of sensitivity whatsoever. Art, creativity and self reflection are suspicious, and the only permissible clothing is black or sport branded. Every damned street is choked with the fumes of endlessly revved up vehicles with ear splitting exhaust modifications. The environment is filthy, full of dog shit and bordering on dereliction.

I would once have considered all of this a problem of poverty, but it isn't quite that easy to determine, having witnessed it. There is no seeming variation in behaviour across income brackets here, it looks to be more cultural than income related, although the attitude towards learning, etc will obviously have the effect of creating more poverty regardless. It is like a self perpetuating cesspit of no hope and hard hearts. I thought i was a leftie, a socialist, but when I leave here I will be fucking marked by this and hope to never exist within it ever again.

We moved here for DP's work and are set to leave this coming year. I also appreciate that the residents and I have experienced very different upbringings and we do not share much in common, but even so, I think that you have to endure this to really, really see it, to come to fear it. It is easy to sit in a comfy armchair miles from it and 'defend' this stuff because you haven't truly sampled the existential sickness of it on your own doorstep.
I wish i didn't feel it, but it is difficult to lie to oneself, and the fear has probably evolved from having felt 'stuck' in it for so long. I wfh and DP does part time (some here regard us as 'pretentious' for this and have suggested we ought to do some 'real' work). It all feels very dated and odd, to be surrounded by values that repulse me and contain so little diversity. I mean, this is the type of place where you'll get side-eyed for cooking from scratch or having the audacity to flavour a dish with pesto.

Does this mean I loathe them? I don't know. I imagine I will chill with it when we have moved, as it all becomes a distant memory, but it has certainly left a mark. It feels wrong to state these feelings and observations, but I bet I am not the only one who has thought them....

@ThousandsOfTulips. Totally agree ref Brexit. So many treated it like it was a football match-,not something that would decimate every business or industry that has an export aspect to it— and that’s not just the EU—- the EU had particular deals in place including the USA that we benefited from. That no longer exists and is unlikely to happen, we also have VAT and Postal delivery charge handling fees issues — meaning anyone doing export mail order is stuffed . The only industry that would benefit by being here -as opposed to EU is dodgy shit trying to get around regulations- spam farms, money laundering etc or anything with a large enough purely domestic market

Do you have to use such dreadful language?

Get over yourself. Really, it will help

@Fluffymule

now appear to expect sympathy from others

Except they are not expecting sympathy. This thread is about the OP wanting sympathy from having to live next to these 'stupid people'

There's lot of whining in response though about how we should all feel sorry for them.

It's similar to with addicts. You can't help people who won't help themselves. If they chose to be poorer then I'm not going to lose sleep worrying about them. I'll focus on my own children that they have also made poorer by their stupidity.

[quote PotatoPie888]@ThousandsOfTulips Thank you for amplifying my point about the understanding poor so well. If nobody understood the point I was making you proved to be an excellent example of the type of person we all need to be worried about.[/quote]
Ok then. 🤣🤣🤣

you can scoff at the idea of more affluent people often being more broad-minded if you like
These well educated and travelled folk, seem to be very good at making sweeping generalisations about whole communities though.
Funny that if the Op had posted about council houses, or some of the rmumnet 'protected characteristics' everyone would be falling over themselves to let us know how spacious and well built council housing is, but instead a whole town of approx 100,000 residents are all thick, racists and sexists by virtue of their postcode.
So much for travel broadening the mind.

There's lot of whining in response though about how we should all feel sorry for them.
From who ?

[quote tarasmalatarocks]@ThousandsOfTulips. Totally agree ref Brexit. So many treated it like it was a football match-,not something that would decimate every business or industry that has an export aspect to it— and that’s not just the EU—- the EU had particular deals in place including the USA that we benefited from. That no longer exists and is unlikely to happen, we also have VAT and Postal delivery charge handling fees issues — meaning anyone doing export mail order is stuffed . The only industry that would benefit by being here -as opposed to EU is dodgy shit trying to get around regulations- spam farms, money laundering etc or anything with a large enough purely domestic market[/quote]
Yep. The whole thing was designed to avoid the EU anti-money laundering directive, hence the desperation to get it "done" before that came into force.

Anybody who isn't wealthy who voted for Brexit is a total mug and I'll have no respect for them until they admit that.

@OneTC

Basically you've grown up and mostly lived in an area where you were untroubled by deprivation and held quite strong views about how great poor people were and now you live in Croydon or somewhere and realise that actually poor people are simply ghastly

Now you feel like your parents

Grew up in Croydon as a poor person.

Can confirm, they are simply ghastly. My own family included. And me.

[quote PotatoPie888]@ThousandsOfTulips Thank you for amplifying my point about the understanding poor so well. If nobody understood the point I was making you proved to be an excellent example of the type of person we all need to be worried about.[/quote]
Anybody who is "worried" about me is seriously deluded.

@ThousandsOfTulips did you miss the last election when loads of red wall constituencies turned blue. You laugh at them for only ever voting red, then they are hated for voting blue. They really can’t win. There seems to be a huge amount of projection in your posts. Have you considered therapy?

And yes @ThousandsOfTulips you are worrying because you represent a growing trend towards hatred of the ‘undeserving poor.’ Personally I prefer to detest tax dodgers rather than so-called benefits cheats.

I think one issue in certain places is inverse snobbery, people taking the piss out of those who want to get on educationally or like shopping at Waitrose or don’t like their social life being all about getting wazzed or aren’t into football , don’t think Farage is a ‘top bloke’ etc. I actually don’t give a shit if they are happy with that mindset and life but I do give a shit when anyone who isn’t like that is called a snowflake or a remoaner etc

@PotatoPie888

Any kid in Wigan who wants to work in Germany is fucked because the sixth form college doesn’t offer German A level because of a lack of funding. But let’s all blame them for. It wanting to broaden their horizons

Also now they will have no EU passport, unless they are lucky enough to have an EU nationality parent whose country allows them dual nationality.

But hey, they "knew what they were voting for!". And it's offensive to say otherwise, apparently. Even when it is patently obvious.

@PotatoPie888

And yes *@ThousandsOfTulips* you are worrying because you represent a growing trend towards hatred of the ‘undeserving poor.’ Personally I prefer to detest tax dodgers rather than so-called benefits cheats.

This is nothing to do with money.

I'm pretty sure that Tory bedroom taxes and benefit caps have a lot more to do with Wigan's current plight, than Brexit.

But I doubt whether Brexit will help them, or Johnson's talk of 'Levelling up'either. How could that be? It would cost money; money which he wants to bung at his chums.

[quote PotatoPie888]@ThousandsOfTulips did you miss the last election when loads of red wall constituencies turned blue. You laugh at them for only ever voting red, then they are hated for voting blue. They really can’t win. There seems to be a huge amount of projection in your posts. Have you considered therapy?[/quote]
Wigan is still Labour, what relevance does this comment have?

I have no political affiliation, both major parties appall me. I couldn't care less who people in Wigan vote for. Brexit was the only vote that mattered in decades if people wanted even the potential of a good future for themselves and their children and it seems that nearly 2/3 of voters who voted in Wigan voted in an unequivocally stupid way. So yeah, not my problem to pick up the pieces. You make your bed then you lie in it.

What’s the point of having an EU passport @ThousandsOfTulips when the Tories have decimated modern foreign languages in schools? The people I see mostly moaning about their dc not being able to work abroad are those who want them to work in chalets for the season so they can keep up their skiing. Everybody else is worrying about food banks and university fees.

Essentially OP is stating that she has a visceral loathing of the white working classes.

Also noticeable is the following mumsnet dynamic:

OP: “In my experience, everyone in my northern White working class town is a racist, drunken Neanderthal”. Reaction from the majority of Mumsnetters = sneering approval of this blanket assertion.

Previous post by others on a related subject:”In my experience, I don’t enjoy living near Travellers. They are violent and antisocial”. Reaction from majority of Mumsnetters = utter shock and outrage, followed by loud and repeated chants of ‘bigot’ and ‘racist’.

But hey, they "knew what they were voting for!". And it's offensive to say otherwise, apparently. Even when it is patently obvious.

I think it would be more accurate to say they didn't care what they were voting for, given that almost everything they've been told by politicians in living memory have turned out to be lies. It'll be interesting to see how everyone around here reacts to the cancellation of Northern Powerhouse Rail. For a group of people who have effectively decoupled from civic participation, it was little more than the equivalent of going down swinging.

Of all the groups likely to show buyer's remorse over voting to leave the Left Behind of Wigan aren't going to be in the first wave. They'll probably point out they were lied to by the Leave campaign - slogans on buses, that sort of thing - long before the realisation that everyone is (even) poorer because Remain might have had a point.

But I doubt whether Brexit will help them, or Johnson's talk of 'Levelling up'either. How could that be? It would cost money; money which he wants to bung at his chums.

People in Wigan know that. Which is why they don't vote for Johnson, or any Tory. And haven't for well over a century now.

The Brexit thing wasn't a vote for Tories or Boris, it was a vote against everyone else who ignored them for years. Including middle class Labour voters down south, a London centric political class that despised them yet depended on their vote for their power and privilege.

And some of the language on this thread shows exactly why we are going to be saddled with the Tories again and again. I'm sure even red to the bone Wigan will get sick of the sneering malice and contempt soon.

There are many places such as you describe: Skem, Burnley, Blackpool to name but three.

These are the places that have been overlooked because they aren't diverse enough and where people-living not the best lives-are told to check their white privilege.

There will be a storm to come and I don't blame them.

Viciousrooster What did you think of my comment then, where I sympathised with the OP, but blamed cultural and aspirational poverty rather than a simple lack of money, citing my similar upbringing in a wealthy Home Counties town? 🤔

Is there any way you can speed up the move? I think it sounds like hell on earth and you should save your sanity. Will you get to choose where you go next, or is it likely to be somewhere more pleasant?

I did indeed grow up in an underprivileged background, an appalling and abusive one. And I don't agree with what you are saying, at all. That doesn't make me a "dick"

Yeah, me too. And you’re absolutely right, it doesn’t make you a ‘dickhead’. Getting snarky with me because you’ve responded to the wrong person does though.

And I believe you were misquoted by another poster earlier when it was something I’d said. I did post earlier this afternoon to confirm it was me who’d said it and not you.