To think people don't realise how much racism is directed towards Eastern Europeans ?

[rudolphrainbownose]

My boyfriend is Latvian, I am English. I've never really mixed much with the eastern european community until we started dating two years ago, so naively assumed racism wouldn't be so much of an issue.
However, my boyfriend works security at a railway station. He is often allocated to a very small station in town, and so is normally the only employee/ worker present. Due to this, his employer provides him and all staff with body worn cameras so there is audio/ visual proof of the following. Whenever people start behaving in an antisocial way at the station, ( e.g. kids trespassing on the tracks, smoking/ drinking alcohol, attempting to board trains without tickets etc), he will challenge this as part of his job. Obviously, as soon as he starts speaking/ engaging with these people, it is clear he has a strong eastern European accent. Without fail, they will normally retort, "well f back home/ back to Poland", ( he is not Polish, has never even been to Poland, but it is always "go back to Poland," ), that is the insult. Yesterday evening he tried to stop a man from stealing a passenger's bike, ( they have bike lock/ sheds there) . The man became enraged and started yelling , "just here for our benefits, go back to Poland!" ( despite the fact my boyfriend was in work uniform and obviously working). When my DP pointed out he was working and so not a benefit claimant anyway, the guy became very aggressive, shouted , "just f off back home and pushed my partner over." I'm genuinely shocked. Whilst physical violence like last night is rare, the "go back to Poland!" comments seem to happen at least once a month or so, just for doing his job and asking people not to steal/ smoke / drink/ tresspass etc at the station.

It's got to the stage that he insisted our daughter , ( two months old), had my surname when we registered her, as he didn't want her to receive abuse for having an eastern european name. AIBU to feel we don't actually recognise this group receive a lot of abuse ? To be perfectly honest, I was not aware of the extent of it until I met my partner.

On the other hand, it may just be that working security , ( and therefore "annoying," people by asking them to stop antisocial behaviour so they retaliate), means he is unfortunately much more prone to abuse than someone working in a shop/ factory / office etc

Sorry that was meant to quote lunar270

@Lunar270
See your “race” definitions are straight from the US Census. It says at the bottom
The race and ethnicity categories generally reflect social definitions in the U.S. and are not an attempt to define race and ethnicity biologically, anthropologically, or genetically. We recognize that the race and ethnicity categories include racial, ethnic, and national origins and sociocultural groups.

You also forgot that it includes “Some Other Race”
The U.S. Office of Management and Budget (OMB) requires two minimum categories for data on ethnicity (Hispanic or Latino and Not Hispanic or Latino) and five minimum categories on race (American Indian or Alaska Native, Asian, Black or African American, Native Hawaiian or Other Pacific Islander and White). The Census Bureau is also required by Congress to use the category “Some Other Race.” People may report multiple races.

www.census.gov/programs-surveys/decennial-census/decade/2020/planning-management/release/faqs-race-ethnicity.html

Why don't you open up a browser and post up the correct definitions of race. Please do.

Have you typed in 'is Polish a race' into Google recently?

@Lunar270
See even the US Census says these are “categories on race” as in white/black/Asian/ etc are race categories, not single races.

Google is a search engine, it’s no substitute for academic research.

I mean others have posted from the Equality Act….. But I’d suggest you simply open your mind to travelling outside the USA - either in reality or on the internet

Why is it always a competition on who has it worse? No where was OP invalidating any other race, only discussing the issues their partner faces. If you did your research you would know it is racism. Xenophobia and racism tend to work hand in hand. People outside of the Asian/black community can experience racism (Yes, even if you are white) who has it worse is not a question. We are all aware that B/A have to deal with racism that is far more extreme/regular. It gives no reason for you to then invalidate the experience in others. If anything it should make those who face racism come together, not compete.

@Lunar270

"Have you typed in 'is Polish a race' into Google recently?"

Under the terms of the Equality Act, nationality or ethnicity can be synonymous with race and protected as such against discrimination and harassment. What is it about this that you are finding difficult to understand?

My Irish relatives who arrived in England in the 60s were also told to go home, refused rental rooms, assumed to be thick as shit, etc. It's no consolation to your DH, I'm sure, but this is nothing new.

That’s what we are trying to say, there is no internationally accepted definition or list of all the races. Race is a social construct and across the globe it is categorised and defined differently. However, it is widely recognised that the major racial categories of white/black/Asian and so on contain multiple races within them. Race is more than skin colour or continent of origin.

Here in Europe, we definitely think in terms of different races within the “white” category.

Exactly.

And the US doc that Lunar posted agrees.

We recognize that the race and ethnicity categories include racial, ethnic, and national origins and sociocultural groups.

So what you’re saying is that people need to learn how to ‘pass’ as British in order to be treated with respect. So, for example, does that mean you have to change an ethnically identifiable family name in order to do so? And not doing so is showing that you’re unwilling to make the effort to fit in?

Here in Europe, we definitely think in terms of different races within the “white” category.

Indeed.

Jews and light skinned Arabs would not, for example, be classed as ethnically the same as white British people of an Anglo Saxon etc origin.

Exactly. Great that he was able to ‘declare’ himself as British. Meanwhile many English people think our own Prime Minister isn’t British.

Ok, I see this has descended into a racism v xenophobia thing with folk scrambling to pick apart and justify. Your partner/friend/workmate/someone in the queue at the supermarket shouldn't be subject to any abuse based on their being from somewhere else, whatever the colour of their skin.

You did miss that despite this man declarations he was seen as outsider and his daughter is questioned on semi regular basis on her britishness.

Yes, but it all magically stopped and ‘he was now an Englishman’.

If BAME people called themselves English, it would be met with raised eyebrows.

? They didn’t say it stopped. They highlighted he did everything possible to blend in but was still questioned and viewed as an other.

If BAME people called themselves English, it would be met with raised eyebrows.

No it wouldn't. There are loads of English black people. A few of our cities are majority British non-white nowadays, and even more have a majority of non whites in the <20yo bracket.

There's literally been a huge news story this week demonstrating that this isn't true.

I've heard plenty of racism against Eastern Europeans and 'foreigners' in general, there's nothing unusual about it unfortunately.

YANBU. My grandfather was a post-WW2 Ukrainian immigrant. My parents are unmarried and so my mum has always had her Ukrainian surname from birth. She also has a Ukrainian first name. I remember as a child that she would call herself by my dad's surname so as to avoid the negative connotations which came with having an Eastern European name. She found that business enquiries were dramatically different when she advertised using my dad's English surname as her own, rather than her full Ukrainian name.
She's says that it happens much less so now but there was a time when she was frequently questioned about being 'one of those Polish immigrants'.

I'll take ONS data over a TV show, thanks.

Britain’s two largest cities are now minority white British, the census has revealed.

London and Birmingham now both have minority populations who identify as white British, according to the results of the census, with statisticians saying the figures indicate the "increasingly multicultural society we live in".

www.telegraph.co.uk/news/2022/11/29/uk-census-results-2021-white-ethnicity-london-birmingham/

Leicester has become one of the first cities in the UK where people identifying as white are no longer the majority, the latest census data shows.

Figures from the Office for National Statistics (ONS) have revealed 41% of the city described themselves as white - the lowest of any city in the UK.

www.google.com/amp/s/www.bbc.co.uk/news/uk-england-leicestershire-63743309.amp

Thanks @TruckerBarbie for the refs to equality act upthread.

a lot of comments on this thread are weird and minimising what OPs partner experienced. I didn’t know that this was a common occurrence (for DPs partner) and it has been helpful for me to hear - thank you for raising it (and other people also with their experiences in different locations and sectors - eg in the City).

I’m non white and have been lucky not to have experienced overt racism in U.K. If I was in OPs DPs shoes I’d be pretty intimidated - it’s awful that he has to go through this.