To what extent would you say the UK is a racist country?

[VladmirsPoutine]

Bear with me on this. This thread is a culmination of some of the other threads I've been on and don't wish to derail. But thinking about for example ChildQ and the extent to which what happened to her was racially motivated, considering say the treatment of MM in the press which had a private school girl ostensibly painted as being 'straigh outta the hood'. I know that the UK is highlighted as one of the most racially tolerant places in the world, if not Europe. But just on the face of it I wonder, do you think the UK has a 'race problem'?

I think the problem is overt racism - no blacks signs and the national front are by and large socially unacceptable and pretty easy to pinpoint as racist. But what we're left with is this sort of insidious undercurrent where things are easy to explain away as a one off joke or whatever but are still symptomatic of some societal attitudes.

@Thoosa

I’ve been called a coconut for being an atheist

Wow. That’s genuinely shocked me.

Don’t be, minority groups who feel insecure seem to feel that forcing conformity is a way of maintaining a sense of who they are. It’s always worse when women don’t conform, but thats true of every society, never like women who don’t do/think/believe what they are told. It’s upsetting because I love loads of aspects of my culture and I have no shame about my ethnicity or the religion I was raised in (it’s pretty damn reasonable on the spectrum of things). I’m not trying to be “white” i’m trying to be me. It’s why I despise race gatekeepers. May as well call people who don’t conform race traitors.

I will say - as a mixed race but Black woman. That I personally prefer out and out racists than the 'white liberal' types. I also see that there is actually a lot of inter-minority racism than from the majority 'white' group.

well i am not racist and therefore do not partake in racist conversations.
who knows to what extent the UK is,
obviously it is far less racist than it was

I’m biracial and there’s definitely racism in the U.K. However, it’s not just white people. The worst racist remarks I’ve endured are from non-white people who were born in the U.K. There’s not a lot of representation for East and SE Asian people in the British media either which probably fuels the feeling of being “othered” and stereotyped.

How would it be described if two black Women were talking and one said to the other “I don’t want her dirty white hands on my hair”.

I don't think anyone is denying that travellers face unacceptable prejudice which is a big issue and completely unacceptable are they?

No, they are denying that travellers as a minority and marginalised group suffering from prejudice, discrimination, or antagonism by an individual, community, or institution on the basis of their membership of a particular racial or ethnic group, typically one that is a minority or marginalized is racism, despite that being the very definition of racism.

I think amongst the more ignorant people i know through acquaintances that there is a vast degree of racism out there,Not open but strongly covert.The people I know of who say things like sshhh we cant say that cos we are told we have to be diverse makes me shudder sometimes and they mean it or atleast I get the impression they do. They avoid certain areas and it goes on and on. They are quite brutal and open between themselves it doesnt sit well with me.I dont think they are bad people just stupid uneducated people and another point that I noticed it stays in families and seems to be passed down through generations

As a brown person I love the UK. I think that there has been much positive change over my life time and attitudes have changed. When I was young my mom was assaulted (hit in the face on a bus in Birmingham by a random racist for no reason). We went to the police, and it was very obvious they had not interest. There advice was "to be careful where we travelled- there are some nasty people about". No descriptions were taken, and the bus company were never contacted. I do not believe that this would happen today. However, in my largely not very racially diverse part of the world, my kids are quite often followed around supermarkets and shopping centres by guards. They think this is funny. When I tell them to complain they say if they did, they would spend half their life complaining if they did this. At college and at work there are still questions which make me nervous. Classics are "..but where are you really from?" or when it comes up being asked "what do x community think about this?" as if I can comment for everyone of colour! My classic a one off was a drunken senior Manager at a Christmas Party who said he had been told that brown girls had vaginas that were horizontal and not vertical- was this true... We have some way to go. I would ask everyone to think about their biases and unconscious preferences. Even people of colour we are not immune from bias either.

⬆️Oh my god??!

That’s just madness and ignorant as well as racist

@Easymeasy

It is racist. It's insidious and institutional. I doubt there will be many that would call you a racist slur to your face but many would demonstrate it subconsciously and consciously via different ways. I don't think people who are white can have a proper understanding if the UK is racist so if a white person said that the UK isn't racist I wouldn't be taking their opinion into account.

This. I'm a white person and because of this, I know full well the UK is racist in a hidden insidious way. As a white person, racist white people often make the mistake of speaking freely in front of me, and there is a huge difference in what they will say in what they believe to be 'safe' company than they would if POC were present. Its not necessarily overt slurs, but the frequency with which racism is minimised and denied, stereotypes perpetuated and 'I'm not being racist, but...' is rolled out, is staggering. Obviously as a white person, my understanding is extremely limited, but I only need eyes and ears to know that racism is alive and well here.

Definitely noticed the fetishising of being perceived as an ‘exotic’ woman

i think it is ignorance

@Itsnotover

This is something that white people by definition cannot have a legitimate opinion on.

You should find out from POC and amplify their voices.

You don't have the right to tell anyone that they are not entitled to an opinion about anything. I will make a judgement which will lead me to forming an opinion of whatever I like. You are entitled to do the same, of course. It is in the exchange of honest opinion that sometimes satisfactory resolutions are found.

@Itsnotover

This is something that white people by definition cannot have a legitimate opinion on.

You should find out from POC and amplify their voices.

@Itsnotover they absolutely CAN.

Anti-Irish racism by English people is horrendous and passed off frequently as banter. It's not banter; it's systemic racism. It often involves making "jokes" about a famine that caused and killed over a million Irish people while placing blame at the door of the "backward Irish" while having artificially controlled the country's development (or lack of) for centuries.

Some adults (think they) are good at hiding it, but the distain will always come out in different ways.

My child is suffering from it a lot at the minute (mixed race) and it has really changed her personality and self confidence. That angers me.

I'm reading Akala on podcast, and I love it because he breaks it down so that you cannot deny there is a problem. But he backs this with historical facts, etc.

The thing is, it permeates in all areas of life. Racism isn't just something that happens on a Saturday in a park.

As an adult, it's not always easy to have that inner strength so that no matter what they say to you, it can't shake the core of who you are. But I'm getting better. I certainly didn't have it in my younger days.

However, racism in education, work, housing, dating is just so much more difficult to prove.

I know of one incident, job-wise, where I was constantly pushed back because of the colour of my skin. Sometimes you just know. But this was confirmed when I was accidently cc'd into an blatantly racist email about another colleague. I share the same name as one of the managers so I guess that was how that came about..

@Grilledaubergines

Why can a white person not suffer racism?

This is pure semantics. Racism had a definition and therefore can apply to everyone. Change the definition now it cannot legitimately apply to one group. I think it's true to say any racism experienced by a white person in a predominantly white country is going to be pretty much inconsequential and this could be focused on if we weren't arguing over semantics all the time. Keep us talking about definitions and we won't be able to solve the actual issues. Clever.

@dipdye

Child Q? The black girl in Scotland?

Hackney.

Don’t be, minority groups who feel insecure seem to feel that forcing conformity is a way of maintaining a sense of who they are. It’s always worse when women don’t conform, but thats true of every society, never like women who don’t do/think/believe what they are told. It’s upsetting because I love loads of aspects of my culture and I have no shame about my ethnicity or the religion I was raised in (it’s pretty damn reasonable on the spectrum of things). I’m not trying to be “white” i’m trying to be me. It’s why I despise race gatekeepers. May as well call people who don’t conform race traitors.

Yep. I don’t know why that did gobsmack me so much really. It shouldn’t. I’m mixed race myself and completely familiar with the conflation of religion, culture and identity, and the pressure to be certain things and to be seen to be them.

Also the overlaid misogyny.

I suppose it was just the starkness of the way it was expressed that shocked me. I think I’m used to more covert pressure (although someone on MN did call me Uncle Tom last month 🙄.)

Indeed, L0st

"No blacks, no dogs, no Irish" springs to mind.

But Ireland, until recently anyway, was a much more overtly racist and xenophobic country than the UK.
Some of the things people have openly said to me in Ireland I have no experience of in the UK.
Even a couple of people in my own family have told me I'm not really Irish, as I wasn't born in Ireland. And they genuinely beloeve that.

@MrsLargeEmbodied

i think it is ignorance

What is?

Probably the most diverse county in the world.

I think it's impossible to quantify or even compare to other countries. I also don't think it's healthy or beneficial to compare. We should strive to be and do better, not just better than x.

There is racism though. Systemic, institutional covert,open, at national level,at individual level etc.

I've witnessed incidents,I've reported incidents, I've seen action taken and things dismissed or brushed under the carpet or excused.

I've been on the receiving end of xenophobia too. I'm lucky that my skin colour offers me a certain level of protection until I open my mouth or someone asks me my name. I can get away with not being othered on sight.

Aww hope you’re ok

I think it's true to say any racism experienced by a white person in a predominantly white country is going to be pretty much inconsequential and this could be focused on if we weren't arguing over semantics all the time.

Anti-Irish racism has not been "pretty much inconsequential". Tell that to the Birmingham Six and Guildford Four. And to people from the current day who are mocked in the workplace for being Irish, to people who are forbidden to use a short Irish appropriate phrase a gravestone in an English cemetery, and to the microaggressions that Irish people often face from a small minority of white English people.