"Its like downtown Kabul round here"

[PyongyangKipperbang]

This has been bugging me all day.

Took my father (72) to a hospital appointment today as my mother was suffering with a migraine.

As we drove from our village through town he made this comment. It was school run time and we had just driven past two women who were wearing traditional muslim attire , wearing full matching outfits, one in black and one in the most stunning purple. Forgive me for not using the correct names but I would rather not try than get them wrong. There were a fair few families dressed similarly, but more that were in jeans and trainers!

Our small town is very very multicultural. My ex husband is Jamaican by heritage, British by birth as ex MIL and late FIL were both part of the Windrush generation. There is a large Asian community and now a lot of Eastern Europeans too.

Me - What?! They follow a different religion and dress that way, so what? And at least their dd's get to go to school.

Him - Oh well if youa re going to be like that about it

Me - Yes I am. In Kabul W X Y Z (my dd's, his GD's) wouldnt be allowed to go to school and would be forced to wear certain clothes, unlike here where we just let people be.

Then he said "well thats what I think and I can say it if I think it" and I said "Not in my car you cant. and if you think that they should all go back to where they came from, that includes Z (youngest DD, mixed race)"

Silence for a second and then "Thank you for the lift, I will get out at the lights and walk the rest of the way" I said to stop being childish. Then a dickhead cut me up and I called him as such and father said "Oh I bet all the bad drivers are only white british....." in a mumble. I said "Well as it happens, that one was" dropped him off at the hospital and all was done.

He has been cobby with me since. He needed a couple of favours later today as he can no longer drive and Ma couldnt because of her head and it was couched very much as "Your mother needs this and I cant go" rather than, as it would normally me "would you do me a favour?"

I wasnt wrong to pull him up on this was I? He isnt "elderly", just fucking "ist" when it suits him and inclusive when it doesnt. For example, DD1's partner is autistic which is thinks is made up and attention seeking...."apart from [him]". He has always been like this but I strongly suspect I am going to get the silent treatment for a while (unless he needs something). And yes, he does read THAT paper.......

We are very close and I love him very much and he me. But when Mr Daily Hate comes out......not so much..,,,

exactly, he just said the one sentence

otoh, parents can be annoying i understand @PyongyangKipperbang

'Not in my car, you can't' is a perfectly reasonable stipulation.

He's entitled to his own views, however objectionable, and it's clear you're not going to educate him. Doing him those favours isn't conditional on him gaining such an education and stating outright that he's seen the error of his ways and agrees with you. But when you're in your own car with him, and you are the one doing him the favour, you do not have to listen to it and are right to make that point.

The former of these two options might well be viewed as 'controlling' (a word MN loves and that many or most OPs will read before they get to the end of their threads). The second is perfectly reasonable.

Lollipoprainbow That must be so hard. I lost my mum in my early 20s and i know i was so blessed to have my Lovely Dad until i was in my 50s but it is still hurts being an orphan.

Like the OP, you sound very virtuous, very virtuous indeed.

Can anyone help me out by telling me the exact year when so many young people realised that they were shining beacons of utter virtue whose duty was to “educate” anyone older than themselves and show them the way, the truth and the virtuous light? We live in such saintly times. Alleluia 🙏

BethDuttonsTwin So sorry that your family is going through such a hard time. Thank your Dad for his Service and treasure every moment you have with him.

I absolutely hate the "well it's their age, what can't you do" excuse. My Dad is in his late 80s and isn't racist or xenophobic. It isn't about a person's age it is their attitude. How are people going to think about their prejudices if no one challenges them? So well done OP for speaking up. We never get too old to learn and grow.

It's such a shock for many when their children and grandchildren turn on them in the same way when they fail to conform to whatever the current year orthodoxy is. And the cycle continues.

I don't expect to symbolise, defend, or otherwise represent my culture when I travel abroad (or live there). I am just a person. Lucky for me because otherwise I personally would constantly be having to defend the slavery, murder, and violence of the British Empire's as a British person wouldn't I.

As to the 'wild claim' you're talking about, there isn't a 'wild claim'. You're just setting it up to try to refute it. The claim that doesn't exist hasn't been rejected officially either. I'm not going to argue with you about something you've made up in the first place.

The fact remains that two women wearing hijabs or niqabs or any other dress at all are allowed to walk down the street in any neighbourhood in the UK and it doesn't indicate anything about what is happening in the country as a whole. They are just people going about their business.

@Spinet

I don't know or particular care what you expect. People's clothes generally do symbolize their culture, as you know.

Nice swipe at your own history, virtuous oikophobia duly noted.

No what I described is actually the ideology of multiculturalism. I know you're not familiar with it. Here, I'll help a little:

Angela Merkel: German multiculturalism has 'utterly failed' | Germany | The Guardian

Sarkozy joins allies burying multiculturalism | Reuters

The fact that women wearing Islamic dress are walking down the street in the UK in substantial numbers indicates that the UK has experienced levels of mass immigration, particularly from Islamic countries, that are historically unprecedented outside of wartime. I don't know why you think that makes them somehow become 'not people'. How bizarre. Was the presence of white women in English Edwardian dress in India in the early 20th century indicative of nothing that was happening in India as a whole?

It's such a shock for many when their children and grandchildren turn on them in the same way when they fail to conform to whatever the current year orthodoxy is. And the cycle continues.

Its a shock when someone stands up to the racism, I'm sure. The 'current year orthodoxy' in reality, is actually just a long standing attitude against racism.

The fact remains that two women wearing hijabs or niqabs or any other dress at all are allowed to walk down the street in any neighbourhood in the UK and it doesn't indicate anything about what is happening in the country as a whole. They are just people going about their business

Well said.

Well that is clearly offensive but the OPs fathers comment wasn't clearly offensive in the same way. She has interpreted it as him thinking they should all go back to where they came from but he hasn't said that. He might have meant it or he might have just been commenting on clothing that has it's origins elsewhere in the world. She hasn't said he has a problem with her child or his father which might indicate something.

The attire isn't clear from the OPs post but if I go back to where I grew up it is different now. Back then the Muslim women, usually Pakistani, wore shalwar kameez with a long loose scarf that was across their heads but didn't actually cover all their hair. Now most of the women, or at least many of them, are wearing burka. Is that cultural i.e. they are Muslim women from somewhere else where shalwar kameez and a loose scarf aren't enough covering? I'm not worried about what anyone wears but I do wonder how it must feel in hot weather. I was at a local beach in the recent heatwave, a group of men were buying icecreams and they were in shorts and t shirts, the women were standing to the side and were all dressed in burkas and I thought they must be so uncomfortable.

But you are ignoring the acceptable ism on MN, ageism.

And you clearly aren't racist in any way, shape or form 🙄

I was referring to your description of Multiculturism.

you could take very culture that exists on earth, move members of those cultures into one polity and encourage them to maintain those cultures, and expect the result to be more positive than negative.

Is this the textbook definition of multiculturalism?

I don't hate my own country by the way. I just don't feel the need to defend its actions because I didn't do them. Not especially virtuous. Using big words isn't frightening me by the way, love, but well done in your defence of the 'working class way' (to quote you) of talking about race.

As to this bit: The fact that women wearing Islamic dress are walking down the street in the UK in substantial numbers indicates that the UK has experienced levels of mass immigration, particularly from Islamic countries, that are historically unprecedented outside of wartime. No it doesn't. It doesn't indicate anything of the sort. That's quite apart from the fact that your 'substantial numbers' means nothing. What number is it that you consider substantial? The 2 that the OP describes? Or some other number that you've whipped out of your imagination to make these women walking down the street sound threatening?

If you want to talk about immigration and what your opinions are about it you should feel free (to somebody else, I have no doubt we disagree), but using 2 people going about their day (in the country in which they may well have been born - you have no way of knowing just by looking) as a way to get into why multiculturalism is terrible for indigenous populations is racist.

I too am a "product of my time" as you call it. I worked with an 18 year old Pakistani born lad in London who married his 14 year old cousin in Pakistan then brought her over here where she wasn't allowed to learn English or to leave his council flat without him being with her. When I reported this as abuse I was called racist and laughed at. Being a "product of my time" means I do not appreciate cultures that think underage marriage is normal, it doesn't fit at all well with me. But hey ho I must accept such cultures or be called racist for reporting it.

This.

That is abuse, and you rightly reported it. Underage and forced marriages are an abomination. Why would you think people younger than you, even brown people, have a problem with that?

@Spinet

Are you really arguing with a straight face that this 72 year old man has seen two women in Islamic dress in his very multicultural town throughout his life and has drawn conclusions from that about how the town has changed over his life? No, I don't consider 2 to be a substantial number, and of course neither does he, or anyone else. Because of course there aren't only 2 women in Islamic dress where he lives.

Are you also trying to claim that the presence of substantial numbers of women in Islamic dress in England resulted from something other than the mass immigration of the last few decades? Was there a mass conversion maybe that we all missed?

Maybe because she was called racist and laughed at.

Totally agree about 'Not in my car, you can't', and don't get why people are saying YABU about it. It doesn't mean 'I won't drive you around,' it means 'Think what you like, but in my space I do not have to or want to hear it.'

Well, she shouldn't have been. You won't find me arguing for that. The answer isn't to vilify every Muslim woman walking down the road for their dress.

@Spinet 'It doesn't indicate anything of the sort. That's quite apart from the fact that your 'substantial numbers' means nothing. What number is it that you consider substantial? The 2 that the OP describes? Or some other number that you've whipped out of your imagination to make these women walking down the street sound threatening?'

If you care you read the op she said 'There were a fair few families dressed similarly' - she was just describing the first 2 people she saw in virtue signalling terms explaining to us all how progressive she is but she went on to say there were more people dressed the same way.

You’ve scolded him and so he is defensive.