White people moving to colonized countries is kind of gross

[ScorpioKent]

Following on from a post I just read where I didn't want to change the conversation from one about homesickness I was thinking about if I could move there.

And I felt really uncomfortable about it for the following reasons and I am probably being unreasonable but I can't shake the discomfort of the thought.

I couldn't live in a country being white, knowing that my people enslaved and subjugated and dispossessed the native population. People I know that moved from UK to Australia eventually pick up the...they have so much given to them, why don't they try harder, they are all wasters/ alcoholic/ crims...narrative about aboriginals after a while. Lots of doublethink and denial of history needed to get to that mindset. Of course, America suffering under the psychological guilt of doing similar to their indigenous people. Plus transatlantic slavery.

It's no wonder, psychologically, the country is built on guilt, denial, paranoia, right to arms, and a continued denigration of the indigenous to justify theft of land. If you have committed a crime on a people the national psyche has to be built on lack of empathy and dehumanization in the first place.

And then years pass, subsequent people move there. Are those feelings there at all?

‘My people’ were also instrumental in ending slavery.

I think as long as people have existed they’ve been enslaving others. I don’t think it’s fair to expect people to be judged on their ancestors behaviour. Im Scottish so I guess the natives would be the Picts and the rest of us invaders of one sort. I think Norse, Roman, Irish, Vikings. Where is it you draw the line?

Absolutely! Most modern day slavery in the UK is a consequence of the drug trade. But, you know.......it's just a bit of weed 🙄

It's a different world out there. People from my country are not as obsessed about race, colonise this and that. That's our history. We don't welcome people like you who just stir up shit and hatred.

Best not visit Northern Ireland then!

Unwanted demographic replacement, theres a thing....🙄

You couldnt live in a country being white ... then dont, you have the freedom to decide.

There is a cognitive dissonance required to settle in a country that still visibly has an impacted indigenous population. I wonder if it is something people consider when choosing to migrate there. I was saying I would find it difficult as I wouldn't want to pick up the negative views of the indigenous people.

Africans were slave traders too. Google Efunroye Tinubu.

I would feel uneasy about moving to somewhere like Australia or New Zealand, although the colour of my skin doesn't really factor. I do think it's stolen land, and although like previous posters have said most land is stolen at one time, in Australia & NZ it's fairly recent and well documented. I could visit as a tourist, but I wouldn't feel I could buy a house there.

I would feel the same about a black non indigenous person doing that as a white one tho.

The people I know who moved to Australia or NZ in the last ten to twenty years have absolutely not picked up right wing racist views. I work in a sector where social justice is important and my colleagues over there would no more look down on indigenous peoples than my colleagues here would hate immigrants or asylum seekers.

It is interesting that you feel so much guilt it'd stop you moving to another country.
Have you always felt that way or has something in your life happened to change your mind?

You should read up about how Britain ended their hand in the slave trade and what continued

Humans should never have left Africa.

The end.

My point being that the whole thing is a stupid argument which is selective about history. Humans are shits, but equally we are where we are. I know my family history and tbh many of my family were persecuted and abused in their 'homeland' for centuries. I have a significant Scottish Highland ancestry - many were cleared off the land and shipped to America and Canada against their will and I have significant Irish ancestry - many left rather than starve to death from the policies set by English land owners which made the potato famine worse. It almost as if there's a hierarchy on colour rather than an awareness of persecution coming in different forms.

History is complicated and the present is also complicated.

Attempts to guilt and shame based on a very narrow and simplistic political beliefs don't help and completely lack any understanding.

I am aware history is very complicated in terms of oppression and land, forced migration, occupation. Including currently, all over our world.

I was speaking about a very specific incidences, two popular migration spots for UK residents that still have indigenous suffering. And I was thinking about the psychology of it. Not about making people feel guilty just I couldn't do it, because of reasons mentioned.

And quite rightly a wise person pointed out, it's not about skin colour but a nationality settling on occupied land, skin colour irrelevant. I appreciated that point.

No you are looking to stir up an argument and push race theory.

There are lots of people who move various places for legitimate reasons with not an ounce of colonial thought behind it.

Stop trying to push bullshit theory. I can't take anyone who comes up with this crap seriously because they haven't thought it through.

But racism isn’t catching…how would you ‘pick it up’ exactly?

I'm still not sure I understand your hand wringing OP.

If you move to, let's say Australia, and don't want to become a racist......just don't become one. You have autonomy over your own thoughts and values. It's not that racism is going to be suddenly downloaded into your brain once you step off the plane.

All human history comprises colonization of one kind or another. So, it's often a case of what point in history you choose to draw a line, and then a choice of what hill you (metaphorically) want to die on. Nor is it your place to 'speak for' local populations and how they might or might not see their own histories - which themselves are often contested.

Op, I appreciate your sentiments and that you are aware of the history of slavery and the part that Europeans played in it. As someone else said, much of the prosperity and power of European nations, in particular the UK, is due to their slave trade and their colonial past. And racism and a sense of white superiority /supremacy (in whatever diluted form) still affects us today, which is why this is different to the other examples people mentioned (Romans, etc.)

However, I think, not moving to a country because of this doesn't serve any purpose whatsoever. It just makes people more insular. Just because you move to Australia you don't have to adopt the mindset of superiority that you have described and in fact, with your attitude I really doubt you would. I don't know if that mindset is common in white Australians but even if it is you could be one of the good ones who just by thinking differently works against normalising these unpleasant views.

I think what would be much more helpful in mitigating the negative effects of the past would be to be non prejudiced, accepting and welcoming to anyone in whichever country you live irrespective of the colour of their skin or their background.

I voted YABU because

a) your OP is very teenage and lacking in nuance, to the point where I suspect you’re trying to start an argument

b) you seem to be suggesting becoming racist is inevitable if you move somewhere like Australia, which is a totally different issue from “living on stolen land” and is clearly not the case - plenty of anti-racists in Australia

c) mumsnet is very obviously not the place for this kind of discussion, as you must know if you’ve seen how these posts go down in the past!

However running with Australia as an example simply because I’ve been there, I did find the visible suffering of the Aboriginal people very uncomfortable. If you are in a part of the country with a large Aboriginal population it’s impossible to ignore - it’s not ancient history, it’s right there in your face.

I don’t think it’s unreasonable at all to suggest some people might find it difficult to live alongside that. At the very least it does cause you to become reflective about the completely arbitrary nature of our good fortune in being descended from the “winners” in history, and the equally arbitrary flipside of that.

I don’t believe it’s something that should be a blanket reason for every white person not to move to Australia however, or that any white person who moved to Australia is either a racist or destined to become one. Which is where your OP lost me!

@ScorpioKent "I'm not talking about historical occurrences, 1000 years ago plus ! "

You live in a country where the after-effects of the invasion of 1066 are still in evidence - due to the Norman's seizure of land and property that was then given to the nobility and to the church, and about 70% of Britain’s land is in the hands of less than 1% of its population, with a mere 160,000 families owning 66% of it.

You live in a country that has a deliberately unfair form of democracy which includes unelected lawmakers, and a legal system that is based on a 800-year-old document.

Unlike the citizens of many countries, you are considered to be a subject of the Crown.

Well im Irish and white . Ireland was a colony of Britain and didn’t colonise anywhere…are the Irish unwelcome to move to such places? Are we lumped in the same category as other European countries who colonised places in the past because of the colour of our skin ?

People I know that moved from UK to Australia eventually pick up the...they have so much given to them, why don't they try harder, they are all wasters/ alcoholic/ crims...narrative about aboriginals after a while.

You know arseholes

Chances are your family didn't own any slaves anyway, do you know how expensive it was to have one?

My family have crossed continents over several generations. From suffering through pogroms in Ukraine, religious persecution in Europe, the land clearances in Scotland and the potato famine in Ireland to terrorism and murder in Ireland. In every generation at least one family group lost everything and had to start again.
This is repeated in every country, every generation to someone, somewhere. I have close friends who were refugees. They can tell horrific stories in their own living memory. People move countries for many reasons. It is a huge privilege to actually be able to choose where you move to/ where you end up. Everyone is responsible for their own behaviour once they settle somewhere. It isn't simple.

I agree with you OP. The only reason it’s relatively easy for white English people to move to Oz or the US now is because of previous colonialism, for which the natives are still suffering hugely today. I’d feel very gross about moving there and contributing to the ongoing discrimination and two-tier social hierarchy.