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Original poster

I really liked my neighbour until she said this

577 replies

neighbourhoodwatch · 18/08/2022 23:00

I've recently moved to a new area and was talking to my neighbour, who I really like.

Somehow the conversation went to GPs and how you can never get appointments and basically have to beg to be seen nowadays.

She was saying how it didn't used for be that way... before...

She then went on to say that it's because of all the immigrants that have come into this country and how our country is too small to hold all these people.

She also talked about the illegals coming in on boats etc and how terrible it is.

I am immigrant. I didn't come on a boat and I have a good job etc. But essentially I came to this country. I've never claimed benefits or anything like that. I'm on a high salary etc and studied here etc etc. So, I'm well established. Essentially whenever people say stuff like that, alarm bells start ringing for me.

Am I seeing it too black and white ? It's just difficult when someone says stuff like this to someone who also came here..... as an immigrant...

OP posts:
MangyInseam · 19/08/2022 11:49

DysonSphere · 19/08/2022 05:29

I personally wouldn't take offence. I'm black and some people, especially the older generation aren't PC, they will still refer to brown people as coloured etc. I try to seek things I have in common and have a fairly robust threshold for offence and writing people off. It has always paid off.

I also think that just because someone voted Brexit doesn't automatically make them a racist🙄 I think that's equally as lazy as someone blaming immigrants for everything and I thought we'd got past that nonsense and acknowledged that there were a lot of factors that influenced peoples' vote. Actually calling people racist for raising issues about immigration leads to people listening to people with more extreme viewpoints.

I do think there needs to be an acknowledgement of how immigration legal or otherwise, has rapidly changed some areas, not all positive and for white indigenous people born here decades ago, the areas they grew up in might feel taken over and alien to them.

I was born and grew up in SE London the child of second wave Windrush and one day an elderly lady I used to check in on was saying she felt the local high street had changed out of all recognition. The traditional small independent grocers, stalls and specialists shops (think things like pollards) had gone, replaced with sellers of exotic foods, cosmetics, cafes etc owned by non-british people some of whom don't speak English much or only employ family members as staff and don't mix with the community or attend the local pub etc.

I was quite young at the time and thought 'how ignorant' But after a few years I thought: She's right. That's how it is from her perspective. Who am I to say otherwise? I can see myself how it has changed from Frank and Barbara running the local corner shop and post office, who you would chat and have a natter with to being replaced with a family from abroad who maybe you don't have much in common with and don't talk to English to you beyond necessity and speak in their own language around you.

Then there's schools. Is it necessarily beneficial for schools with children representing 20 different languages or more to be using/receiving extra resources to help them catch up? I'm focusing on the word beneficial, because again for some people, they may think well, everyone else is getting the help, but not the poor white school children in some deprived part of the country away from the major cities.

The NHS: There is a massive shortage of training GPs and other allied health professions. It's all good foreign doctors being fast tracked or granted visas to work within the NHS, but why has the government withdrawn or reduced bursaries over the years for university health courses to the indigenous population whilst placing emphasis on immigrants holding the NHS together? And how many white English GP's are there for a white person to go to without waiting for ages? That sounds ignorant - why do you care as long as they're qualified? - but I try to put myself in their shoes. There have been times that I as a woc have desperately wanted a black doctor because they will understand things culturally that my white doctor as competent as they are, won't quite understand in the same way, and I don't see why it's different for a White person either.

When people expressing concerns (however ignorantly) like your neighbor are not listened to and just written off with a slogan of DailyFail Reader, Brexiter, racist, and not engaged with, then they are sitting ducks for the far right who do listen and give them all the time they want.

We need to have a balanced conversation around immigration. It may be a net good, but it does have impacts that may not be wholly positive that need to be acknowledged if we are to have cohesion as a nation. We may not like those views, but you can't just dismiss them.

This is a really good post, DysonSphere.

I might add a few issues around medical immigration - one being that it is in a real way a wealthy western country harvesting the labour of less well off countries.

But more than anything, if progressive people actually want to understand why some people see this differently, particularly those who are not elites, they should read "The Road to Anywhere" which lays out very clearly what the social divide is on this and why is looks the way it does.

It's challenging to the reactionary stance that it's simply racism or xenophobia. But one of the things it makes clear is very interesting which is there is a divide between the "anywheres" who tend to think that the state owes as much to people from other countries as it does to it's own citizens - and this has been stated explicitly by some political figures, and "somewheres" who think that the state's most primary responsibility is to the well-being of it's own citizens. The former attitude is pretty clear on this thread.

People don't always express these sentiments clearly, but it's always telling when you have a fairly economically privileged group making a claim that the opinions of the less privileged around social arrangements are just bigotry.

excitingusername · 19/08/2022 12:15

neighbourhoodwatch · 19/08/2022 11:41

Look, I don't now hate her. I was just surprised and it made me feel quite ' othered '

Knowing someone has those views and likely voted brexit, makes me feel othered and like they don't view me on the same level as them.

I've never known what it's like to live somewhere I'm actually ' from '. I am always a foreigner wherever I go and to be honest, the people I get on best with, are also foreigners. I feel like I fit in with them better, no matter where they're from. I'll do my thing and be cordial etc. but I don't think it will be a great friendship and that's fine. I also don't think she's a horrible person. She doesn't know better and I have no idea what I would believe if I had had her upbringing.

I could never be anti immigration. It's all I've ever known. I think it's easy to blame 'others' for problems in a country. But I don't believe being born somewhere gives you some divine entitlement over that land and who can come and live there under whatever circumstances. You know what does give you a right to decide what happens in a country ? The people who work and pay taxes there. No matter where they're from.

Show quote history

You now acknowledge your disinterest and lack of bond with the British populace of the country you chose to move to, but you also have political leanings to continue their instability in their own country as you can never see an end to the rights of foreigners to move here over the needs of the already established populace. With all due respect and without prejudice, genuinely how is it in our interests to keep importing this kind of thinking? You have just proven you feel separate to the people who live here - so too presumably do others that come - longterm this is surely a recipe for disaster? Not enough is done to integrate people and clearly you are not the only immigrant who does not care to integrate with the white British. How are they supposed to respond to this around them??

You have no interest in the population's concerns to preserve their environment or their culture, because you acknowledge you don't know what it is like to have a stable culture that reflects your own sensibilities.

The Brits are generous and live in a multicultural society generally quite well - but they have concerns to preserve the culture they love alongside it - that is an entirely reasonable human need - particularly if the culture is seen to be pretty decent for the most part (and it must be, because people want to come here).

People are less angry with immigrants and more angry with incompetent governments failing to manage the numbers, build infrastructure and prioritise the country over foreign needs. Blaming the increase in populace on choking and terrible services and some civil unrest is not unreasonable. It's sad and it's rubbish, but truth hurts.

excitingusername · 19/08/2022 12:18

neighbourhoodwatch · 19/08/2022 11:41

Look, I don't now hate her. I was just surprised and it made me feel quite ' othered '

Knowing someone has those views and likely voted brexit, makes me feel othered and like they don't view me on the same level as them.

I've never known what it's like to live somewhere I'm actually ' from '. I am always a foreigner wherever I go and to be honest, the people I get on best with, are also foreigners. I feel like I fit in with them better, no matter where they're from. I'll do my thing and be cordial etc. but I don't think it will be a great friendship and that's fine. I also don't think she's a horrible person. She doesn't know better and I have no idea what I would believe if I had had her upbringing.

I could never be anti immigration. It's all I've ever known. I think it's easy to blame 'others' for problems in a country. But I don't believe being born somewhere gives you some divine entitlement over that land and who can come and live there under whatever circumstances. You know what does give you a right to decide what happens in a country ? The people who work and pay taxes there. No matter where they're from.

Show quote history

You've also implied that it's more or less alright for any peoples anywhere, to invade a country by stealth and numbers and usurp the people that lived there if their government is corrupt enough to allow it. Does that apply to any nations in the world or just European ones?

LakieLady · 19/08/2022 12:20

Revolvingwhore · 19/08/2022 08:18

You'll never talk any sense to the (largely) middle class lefties who don't actually experience immigration in their work or where they live. The sneering dinner party set who prefer sneering at the working class.

If you live in poor housing, working in a low paid job then you have a very different experience.

Show quote history

Now who's sneering?

I'm a middle-class lefty working in a low-paid job. My caseload has included immigrants from more countries than I could begin to remember. For more than half my life, I lived in area of high immigration, had immigrants as neighbours, as colleagues and I have friends and colleagues who are immigrants today. I grew up in very poor housing, and rented some absolute shitholes before I bought a house.

Maybe you should try and shed some of that stereotyping.

ThePumpkinPatch · 19/08/2022 12:27

DysonSphere · 19/08/2022 05:29

I personally wouldn't take offence. I'm black and some people, especially the older generation aren't PC, they will still refer to brown people as coloured etc. I try to seek things I have in common and have a fairly robust threshold for offence and writing people off. It has always paid off.

I also think that just because someone voted Brexit doesn't automatically make them a racist🙄 I think that's equally as lazy as someone blaming immigrants for everything and I thought we'd got past that nonsense and acknowledged that there were a lot of factors that influenced peoples' vote. Actually calling people racist for raising issues about immigration leads to people listening to people with more extreme viewpoints.

I do think there needs to be an acknowledgement of how immigration legal or otherwise, has rapidly changed some areas, not all positive and for white indigenous people born here decades ago, the areas they grew up in might feel taken over and alien to them.

I was born and grew up in SE London the child of second wave Windrush and one day an elderly lady I used to check in on was saying she felt the local high street had changed out of all recognition. The traditional small independent grocers, stalls and specialists shops (think things like pollards) had gone, replaced with sellers of exotic foods, cosmetics, cafes etc owned by non-british people some of whom don't speak English much or only employ family members as staff and don't mix with the community or attend the local pub etc.

I was quite young at the time and thought 'how ignorant' But after a few years I thought: She's right. That's how it is from her perspective. Who am I to say otherwise? I can see myself how it has changed from Frank and Barbara running the local corner shop and post office, who you would chat and have a natter with to being replaced with a family from abroad who maybe you don't have much in common with and don't talk to English to you beyond necessity and speak in their own language around you.

Then there's schools. Is it necessarily beneficial for schools with children representing 20 different languages or more to be using/receiving extra resources to help them catch up? I'm focusing on the word beneficial, because again for some people, they may think well, everyone else is getting the help, but not the poor white school children in some deprived part of the country away from the major cities.

The NHS: There is a massive shortage of training GPs and other allied health professions. It's all good foreign doctors being fast tracked or granted visas to work within the NHS, but why has the government withdrawn or reduced bursaries over the years for university health courses to the indigenous population whilst placing emphasis on immigrants holding the NHS together? And how many white English GP's are there for a white person to go to without waiting for ages? That sounds ignorant - why do you care as long as they're qualified? - but I try to put myself in their shoes. There have been times that I as a woc have desperately wanted a black doctor because they will understand things culturally that my white doctor as competent as they are, won't quite understand in the same way, and I don't see why it's different for a White person either.

When people expressing concerns (however ignorantly) like your neighbor are not listened to and just written off with a slogan of DailyFail Reader, Brexiter, racist, and not engaged with, then they are sitting ducks for the far right who do listen and give them all the time they want.

We need to have a balanced conversation around immigration. It may be a net good, but it does have impacts that may not be wholly positive that need to be acknowledged if we are to have cohesion as a nation. We may not like those views, but you can't just dismiss them.

This!

@DysonSphere You're an incredibly intelligent woman! Flowers

ThePumpkinPatch · 19/08/2022 12:28

Purplecatshopaholic · 19/08/2022 05:33

So she’s a Tory voting, brexiteer, bigot…. Think I would avoid tbh, she is not the sort of person I would want to mix with. As she’s a neighbour, I’d keep interactions brief and friendly enough but distant.

Yours is exactly the sort of person @DysonSphere mentions in her post!

ThePumpkinPatch · 19/08/2022 12:31

@TeaAndStrumpets Same. As, like you, I just don't label people 🤷🏼‍♀️

verdantverdure · 19/08/2022 13:25

Aiionwatha · 19/08/2022 11:04

I'm not surprised by the responses on this thread, MN being primarily a middle class platform. Mass immigration largely impacts the poor and those living in deprived areas.

Some people understand the objective reality of the situation, and lack the meanness of character required to hold such views.

Others are easily manipulated and don't care what the reality is. They enjoy having their prejudices and personality defects tickled by propaganda and someone to blame.

They choose this delusion and actively avoid factual news sources in favour of ones that stoke their delusion.

These views exist at all income levels and classes.

mam0918 · 19/08/2022 13:43

Mississipi71 · 19/08/2022 10:12

I doubt the OP is an immigrant.

Show quote history

can you not read... she CLEARLY says in the OP 'I am immigrant. I didn't come on a boat and I have a good job etc. But essentially I came to this country.'

mam0918 · 19/08/2022 13:48

lollipoprainbow · 19/08/2022 10:15

@mam0918 how crass

Crass = lacking intellegence or sympathy.

Im not lacking that at all, the neighbor was thats why we are all here and if you disagree with me and agree with the neighbor then you are also crass.

eldora · 19/08/2022 13:52

Mississipi71 · 19/08/2022 09:56

What an incredibly toxic post. You can apply your 'logic' about not being skilled to have been born, to anybody then. It is so passive aggressive.

Show quote history

Of course it applies to everyone.

What do you find so toxic?

Is it just that the truth hurts?

excitingusername · 19/08/2022 13:57

verdantverdure · 19/08/2022 13:25

Some people understand the objective reality of the situation, and lack the meanness of character required to hold such views.

Others are easily manipulated and don't care what the reality is. They enjoy having their prejudices and personality defects tickled by propaganda and someone to blame.

They choose this delusion and actively avoid factual news sources in favour of ones that stoke their delusion.

These views exist at all income levels and classes.

Show quote history

@verdantverdure But what delusion are you talking about?

verdantverdure · 19/08/2022 14:04

The one I replied to @excitingusername. The one the neighbour expressed.

excitingusername · 19/08/2022 14:21

verdantverdure · 19/08/2022 14:04

The one I replied to @excitingusername. The one the neighbour expressed.

@verdantverdure And how do you decide it is a delusion? The population statistics clearly show population increase and rapidly changing demographics while the white Brit population has stayed at roughly the same rate for many years. Do you know any of the statistics?

apintortwo · 19/08/2022 14:25

You know what does give you a right to decide what happens in a country ? The people who work and pay taxes there. No matter where they're from.

Do you understand OP that in order to 'work and pay taxes' somewhere, the citizens of that country (which you seem to believe are a nuisance and somehow irrelevant) should have agreed for immigrants to come in in the first place?

I wouldn't dream to emmigrate somewhere and once there, display the shocking attitude you are demonstrating on this thread.

The 'no borders' nonsense is ridiculous also.

verdantverdure · 19/08/2022 14:25

These beliefs are a delusion because they are contradicted by reality @excitingusername.

apintortwo · 19/08/2022 14:28

But I don't believe being born somewhere gives you some divine entitlement over that land and who can come and live there under whatever circumstances.

Of course it does. There's something called soverignty. Why don't you try and force your way (and ideas) into China, Australia, UAE, even the USA?

woodhill · 19/08/2022 14:29

Exactly

excitingusername · 19/08/2022 14:29

@verdantverdure what do you believe the reality is? You don't think immigration to the point of population increase affects our infrastructure? You don't seem to have any evidence to the contrary of what the neighbour said.

apintortwo · 19/08/2022 14:31

But one of the things it makes clear is very interesting which is there is a divide between the "anywheres" who tend to think that the state owes as much to people from other countries as it does to it's own citizens - and this has been stated explicitly by some political figures, and "somewheres" who think that the state's most primary responsibility is to the well-being of it's own citizens. The former attitude is pretty clear on this thread.

Who are these 'political figures' spouting these inflammatory 'ideas'? Could you name a few?

Derrymare · 19/08/2022 14:33

Ignore op its ignorance.

OriginalUsername2 · 19/08/2022 14:34

I have neighbours and local people in this mindset. They’re not bad people, they’re small town oldies who aren’t very educated.

They know everything they know from the people around them and don’t think too deeply about it. If you’re an immigrant, you might be the first they’ve ever come across. There’s a chance for change right there! Let them get to know you and they’re opinions will shift, if only very slightly. That’s how we evolve.

verdantverdure · 19/08/2022 14:35

excitingusername · 19/08/2022 14:29

@verdantverdure what do you believe the reality is? You don't think immigration to the point of population increase affects our infrastructure? You don't seem to have any evidence to the contrary of what the neighbour said.

Some people believe things that aren't true.

Reality contradicts them.

No evidence is required.

Original poster
neighbourhoodwatch · 19/08/2022 14:38

apintortwo · 19/08/2022 14:28

But I don't believe being born somewhere gives you some divine entitlement over that land and who can come and live there under whatever circumstances.

Of course it does. There's something called soverignty. Why don't you try and force your way (and ideas) into China, Australia, UAE, even the USA?

I said that I don't believe it does- that's my opinion. Just because you're born somewhere, does not give you any rights over that land. That's just how I feel about it. I think it's an outdated and dangerous concept that we think we have more rights over a certain area than others. That's where it a lot of problems stem from. I disagree with patriotism and nationalism of any form really. You're nothing special to have been born into a certain land or culture.

Othering people who are not from your land is completely wrong to me. You're nothing special because you were born some place, you chose nothing. Neither did I. You were just born where you were born. I was born where I was born.

OP posts:
verdantverdure · 19/08/2022 14:40

OriginalUsername2 · 19/08/2022 14:34

I have neighbours and local people in this mindset. They’re not bad people, they’re small town oldies who aren’t very educated.

They know everything they know from the people around them and don’t think too deeply about it. If you’re an immigrant, you might be the first they’ve ever come across. There’s a chance for change right there! Let them get to know you and they’re opinions will shift, if only very slightly. That’s how we evolve.

I want to agree with this, but generally people are so attached to their beliefs that they actively avoid factual news sources and stick to the ones that stoke their beliefs.

Nothing anyone says would make any difference. If they wanted facts and reality they are freely available to us all.

At best you'll get a "Oh I don't mean you..."