Racism against south Asians in the UK

[ArtfulKoala]

This is a very hard thread for me to begin. I’ve been intending to do it for months but felt unable to do so. I was born in the UK but I am of south Asian origin. My parents and grandparents emigrated here. We are five generations British and counting.

I feel that racism and racial suspicion towards brown skinned people has absolutely gone off the scale since Reform gained a foothold in mainstream politics.

At first it was the little things - being subjected to an extended bag check when entering a museum when white visitors walked straight in or were casually asked to just open the large section which wasn’t really checked. This is especially the case at places like Kensington Palace and the Imperial War Museum. For reference, I am talking about a small handbag 15cm by 25cm probably smaller than their own guidelines state. At Kensington Palace, it actually got to the ridiculous stage where the checker was asking me to open more and more zipped sections down to a 5cm one until there was literally nothing left to open and she was effectively asking me to open non existent ones!
There is an incident every time we are out ( me and my teenagers). People loudly talking about us standing right next to us talking about how we are entitled just because we have been directed to the front of the queue by staff as one of us is disabled.
Yesterday, we got on a damned train with cold, vegan salads from m&s and it started immediately. A white couple complaining loudly about “the smell” when there was none because they judged us by how we look and decided our food was smelly upon that basis. Then, when the ticket inspector came round and we showed the disabled railcard, a running commentary on how we must have gamed the system to obtain that.
It is really wearing. I don’t feel like we can belong here anymore despite being educated and fully integrated here. I fully pay for private housing, healthcare and education and yet I may as well have just stepped off a small boat yesterday as far as they are concerned. I cannot fight random bigots daily when we are just trying to live our lives having low key, relaxing private family time.
It is simply fogging to get worse isn’t it? I honestly believe that Farage will be the next PM ( I am politically literate enough to gauge this for myself rather than buying into tabloid scaremongering. Zayn Malik referred to similar experiences in the song he released last week. We have similar colourings to him and never experienced racism ever before this. Perhaps they think we are Middle Eastern and are directing a particular type of hatred towards us. Perhaps it is a new racism because there were not many Middle Eastern people in the UK until recently.

I know that it is not everyone everywhere but it is now frequent enough for us to come to expect it every time we leave the house. Is this the equivalent of the Weimar Republic for the UK? Since there is no such thing as “stopping the boats” then the headlines will continue and the hatred towards brown-skinned fully fledged Brits too.

If I don’t come back to this thread immediately, it is because it is a massive thing for me to write this down and I will be reading and considering the responses.

Can you elaborate on this please? Is this something that you just "feel" is happening or are there actually non Muslims you know of fasting between dawn to sunset for a month devoting more time in prayer and other religious practices associated with Islam?

Kids at my child's school wanting to join with their friends. But I noticed it wasnt something they took particularly seriously - they would stop.for.sweets etc. The Muslim children "doing Ramadan" would also frequently "forget" and eat sweets. Basically at ten years old I.dont think it's taken seriously by anyone

Just to add, I also don't think it's a bad thing. Noone is being converted or pressured
.just children being children and being treated as such by the adults around them.

I see on social media people "joining in with Ramadan" for a day.

Saw a lib dem councillor have his "shoot" as bacon

www.telegraph.co.uk/politics/2020/04/26/lib-dem-councillor-apologises-tweeting-photo-bacon-solidarity/

I think you've provided a good base to help understand the background to this particular issue, is it also that the British culture is changing so rapidly that people are scared of losing their identity?

I'm much less certain of what being British now means, e.g., having read about the schoolgirls not allowed into a school celebration of diversity, for wearing the Union Jack, and displaying the Welsh flag. http://bit.ly/46b49di

Would there have been a different response had they instead used the LGB etc. or Palestinian flags, and if so what would this suggest..?

Are people also becoming more sensitive, reflected in the rise in claims of microaggression?

This is exactly what many posters are saying. Its ok to be racist to a random brown person because another random brown person groomed schoolgirls.

I wonder if for some it is a fear of our culture being erased by incoming ones. People dressing differently, speaking a language an average British person in UK doesn’t know and keeping close knit communities that exclude local British families can make people view everyone from a different race with suspicion, even those born and bred here.

Personally, I tend to notice accent and language more than race.

You are afraid my poor old mum with her sari and her accent will blot out your fragile culture? Dear me.
Interesting how when she was asked to come here to prop up the NHS nobody felt threatened.

In my area there are people who cannot speak English and to me that's a big no no. You should know the language.

And again, bloody irrelevant to the OPs post since she speaks the Queen's English.
Or are you suggesting that British expats in Spain should be racially abused because they don't speak Spanish?

My, the deflection on this thread.

Honestly you're right. I was in the wrong. I think Brits in Spain should learn Spanish.

But you're correct this thread has deflected a lot to be around "well brown people in the UK have done X Y Z"

Articles in the local news papers about kiddiwinks being sent home from school for the wrong type of non-uniform, the wrong type of shoes, the wrong trousers are an old British tradition. It's not a new/snowflake thing. As are articles about atrocious road works that are just like the Somme. And articles about people trapped in their houses by roadworks accompanied by people outside their houses.

If British culture is anything it is that! So clearly we still have lots of it.

@Namitynamename Can I presume that you didn't bother to read the article (link provided) before replying? 🤔

How can you know that you'd not feel Chinese you'd feel if you were born in China? If you'd been born and lived your entire life there your background and life experience would have been so different you can't possibly know how you'd feel about your identify, because your identity is formed by your experiences. You can't say definitively how you would feel in a completely different circumstance you've got no experience of.

Also, from my experience in genealogy, for the vast majority of brits of any race you don't have to go back many generations at all before you get someone who wasn't born here. My family are whiter than Casper with everyone going back to great grandparents on both sides living and dying in the same area of the South West - but their parents all moved there from three different counties.

Yes I did. They apologised and I don't.think they should have sent her home (assuming that it was non-uniform that day). But I don't think it means that you "can't be British" anymore or that British culture as a whole is under attack.

Now what has any of this to do with the racism the OP originally posted about 🤔🤔🤔

@Namitynamename I do wonder if you read my whole post, which I think may address your query, and do bear in mind that I was responding to, and supporting, an earlier response to the OP..? 🤔

I agree that it’s hypocritical to suggest it’s ok for English abroad to not learn the local language but expect the same of immigrants into UK to do so.

However, I do think it’s not 100% comparable. English is spoken across the world whereas the multitude of languages spoken by immigrants into the UK are not spoken here. It’s far more likely that a Spaniard will speak or understand English than it is someone living in the UK will understand Farsi or Hindi.

The point of asking immigrants to speak English is to assist integration. That is far harder if no one outside your immediate immigrant neighbours speak your native language.

English people can go to more touristy parts of Spain and blend in because English is widely spoken anyway.

Yeah they should learn Spanish, but if you're 70 odd and you're moving there to retire by a sun lounger then it's not realistic. If you're working age and moving over there you should be learning the language, particularly if you're going to a more traditionally Spanish city than a tourist area.

All these English people and influencers and the like going over to Dubai. They don't need to speak Arabic because it's so multi-lingual with English widely spoken.

To integrate into English society you need to speak English. If you don't then you're not going to integrate.

Agreed

Nobody is saying they feel threatened by NHS workers. The thousands coming by boat each week are the issue and they are a genuine threat.

Interesting that you have said 'will blot out your fragile culture.' So you don't consider British culture a part of your own despite growing up here. Do you recognise how that is a part of the problem?

If you go to areas like Whitechapel and East London in general you don't feel like you're in the UK

Asians, especially older Asians, are horribly racisit towards Blacks. In fact, there is racism within South Asians themselves, where those with darker skin are branded unattractive and undesirable, and I am not going to mention the level of discrimination against those from lower castes.
I always find it amusing how South Asians find racism from others wholly unacceptable, and it is, but are fairly relaxed about the level of internal racism and discrimination within their own community.

Agreed, it's not some hypothetical bogeyman we are talking about. There are areas in the country that have been completely changed by the changing demographic.

I am very much a Brit and also cherish my own heritage. But it was you who said you feel threatened by people with accents who speak in their own language and dress differently.

I am no one's 'problem'. I will speak in any language I choose to- since I speak 4- depending on the audience and if I want to wear a sari to Ascot, I bloody well will

Erm I absolutely didn't say that. You have me confused with another pp.

'I am very much a Brit and also cherish my own heritage.' Well that is good to hear. It didn't sound like it in your other comment hence my pointing it out. 'your fragile culture' was condescending and reads as though you didn't consider it a part of your own.

'I am no one's 'problem'. I will speak in any language I choose to- since I speak 4- depending on the audience and if I want to wear a sari to Ascot, I bloody well wil' Go for it... Literally, I can't see why anyone would care. Why are you trying to provoke a reaction?