British or English?

[moijejoue]

DH is born in London. Both his parents were born in India They're all brown. I would have described DH as British Indian. DH says he isn't Indian, can't speak the language, has never been and doesn't know anything about it and is English.

My background is that I was born in Norfolk, parents born in England but both sets of grandparents were born in India. I'm brown. I've always called myself British and not English. DH says I've bought into the racism. And there needs to be a culture shift in seeing people who are non-white as English. And for example, brown people in Scotland call themselves Scottish and not British. And for how many more generations will my descendents call themselves British and not English.

We have a baby DC and I would have also described her as British and not English. He said we should raise her to say she is English. But I feel like that isn't right. AIBU?

Ummmmm - that map describes "Nations and Regions", not just "Regions"

The Chartered Institution of Highways and Transportation is not the Officical Nation Police. Plus, you can't read.

Downright offensive. Flower of Scotland is Scotland's NATIONAL anthem We are a nation. Edinburgh is the CAPITAL of Scotland

There is a reason that England, Scotland, Wales and Northern Ireland have separate football teams. The rugby competition is called The Six Nations.

@DownNative but I'm not only talking about nations in a sovereign context.

The screenshot you posted says "UK Nations & Regions"

England, Scotland, Wales and Northern Ireland are NOT sovereign countries and their respective identities are, therefore, not nationalities
I think you have a logical fallacy there. The latter is not proven by the former.

I think ethnic minorities can be any nationality. I am Scottish and am happy for ethnic minorities to be Scottish.

"Holland" as a country doesn't exist in Dutch, so you only need to worry when describing yourself in a different language. I doubt many people who describe themselves as British say they're Britannique or de Royaumme Unie in French, they'll say Anglaise because it's easier. Only people with a really strong identity bother with the correct word.

The question of what's Dutch is complicated anyway, because Dutch is a language, but Dutch people also speak Frisian and Papiamento. Papiamento speakers often don't even speak Dutch as a second language, often it's a 4th after Spanish and English. Very few Brits don't speak fluent English, even if a native Welsh speaker would be very offended if they were called English.

I'm black of Caribbean descent and call myself English .I don't know how to be Scottish or Welsh,just English. I do have a St George flag and it comes out on 23rd April. St George flag will only ever be seen as racist unless it is reclaimed just like the N word.

I have had many people (white and black )tell me that I am not English but would they say the same thing to white Americans or white Africans? White people will identify with the Country/continent that they are from and don't really worry about their ancestral tie to that land so nor do I. Although if most Caribbean people did an ancestry test they will find that they indeed come from British stock,I'm sure alot of Indian people will find the same.

I corrected myself in a different post because I misread it (I thought you were white but I have baby brain!). Your child is fully ethnically Indian but nationality is British. I'd say all three of you are British Indian because British is your nationality and Indian is your ethnicity.

Your English. You were born in England.

The cross of st George was adopted by football fans to get away from the racist imagery of the 1970 and 80. And as a result of more English people identifying as English rather than British.

I am white English and identify as Anglo saxon. I speak an Anglo saxon dialect, can trace my family back 400 years all within a 50 mile radius of where I live (apart from 10 years in London in the 1850s) given that most immigration has occurred in the last 200 years and all my family have English names...I'm English Anglo saxon.

But I have no problem with people who's antecedents emigrated to England more recently than mine, be they white, brown, black, yellow or even green, stating they are English.

So do you both just tick English/British on ethnicity forms?

I would self describe as English or British if I were you and
somebody asked, but my pen would hover over British Asian on forms, so IDK.

I was having a similar chat with a friend a while ago about
being Japanese. She is white, but has lived in Japan almost 30 years, white
husband white children who were born and raised in Japan. None are Japanese
citizens (but do want to be). We were asked if you can ever really be Japanese
without being Japanese ethnicity in the way you can be British/English without
being white. She thought not.

The movement of peoples around the world is fascinating. One
place it really shows is in the Olympics opening ceremony were you see white Australians
and Africans, Asian Americans, African Europeans etc.

Another little story I have, I remember years ago being on a
breach in the south of France with a black friend (American). Some English
bloke came over, all friendly, starting to chat with him because the thought
he's spotted a fellow Brit. Because my friend was black, he had assumed he was
British. 😀

I have to say this has always bothered me on forms that ask about your ethnicity. It will say White Scottish, White Irish, British...never English. Why are we never allowed to be proud of being from England?

The census forms do not give the option of 'Black English' only Black British <shrug> so in a way, its been reinforced that people of non white skin colour cannot be English (even though born and bed in England) and it has been so normalised that no one at any level seems to question it, that is despite all the race relations/equality campaigning that has gone on in the last decade. So we have 2 levels of Britishness where England is concerned. The real Brits who are 'White' and the other colors who are just British.

I vote for this.

I would consider you both English and British, although it would be up to you which you identify as primarily, both are correct. He has Indian heritage but that isn’t relevant to whether he is English/British.

Born in England you are English and British as you choose to describe.

Ethnicity is another thing entirely, and up to the individual whether they relate to their Ethnicity or not.

I reckon he's English/British with Indian heritage.

I would always describe myself as British (rather than English) to distance myself from any EDL George flag nonsense. Plus I'm proud to be part of the union. However, I'd defend to the death a Welsh or Scottish person's right to claim their own country as their nationality. I guess I just done have a high regard for Englishness (yes I'm white).

That is more than sad. You should be able to say that you're English. This sort of thing leads people in other countries to conflate Englishness and Britishness which annoys the hell out of me as a Scot. You're not doing Scots any favours.

To be fair, the name was officially "Holland" until the Dutch Government decided to change it officially to "Kingdom of the Netherlands" in January 2020.

Wow, I never realised that was so recent. I've only ever known it as The Netherlands in my near half-century.

No, I'm not surprised that people who ARE from one of the two Holland provinces might well say "I am from Holland" when speaking in English; but I wouldn't expect other Dutch people to say that - in the same way that a Scot would never say "Je suis Anglais(e)" in French.

I'm purely using Dutch here to refer to nationals of The Netherlands, not the language.

Not sure about this. I get what people are saying but, if I were born and brought up in China (for example), I doubt the locals would see me as Chinese 🤷‍♀️

Surely it's both?
I was born in England so I'm English, but England is part of Britain so I'm British also.
If someone said where do you come from I would say England but I consider myself English and British.

But they would be wrong, because if you'd been raised without any reference to the UK, not speaking English, not having been to Europe, your English 'heritage' would amount to nothing apart from the colour of your skin 🤷‍♀️ And more to the point, 'the locals' can feel what they like, what matters is how the person sees themself

So by that definition, I'm British and not English. My DM is English but my F was Czech. I would have said, I'm half English and half Czech in terms of ethnicity, and my nationality is British.

My DSis and I were born in this country, but my DB wasn’t, he was born in the Gambia. He only became British a few years ago; before that he had Australian nationality because my F was a naturalised Australian when he met my DM. (To add further confusion to our story! 🤣)

I’ve always just considered myself British anyway so it doesn’t really matter to me whether I’m half English or not English at all.