I don't like Welsh people

[snowstone]

Said to me, a Welsh person born in Wales, married to a Welsh man, with two welsh children.

By my own father?!

He and my mum are looking at moving houses, I was asking about where and he mentioned they were a looking more at a specific county further away from me. I asked if they'd consider my county as we see them quite a bit. My dad said that my county is too Welsh, and the main draw of the other county is that it's much more English and he fits in better with English people, Welsh people are a bit odd and he doesn't like them and wants to be surrounded by English people.

Told him to move to fucking England then! My mum said I overreacted but it was just quite a grim thing to say to be honest, made me look at him a bit different. They were visiting for Christmas Day and the whole atmosphere turned a bit after that and they left earlier than planned. AIBU to be pissed off?!

Well said. Op, I think you overreacted. He’s Welsh himself and oftentimes we refer to our “own kind” as quirky or whatever, that may be his meaning. I make jokes or observations sometimes about where I’m from, it’s with affection or frustration, not from bigotry. And he doesn’t mean every single Welsh person, he’s probably just thinking of several individuals he doesn’t fit in with, and understandably you took him to mean the entire group because of how he said it. I don’t think he is a bigot or phobic or racist or anything else. You took it personally but you don’t have to.

We’ve lost sight of the difference between real and malicious racism, and other stuff that is not that, because political groups use that tactic, calling this racism or that, to divide us and pit people against each other to suit their agenda. For an example I’ll give you Canada’s Trudeau. He belongs to the political left who use that tactic yet he himself has worn blackface so many times he admitted he couldn’t count how many times. A real racist yet he’s in good standing because he is on the side that accuses others of it as it gets and keeps them in power.

Is Welsh a race?

Nobody is 'a race', humans don't have Scientific races (dogs do, cabbages do). Racism is the belief that human have sub groups which determine characteristics; any time someone thinks that about a group, it's racism.

There aren't some groups that it's valid to have prejudices about- all racism is equally silly.

You’d be surprised! Even more so with inter-England xenophobia.
When I was pregnant with DS, we were stationed in Wiltshire…..a few miles from Swindon. Numerous other military wives chose to have their babies at the John Radcliffe….so they could put Oxford on the birth certificate, instead of Swindon!! 😩

We opted for Swindon because we didn’t care and aren’t snobby.

Are there counties in England that folks wouldn't want to live in preferring others . I've Yorkshire family and there's areas they wouldn't consider

Loads but hopefully in the vast majority of cases people are just joking based on historic rivalries and stereotypes.

@mysterybelle Ha, he definitely does not class himself as welsh despite living here for so long. He was referring to himself as a proud Englishman during this very conversation. He wasn't making jokes at the expense of his 'own kind' he was snarling his mouth up at the thought of being surrounded by welsh people and saying he wants to be surrounded by fellow English people as welsh people are odd and he doesn't like them. I know him and was present for the conversation, there was nothing lighthearted about it

Ah, well you are the best judge of him as he is your father. I’d try to get at the root of his hostility. He is Welsh, is he not? Whether he classes himself as such or not 😂

Don't want to detail the thread but was the woman who said she didn't want to give birth in England the mother of April Jones? She was interviewed on a recent documentary about April's tragic murder and said she refused to be transferred to Liverpool during April's difficult birth, which shocked me somewhat.
I'm English, by the way, but love Wales, would like to live there one day, and am (slowly) learning Welsh on Duo Lingo.

Bit ageist to assume your mid to late 60s parents have dementia.think u need to educate yourself on the stats ....it might just be their personalities.or are you one of those folk that like to put people in pigeonholes.

I would have said something like - So, you don’t like me then? Or, I feel much the same about non Welsh people.

Derail not detail...

Meant to add, my dh’s family is Welsh 😀and so my last name (took my dh’s) is actually a Welsh name.

They tend to get really annoyed when native Welsh speakers don't doff their hats to their betters by switching to English....even if that English person is a total stranger, is not part of their conversation. The entitlement of that is unbelievable, but there are plenty of people here with that attitude.

I know somebody upthread has given their experience here, but I'm very sceptical about many of the 'speaking English then switching to Welsh when they saw me' anecdotes. Aside from the likelihood that somebody there previously didn't speak Welsh and needed them to use English, but now that person has left and so it's back to their default first language; in general, your average Welsh and average English person don't actually really look any different!

I realise that some people will deliberately use their own language (any language) for nefarious/exclusionary purposes when they know/assume people nearby won't understand it; but it's hardly the default - and you get unpleasant speakers of ALL languages.

I do think there are a lot of people who believe the Welsh language to be a conspiracy that was developed just to annoy and exclude non-Welsh speakers. It absolutely isn't a snarky hobby that some enjoy, just to be difficult: it's their first language!

As for the Welsh woman who didn’t want give birth in an English hospital, just because the jenny cat has kittens in the oven of the old wood stove doesn’t make the kittens biscuits

I'd have just laughed at him, and asked him to look around the room and remind him that he is talking about his own family in what he said.
I agree with your Mum, that is no way to speak to anyone, and hardly a way that is going to make him think about the way he phrases things.

YABVU for your clickbait title.

I’m Welsh, from Monmouthshire. I didn’t know that this ‘little England’ existed until I just googled it. All seems very silly to me.

My ex FIL was Welsh. He married an english women and spent the next 40 years living on the coast in south east England.

He hated the English. Spent all his time telling everyone how shit England and the English were. Didn’t seem to think his 4 kids who all grew up in England wouldn’t take offence.

Once one of them finally said, “If you hate the fucking English so much, why don’t you go back and live in Wales?” It didn’t go down well, and he stopped talking to that particular child for years.

English or Welsh makes no difference, they’re just dickheads!

Sure he’s not joking? My DH is welsh and commonly jokes about hating welsh people. It’s just something we both tease about.

In one shop we entered the shopkeeper was talking to someone at the counter in English. They then changed and started speaking in Welsh when they noticed us, which I felt was pretty rude

Did they know that you (strangers) were monolingual English speakers? Or did they go back to speaking Welsh - where they were, in mainly Welsh-speaking Wales - as their default until it was identified that somebody present needed them to switch to English again?

he was snarling his mouth up at the thought of being surrounded by welsh people and saying he wants to be surrounded by fellow English people as welsh people are odd and he doesn't like them.

I don't want to be rude to him, but is he quite simple? It's not like there aren't loads and loads of areas within the UK where he could choose to live that would perfectly fit his desired xenophobic requirements.

It would be like a group of vegans desperately trawling a city from one steakhouse to another, in the vague hope that they might find one that also has a suitable option for them, when there are plenty of dedicated vegan restaurants specifically set up to fully cater for people with their requirements!

While I don't agree with your dad either, I'll offer a different perspective.

You are presumably born in Wales, speak with a Welsh accent and are married into a Welsh family, perhaps from the area in which you live.

Your father has had many years of being an outsider. He's expressing his frustration at tha. Admittedly badly and as a result of choices he made but it does get you down. Knowing that opening your mouth has you judged and always being considered an in about comer is wearing, especially when you have been somewhere decades.

Doesn't make what he is saying right either and he is perpetuating the thing he probably dislikes. But I'd be surprised if he hasn't heard 'i hate the English ' pretty regularly and is sticking that attitude back. As I say, that does no one any favours and he's wrong but I think you should acknowledge that your experience of Wales is different to his.

Shall we start stereotyping the irish next 🤣

He isn’t Welsh.

Shall we start stereotyping the irish next 🤣

You mean like the way they only switched their road markers to kilometres specifically to stick two fingers up at the British?!

I think people who hold an attitude towards whole groups of people as one group, tend to get a responding treatment, which they believe perpetuates that they hold ‘correct’ views of said group.

Basically, your dad has chosen to believe that welsh people are inferior to him and unpleasant, and treats them as such. The welsh people he’s been around have picked up on his attitude and treat him as a pompous and arrogant arsehole. The circle of life continues.

I just realized this after reading @Calmdown14’s comment, with which I agree. That could explain root of father’s hostility. He’s had to listen to it from other side and is dome with it.