AAAAGH Reform. Are people ignoring the racist?

[Peasnbeans]

And that he's no economist skills yet promising the impossible. And a racist. And mysoginist.

If Mumsnet is full of women, how is no-one talking about Reform and limiting women's rights?
I know I'll get flamed for this, but it is a boiling frog situation! Jump out!
And I didn't choose the AIBU board but I looked down all the Current Threads and this didn't feature.

That’s a bold claim. Surely it depends on whether the cultures are compatible? Do you have any evidence of that?

My former work colleague wasn’t too happy when she was told not to eat in the office during Ramadan because it upset her Muslim Co-workers. There wasn’t a canteen.

What about all the kids in Welsh schools who are only offered halal meat (conscious animal, throat slit, bleeds to death) for some unknown reason?

How do you think civil wars come about? Are you implying that the population of countries with warring factions are like cave men?

Yeah, all kinds of instincts are within us. And many of them, we try and curb.

Well it’s not going brilliantly at the moment - hence the wins for Reform.

How do we achieve your vision of this cultural utopia? You are not winning many hearts and minds with your current arguments.

They have realised that there is a significant proportion of the UK population who have failed at life. People with poor education, dead end jobs, and limited means.

Wow! Did you mean to sound so stuck up!? But well done, you. This comment perfectly illustrates exactly WHY many people voted for Reform.
👏...👏...👏...

I've posted a link to an interesting piece of evidence further up the thread. Please have a look.

I find some of these anecdotes... surprising. For instance, I don't know any Muslims who care about my eating behaviour during Ramadan. They are focused on their fasting - they know I'm not a Muslim.

How do civil wars come about?? Yes, absolutely by surrendering to people's base instincts about othering.

I mean I may have got drunk and made a tit of myself, possibly snogged someone ill-advisedly but I never ever came anywhere near to marching through a village singing Hitler youth songs. I don't think people fundamentally change who they are.

We get on with our neighbours and refuse to lean into this racist narrative coming from the wealthy and powerful that our country is in economic straits because of migration.

We've all seen the cookie meme, right?

That’s interesting. So you assume that because it fans happened to you, it couldn’t possibly have happened to anyone else?

Because you personally have not had any issues with migrants in the hotels, and you live in a lovely neighbourhood with lovely people from other countries and cultures, no one else could possibly have an issue?

What about many reports of schoolchildren being harassed, followed and filmed by men from migrant hotels? Or the poor lady murdered by a migrant?

You’re sounding very insular in your views.

This is such a mad thing to say, for me! Centuries to "assimilate"? Are you really saying that our biggest ethnic minority communities - Black British and British Asian s - have not "assimilated"?!

I find it interesting that in every thread about people moving to poorer areas, people from London usually, are slagged off for making life miserable for the locals, changing the local area, bringing problems with them of a sort apparently not already present. And Londoners are told that there shouldnt be an influx of them to those places.

But there isnt an acknowledgement that at times, a large number of people from ME countries primarily or sometimes North African countries, usually men, without sense of purspose, because they're sitting around waiting for their asylum claim to be processed, with no money or resources to hand, that this wont change an area for the worse?

But that’s not where the reports of difficulties are coming from - it’s real people having real problems with this.

You clearly have a very low opinion of vast numbers of people, including many in this thread, if you are convinced we are all just acting on instructions from the ‘wealthy and powerful’.

And no, I am not making up the anecdote about my former colleague that you find so ‘surprising…’ - I thought that being such a fan of ‘multiculturalism’ you’d understand that sometimes the experiences of other people differ from your own?

There is also a distinction between assimilating and integrating.

Saying this very, very slowly for those at the back.

Migrants seeking refuge are not where all your tax money is going at all. Nor is foreign aid. Look it up properly i.e. what percentage of tax money actually goes on these matters.

Then compare to:
NHS
Education
War
Social care (older)
Benefits
Roads
Tax dodging large corporations
Oil and gas subsidies
Bailibg out failed banks
Covid mis-spending.

When you fully - and I mean fully - have digested this. Then go away and ask the moral additional question. If the UK were at war and there were no safe places left, where would you go, how would you get there? Remember - flights are dangerous or impossible and you probably can't use your passport.

you assume that because it fans happened to you, it couldn’t possibly have happened to anyone else?

No, I am assuming that horrible incidents occur in all communities - and the common denominator is normally "men", not any particular flavour of men.

And I am suggesting that it is in the interests of racists to spread exaggerated and false "reports" of any dreadful incidents that do occur. (For example, the many social media "reports" that the perpetrator of the appalling murders in Southport was a Muslim asylum seeker.)

Can you expand on what you mean?

The nearly 1 million people in England and Wales who were born overseas and can’t speak English will find assimilating very challenging imo.

But you have specifically tried to dismiss several examples because they haven’t happened to you.

Your post above, your Muslim colleague apparently had no issue with you eating in front of them during Ramadan, therefore you found my colleagues situation ‘surprising…’

Just checked out your link. It refers to a sheep being stolen for meat. It doesn't say anything about a perpetrator or a suspect. Why are you posting that in response to a conversation about Halal slaughter?

https://www.google.com/amp/s/www.bbc.co.uk/news/uk-northern-ireland-politics-68907323.amp

They have different meanings.

Copied and pasted:

Assimilation is generally defined as adopting the ways of another culture and fully becoming part of a different society. Whereas integration is typically defined as incorporating individuals from different groups into a society as equals.

————————

Assimilation and integration are distinct approaches to adapting to a new culture, both involving the absorption of a minority group into a dominant culture. Assimilation is a one-way process where the minority group largely abandons its own culture to become indistinguishable from the dominant culture. Integration, on the other hand, is a more balanced approach where the minority group retains aspects of its original culture while also participating in the dominant culture.

Elaboration:
Assimilation:
This approach involves the minority group adopting the values, behaviors, and beliefs of the dominant culture, often to the point of losing their original cultural identity. This can be seen as a "melting pot" approach where diverse cultures blend into a single, unified culture.

Integration:
This approach emphasizes a more balanced approach where the minority group maintains aspects of their original culture while also participating in the dominant culture. This can be seen as a "cultural mosaic" approach where diverse cultures coexist and enrich the overall society.

How on earth can you posting a link be outing for you? Why would it be stupid? Just tell me the name of one of these places and I'll search for it.

"? Why is it concerning to you that different people live differently to you? Why does it matter?

It matters to me because where my very good friends live, it no longer even feels like my country. Lots of Romanians have moved into the area over the last few years. They seem unable to grasp the concept of refuse collection, despite it being explained over and over. They open their doors and windows and just chuck everything outside. There are rats running all over and rubbish blowing everywhere. Theft has gone up massively.

They spend nice weather in their front gardens or in the street among all the crap, shouting, smoking and drinking and generally being anti-social. The kids feel entitled to go wherever they want. Whenever anyone complains they are told it is their culture. The whole area that used to be a nice working class area now feels intimidating and unsafe. My friend who has lived in the same house for over 70 years now can't wait to move but no-one will buy because the area has such a bad reputation.

I'm with Nigel on this point. I would be extremely worried if they started to move into my area. When a whole lot of people move in who live differently it changes everything for the people who have lived there for generations. It's not right.

@OneAmberFinchIt’s not that complicated at all. And why does “cultural assimilation” have to happen? Different cultures can live peacefully side by side…obviously not when one is a coloniser and the other the colonised, like in your examples, that’s a totally different dynamic.
I came to the Uk as a child (legally), similar to how you were moved as a child. I’m white, but from a country that frequently gets demonised by the likes of Farage. I’m part of a community of others from my home country here in the UK. We all work and don’t break the law, many of us socialise with Brits as well as people from our country, some of us are married to Brits, we’ve also adopted many of the local customs. But we also do some things specific to our culture - celebrate culturally significant days, buy things from ethnic shops, speak our language amongst each other and to our kids (they’re also fluent in English), stream TV and radio from our country etc.
Should we stop doing those things, just so we don’t make the native Brits uncomfortable by our existence? Assimilate and erase our own culture from our lives? I refuse to do that (even when I’ve been aggressively questioned about where I’m from or been shouted at in the street to speak English when I’ve been speaking my native language).
I don’t see how the existence of my culture or other minority cultures affect British culture, what exactly are British people stopped from doing by immigrants?

I do broadly agree that there has to be a limit on immigration, it’s simple logistics - there’s a limit on how many incomers a small island can absorb. I don’t think that saying this is racist in itself, but in my experience people who are heavily fixated on this one issue do tend to have a chip on their shoulder about people from other races/cultures.

Interestingly, my home country had also seen a rise in the far right and anti immigrant sentiment, due to getting a lot of refugees and illegal immigrants in recent years (one of our borders is on a popular smuggling route).
There are similar sentiments about “looking after own”, culture being under threat, migrants being perceived as getting something locals should be getting etc. I can’t get worked up about it. I don’t divide people by “our own” vs “other”, that way of thinking is alien to me. We’re all human.
Sure, send people away if they don’t have the right to stay, but do it compassionately and not with this divisive “us and them” rhetoric.
I just can’t get my head around being resentful of people who are desperate enough to have risked their lives to cross borders illegally, who are now essentially homeless and get the bare minimum help so they don’t starve, while sitting cosy in my house and being fortunate enough to be born in country that doesn’t have a war on, or an autocratic regime/famine etc.

I have worked in schools for the last 10 years and racist incidents are not that common. But then I live in a very multicultural area where the kids all just seem to get on with it.

Well that's the thing isn't it - in these so-called "multicultural" areas the newcomers are not assimilating and perpetuating good old British cultural traits like racism. If we continue letting these foreigners in there might not be any racism left at all!