To ask about your experiences with racism?

[MooseBreath]

I will preface this by saying that I am white and do not look like a minority. I am, however, Jewish. I have experienced anti-Semitism on a few occasions. Whenever I have spoken with friends about my experience, they have been surprised that this happened.

My childhood best friend (half Jamaican) was recently telling me about how she experienced racism on many occasions growing up in our predominantly white hometown . I am embarrassed to say that not once did I notice it happening.

I think it may be helpful to people who haven't witnessed or experienced acts of intolerance to hear actual stories of it happening. Even the little things.

My experiences are as follows:

My parents were teachers in our local high school. My high school was very big on "tolerence" and preached about the importance Holocaust, inviting in loads of speakers and organising trips to Auschwitz. My mom was the only Jewish teacher in the school and this was common knowledge, as she had given a few speeches in assemblies. It is also important to note that my brothers and I attended the school, so it was also common knowledge where we lived.

On one occasion, she gave a bad grade to one of her students who repeatedly didn't hand in his work. The student targeted our home for the next few months. We would receive phone calls in the middle of the night, playing traditional Jewish music. We would have crude drawings of "stereotypical" Jews in our mailbox. We had our house egged on many occasions, often with raw bacon left outside the front door. Though we weren't kosher and were very much secular, the intent was very clear. The student (who we knew was the perpetrator through other students at the school) never faced any consequences. We had no proof who was doing this to our family. But the feeling of being targeted due to our birth religion was so scary.

I now live in the East of England and while nothing has been personally targeted at me or my family, there have been many instances of graffitied swastikas on pathways and buildings. I have seen people talking about Jews being at fault for the Israel-Palestine conflict when protesting for a Free Palestine (which for the record, I am for, along with all the other Jewish people I know).

I figure if I am not even a visible minority and have experienced this, I can only begin to imagine the horrible things people of colour have learned to live with. Maybe if we talk about the incidents we have experienced, we can move forward more quickly.

Definitely! From NI living in West Yorkshire. "Why are you fighting", casual workplace conversation about family trees reducing my ancestry to "bog trotters" (plot twist - quite the opposite, not that it matters). Accusing my murdered father of being murdered because he was a terrorist. Errr, didn't quit work like that in the Troubles. So much ignorance. All from white local people.

Also yelled at to go back to where I came from by a group of British Pakistani lads, who started to chuck stones at me. I was on my own and a bit lost.

We're all humans. Feels like we're more divided than ever.

It's bloody horrible. Thank you for caring. I am Jewish and visibly not 'white british'. It's pretty hellish at the moment.

I'm British-Chinese with a white partner so can empathise with your experience. Our DC is still little so hasn't experienced any 'Where are you really from?' questions yet, although I've certainly had my fair share of those questions over the years!

I can well imagine the type of racism you and your ex received back in the 90s, especially because you were a WF/AM couple which is rarer than the 'more widely seen' AF/WM relationship. Surprisingly, my partner and I have not received any racism as a couple (yet), although I do worry for our DC's sake. I often wonder how best to approach and navigate the complex layers of what they will have to learn and go through in life.

I have one biracial grandparent who I never met (my grandmother was 15, when my father was born, he was a lot older and married and it was during WW2. My great grandmother brought my Dad up as her own).
My Dad and I are pretty much white passing, so I count myself very lucky to have passing privilege.
However my problem was the other side of my family who commented at length on my frizzy hair and n*** nose.
I do also acknowledge that I had the privilege pf being able to move away and go NC from the bitches.

I'm white and it's shocking the amount of people - not even people I know sometimes - will start telling me what they think of immigrants and refugees, and they will actually expect me to agree. Depending on the appropriateness of the the time and place, I'll often point out that my grandmother's family were refugees, at which point they'll splutter that wasn't what they meant, and if I push it further asking what they did mean they'll awkwardly narrow it down to non-whites being the people they don't like coming here.

Apart from that I'm under no illusion that Britain is not racist - from the Muslim work colleague who was too scared to wear a headscarf because of harassment on the street, another co-worker who was driven out of her home by racist abuse from her neighbours, to the extent they put a brick through her window when her children were home, to mutterings and speculation about Jewish people allegedly owning this or that company and that explaining some negative thing about said company...

It's depressing, and it's not even targeted at me. What it's like to be the target must be so, so much worse.

The reasons for white working class boys underachieving in education are many but it’s not discrimination. So many studies show if you take a white boy with a criminal record and a black boy with a criminal record and the white kid will get more interviews and job offers. Similarly compare a black female professional with similar qualifications/background to a white professionals and they'll be less likely to get the interview/role/promotion.

I used to work with white working class teens and I seen how many chances they got in the criminal justice system compared to black boys. A white woman I used to support had 4 sons, two mixed race and two white. The white boys were older and had been in trouble a lot for violent crime . She said it wasn’t until her mixed race son was in trouble (for less serious offences) she understood what her black partner was saying all along. The difference in the way her sons were treated by courts and police was stark.

A few diversity schemes doesn’t erase the impact of this ongoing and systemic racism. This isn’t my opinion alone, a whole body of research and studies backs all this up so go easy on the white boys have it worst narrative.

I'm white, lived in Asia for 4 years and used to get spat at by the older Asian men, most days on my way walking to work.

I was early 20s, walking and they would spit at me and call me ang mo. It's not meant to be an offensive term and just means red hair, but they took great joy scaring the crap out of me daily.

It isn’t racial discrimination, but that doesn’t mean it isn’t a problem. It might be class-based discrimination or just a result of culture/being poor. Many of the issues faced by ethnic minority groups are also not as a result of discrimination, but poverty, poor access to opportunities, culture etc. And white working class boys do have it worst in the specific area of education. We don’t have to deny that in order to also think racism is a problem. In some ways it’s a cop out to say it’s all racism, because it means all you have to do is ‘educate’ people on how to not be prejudiced. You don’t actually have to do anything about income or educational inequality.

I am Muslim Pakistani.

• We were walking home from primary school once (me and my siblings, school kids at this time). A car full of white lads sped past us shouting paki's and egged us.
• about 18 years old, my first job in an offy. A customer, middle aged came in and said hello (islamic greeting). Then proceeded to tell me ' I hate fucking Muslims, I'm going to come back and chop your head off' (complete with finger slicing across the neck actions), you fucking muslims. I'd never been so frikkin scared in my life.
• I used to work as a HCA, when all the boko haram stuff was going on, the client mid roll while we were doing his personal care said to me 'your lot have kidnapped loads of girls' or something to that effect. I told him then that it's nothing to do with me. This was an educated man, some previous bigwig for the council.

I'm a weird mix of Irish Catholic, Iranian Muslim and Jewish. Raised Catholic, now not religious.

The only time I have faced racism was when I was living in hospital staff accom and was challenged about my heritage by a female Dr from Pakistan.
She stated that I looked Jewish and that she couldn't live with a Jewish person. She asked the housing officers to swap flats.

This. People seem to think it's ok to say "ni hao" and "Ching Chong Chang" and think we are all Chinese. Just the other day, I saw that my GP had my ethnicity down as Chinese. Either way its probably because there's not that many of us around in general (unless you go to places like China town).

I’m white, English so I’ve no idea if I can have racism against me (I’ve been told white people cant experience racism because racism comes from a power structure within a society, so perhaps it’s just discrimination that I’ve experienced). However I have some experiences to do with my being white:-

In an English city -

Shouted at to get off the street , called a cracker hore (happened many times).

Told/made to leave a pub because I was white.

Always served last in a particular takeaway even if I was ahead in the queue (happened all the time)

I spent a huge amount of time in Egypt (all over) and experienced incidents on an almost daily basis.

I have had hands down my knickers and bra many times, with the perpetrators saying things like it’s ok white girls are fun, I have a wife I’ve seen it all before.

hair and skin pinched (happened a lot)

shouted at in the street a lot.

stared at & followed

My husband being congratulated for having such a quiet wife - didn’t realise white women could be quiet.

loads more over the years I’ve forgotten.

my white husband is from a very deprived background (care/meal ticket kid) and he gets a lot of assumptions of privilege made about his background because he’s a white male.

Why are white people claiming reverse racism on this thread?

I know right!

People subscribe to different definitions of racism

Reverse racism is a part of the problem.

White people can absolutely experience racism, especially when they are in a place where they are the minority. Denying white people's experiences is racism.

I am white. I am also Jewish. I have experienced racism and likely will again in the future. The fact that I am white doesn't make my experience any less valid.

Yes sorry, I should have clarified that I meant non-Jewish white people claiming reverse racism.

@Tambatamba But white non-Jewish people can experience racism. As previous posters said, they experienced it on many occasions while living in Asia and Africa, two places where they were most certainly a minority group. Being spat at every day and threatened purely due to skin colour is racism.

I don't agree. Prejudice is one thing and racism is another. The world is set up to favour non-Jewish white people. White supremacy is still very much an issue.

White supremacy is definitely an issue.

But it doesn't negate the fact that white people can experience racism. Yes, the western world (amongst some other places) favours white people. But there are absolutely instances where white people are in the minority and are viewed as lesser.

Bloody hell!

Racism is being prejudiced against someone based on their skin colour eg harmful stereotypes, insulting them based on their skin colour, saying you won't work with someone of a particular race, saying a particular race doesn't belong somewhere, saying your children can't date someone of a particular race etc.

Every race can be racist. I'm biracial and have faced racism from all races. A non-White person who is wealthy and privately educated will be more privileged than a working class boy.

Pyramid of white supremacy

This pyramid doesn't include other races. This looks like African American vs white (American) middle class. The world is more than just black and white. I'm not black but I've faced a lot of racism.