To think "genuine concerns about immigration are irrelevant?

[MrsBennetsPoorNerves]

I fully accept that people may have genuine concerns about immigration. Some of those concerns may be 100% valid. Some may be based on misinformation or poor understanding. Regardless, I can accept the fact that some people have concerns.

But if people do have concerns, there are ways of expressing and addressing these properly. Peaceful demonstrations. Lobbying MPs. Or even standing for election.

But as soon as people make the leap from expressing legitimate concern about government policies to intimidating and attacking innocent individuals who have no influence or control over those policies, that is when "concerns" are no longer relevant and common or garden racism takes over. If people weren't fundamentally racist, why on earth would it even occur to them to do this?

If I am unhappy about decisions affecting my community taken by my local council, my first thought isn't to go and beat up my neighbour in order to make a point. Most people would recognise that such anger was utterly misplaced. Why is it that people don't seem to recognise that the anger towards migrants/asylum seekers/ethnic minorities/muslims etc is equally misplaced. Why are so many people saying that they understand the reasons for the violence ever though they don't condone it.

I don't think it's at all understandable that someone with grievances about government policy would think that throwing bricks at a mosque or setting fire to a building full of people will help to resolve the issues that they are concerned about. The people that they are targeting are not in a position to change anything. There is no logic to this thinking, so why do people's minds go there? As far as I can see, the only possible explanation is racism, pure and simple. The "genuine concerns" are nothing but a cover for thuggery.

You’re right. Unfortunately some people don’t link their problems with the complete failure by pretty much every measure of the previous government. They blame black and brown people, because that’s exactly what the policies and rhetoric of Braverman, Patel, Johnson, Rees-Mogg, Jenrick, Truss, etc., Etc., encouraged.

Obviously you are not wrong.

I don't think it's at all understandable that someone with grievances about government policy would think that throwing bricks at a mosque or setting fire to a building full of people will help to resolve the issues that they are concerned about. The people that they are targeting are not in a position to change anything. There is no logic to this thinking, so why do people's minds go there? As far as I can see, the only possible explanation is racism, pure and simple. The "genuine concerns" are nothing but a cover for thuggery.

If they think at all and that is a very big if I suspect their 'logic' (again I use that word in the loosest possible sense) is that by targeting mosques the people who use them will leave the UK and by targeting hotels that house asylum seekers the message will be spread that the UK is not the place to come to seek asylum and hence those crossing in boats will stop coming.

I doubt very much that any of those thugs ever vote and they don't believe a word successive governments have said so in their warped brains direct action from them will work instead.

As I said thinking and logic are not something they are blessed with, plus they are thoroughly enjoying being thugs.

These people don’t have genuine concerns. They are racists who will take any chance to show who they are.

and by targeting hotels that house asylum seekers the message will be spread that the UK is not the place to come to seek asylum and hence those crossing in boats will stop coming

Instead, perhaps, they should stop sharing misinformation online about asylum seekers getting a house, a free car and life-long benefits the minute they step off the boat. I am going to guess that stopping false advertising online is far more likely to have the desired effect.

This.

In any case, migration is a GLOBAL problem that isn't going to go anywhere for many many years. No one wants to live in a shitty dangerous poor country and I don't blame them.

We'd be better off trying to support those countries to be better.

The majority of those people don’t have genuine concerns. You can tell how they focus their aggression on all brown people rather than accepting that British people are not all white and Christian (which is a low bar to start a discussion on immigration. )

There’s lots of interviews online with the thugs. They recite the same old shit about “foreigners” taking all the jobs and not working/paying in rather than understanding that their lack of employment stems from factors like not studying at school or going to prison rather than someone brown being a doctor or their MP.

Well quite but as I said the logic is lacking with the thugs and this is just an excuse to be thugs.

You seem to have completely missed the point of my post.

This is not the thread for debating whether or not the concerns that you have raised are legitimate. I am not disputing here whether or not people have concerns or whether those concerns are valid.

I am saying that it is a huge leap from feeling those concerns to deciding to take out your frustrations on minority communities. There is no logic that can explain this, other than simple racism.

If there is a huge housing crisis, why would you think that burning down a hotel full of vulnerable families is going to fix that? If you want foreign criminals to be deported, how is throwing bricks at your local mosque going to make that happen?

The only possible connection between those concerns about immigration and attacks on people from ethnic or religious minorities is racism and Islamophobia. If you did not lump all immigrants or all ethnic minorities or all Muslims into one faceless group that you blame for all your problems, it would not even occur to you to target individuals who literally have nothing to do with those problems.

Because brown people are a monolith.
It's that simple.

We are all very religious people who hate women. We are also not Christian and have non-Western values. We are illiberal and dont believe in free speech. And we eat funny food and funny clothes. How can we ever be expected to integrate, I ask you?

Except for Braverman, Patel etc al. They are doing it right. The rest of us must do better.

Yes, monolith is the right word. I am genuinely so sorry that people are subjected to this shit.

I do eat funny food if my mum makes it for me. It's delicious and I'm sure if any white British person got a chance to taste it they would love it too. 😋

I suspect that braverman, Patel, etc aren't doing it right either. I mean they are still quite noisy in spite of being so brown but the fact that they are raging racists makes it a bit easier to forgive them for that.

I am absolutely guessing here, but to my mind the 'logic' between targeting those whom they assume to be immigrants (saying 'assume' because targets seem to have ranged from the hotel housing recent migrants, to literally anyone who, because of their religion or skin colour is assumed, often completely incorrectly, to have not been born here) would be to encourage those already here to leave, and, either by immigrants telling family and friends wanting to join them, or by global press spreading information, discourage more people from immigrating here.

I (obviously) don't agree with it but if you think all the ills in your country are due to x type of people coming here, then taking action that you think might
a) encourage x type of people already here to leave because they feel unsafe and unwelcome and
b) discourage MORE of x type of people from coming
isn't completely illogical.

I imagine the rationale is that government and other institutions haven't done anything to support them so they are bypassing them and attacking the 'problem' at source. If nobody wants to immigrate here then it's irrelevant the extent to which your government regulates immigration.

Or, alternatively, these are the type of people who risk prison sentences for a sausage roll and stand in-between police officers and flying bricks. Perhaps there's no conscious thought going on at all.

I see that 31% of people think I'm unreasonable.

Could one of that 31% please come and explain their point of view? Please help me understand how concerns about government policy could possibly lead to someone targeting innocent black/brown/Muslim people who are just going about their ordinary business, if racism is not a factor. What is the connection and how do people get from concern about issues to blaming random people because of their skin colour and/or their faith.

I can't make it make sense either..

I read that someone was throwing rocks at a taxi containing 2 Filipino heathcare workers. I can not understand how being concerned about rapists from another race and religion means the most logical response is to intimidate any old "foreign" person you stumble across.

I'm very glad people weren't so upset about Wayne Couzins that they set fire to my husbands car because he's a man and then smashed up a legitimate business in the way home too.

OK, thanks for sharing your understanding of their "logic". (Completely accept that it isn't your own.)

But from my perspective, that again just looks like simple racism because they are making all sorts of assumptions based on race and/or religion, as you have highlighted.

They don't hate ALL brown people/Muslims. Weirdly, Andrew Tate words are accepted by some of them as the gospel truth. Basically, all brown Muslim men are criminals/sex traffickers except the brown Muslim man currently on bail for sex trafficking and other criminal activities. He is 100% innocent and a top geezer.

I literally can not compute how (in the first instance) anyone would think hurling bricks at a mosque was in any way helpful, supportive or useful in a community that was completely traumatised and grieving the murder of 3 very young children....?

Even if the murderer was an immigrant (it was very quickly established they were born in the uk) it still doesn't make any sense (to me)

I feel sure that if you stopped at least some of the rioters and asked them what the end game is, what practical or realistic policies they are hoping will come into effect as a result of their actions, they couldn't give a clear answer..

Yes, but/and.

I completely agree. It’s distressing and awful and feels like such a backwards step for us as a country as well as distressing for those feeling directly threatened.

I think it bears consideration to look at why these thugs they turned out like this. Not why they left home today with a baseball bat, but why they have become so angry and lost all sense of a valid target for their rage.

No one should have left home with the intention of causing trouble. I’m so sorry or all their victims- people, business, mosques.

We also need to think about how to stop it happening again. Why it happened isn’t about excuses it’s about changing the future.

@Fizbosshoes its like if my neighbour annoyed me by starting a BBQ in the middle of the day when they could see all my washing was on the line drying. So I retaliate by setting fire to their house and my house and my neighbour on the other sides house. And then flung my smoky washing into the flames. And then sad faced about how I had been forced to do it.

The disgusting behaviour we have seen is terrorism.. It's only not being called that because the terrorists are white.

The likes of Stephen Yaxley Lennon should get the same treatment at Anjem Chaudry. EDL, should be proscribed as tetrorist organisation and any member or supporter should be punished as terrorists.

Any lesser response is weak.

I watched this video yesterday https://www.telegraph.co.uk/columnists/2024/08/06/riots-are-cry-of-rage-and-despair-from-wretched-communities/ and was so disturbed to see the extent of the poverty in many of these northern white communities. Some of these areas are positively third world. People whose children have no shoes, ragged clothes and dilapidated homes have been branded as racist because they are fed up of their needs being secondary to those of people emigrating here. The fact is, politicians and journalists really don't understand how mass immigrations has negatively affected such communities. They are so far removed from the consequences of this country's catastrophic immigration policies.

The rioters are 10000% wrong to react like this. But this is how all violent and mindless revolutions and riots start. The anger bubbles under the surface for decades as people are disparaged and mocked as ignorant and bigoted, which is fertile ground for disenfranchised people to turn into hateful extremists.

The "why it happened" question is interesting. I think that the only logical answer to that question is "racism".

I do of course understand the intense anger felt by people from those left behind communities. The feelings of hopelessness and powerlessness etc.

What I don't understand is why the target of their anger is immigrants, or at least, people that they perceive to be immigrants, whether they are or not.

So there are two very important questions that we need to answer.

One is why they are angry - and whether or not immigration has anything to do with the various problems that they are facing. From my experience of working with disadvantaged communities, I would argue that there are many other factors that are actually far more important. Austerity and poor governance amongst others.

The other is why they choose to take out their anger on ethnic and religious minorities, many of whom are not actually immigrants in any case. (Not that it matters either way.) What is it that leads these people to see random black/brown/Muslim people, who have done nothing to hurt them, as some sort of guilty monolith that they can target with all of their anger, hate and violence? Is it a failure of our education system that causes them to be so racist? Is it a problem with parenting? Is it the direct fault of politicians like Nigel Farage? Is he actually making these people racist or is he just exploiting the fact that they are already racist? Is it social media? Or since racism has been an issue for centuries, is social media just reflecting the racism that is already there? Can we do something to get rid of it?

Protests always seem to bring out the criminals acting in the name of whatever cause it is. It’s just an excuse and we’ve seen it happen lots of times before. Even the Black Lives Matter movement bought its fair share of thuggery.

I think one of the differences with the BLM movement compared to now is that the message then was clear and listened to. I don’t think Keir Starmer has done any favours by dismissing any of the actual concerns around immigration and labelling the protesters as “far right”.

I think he is going to have to listen to what some of the more reasonable protesters are saying and address the underlying issues otherwise this will escalate and give the extremists a bigger platform to air their views.