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.

Where did you move to and is it better? Asking because I'd love to move

Personally I’ve been subject to all of those and more and I’m not south Asian , I’m white european . The south Asian community is huge specially in England , lots in my company , my office and my team with plenty of promotions to everyone so no I don’t agree at all . Off course I’m saying this an outsider so I respect your perspective might be different. To be honest the U.K. is and always has been a racist and xenophobic place to an extend so this is not new

OP, you must not have been around for the last 20 years. Otherwise you would have been subjected to ‘random’ searches at the airport every time after 9/11.

As far as recent years go, the suspicion has grown. Reform do take a hardline on this. But they have an excuse to do so. Two Tier justice and white saviour syndrome in this country has allowed ethnic minoriyies to be over represented in certain kinds of crime. And that is now coming back to bite. The law abiding sections of ethnic minorities are now paying the price of the wrong ‘uns in their ethnic groups getting away with and continuing to perpetrate crimes at a high clip than the majority.

Stop the two tier policing and justice and the ‘progressive’ woke agenda and deal with everyone equally.

Im sorry you went through that.

Those people are not just horrible to asians, they are horrible to anyone that is not English.

I am white, European, non English.

I have been told to fuck off back to my country multiple times.

I know it can be hard. At least you know its not personl to you. Those kind of people are horrible to everyone.

I am sorry you experienced this OP.

I think racism is on the increase, as people are generally unhappy due to the cost of living etc, hence they are looking for someone to blame.

I live in an ethnically diverse area, however, in the past year I have noticed a huge influx of very conservative Muslims, which makes me feel uncomfortable as a woman. I am light olive skinned myself and not white British.

She wasnt at an airport. She was at a museum.

Can't believe 35% of voters think yabu. When people say they are being discriminated against we need to listen. I recently moved to a very white area and have been surprised by some of the things people I thought were decent have come out with. I'm not surprised you have experienced and increase tbh op, I completely believe you.

Sorry to read this. Where abouts in the U.K. are you? I’ve recently moved schools from a deprived area to a « leafy suburb « . Racism was rampant on the council estate but doesn’t seem to be an issue at all where I am now.

Sadly I agree with you OP. I think people of Middle Eastern heritage, particularly practising Muslims, are also experiencing this.

My naice village is overwhelmingly white. The lovely family across the road from us are British of SE Asian heritage and I don’t think they are nearly as welcome here as most.

I had assumed academia would be relatively free from ethnic stereotyping - helped along by the fact that we have so many highly respected (immigrant and British) Chinese in my field - but one of my favourite colleagues, a professor with a brown face and a very positive attitude, shocked me with stories of what he had endured at our well respected and allegedly progressive university.

And so it goes. I agree with PPs that the current feeling of hard times is making this worse. I am very sorry for everyone who is enduring this.

I know

I don't want to rubbish your experience but literally none of those things sound racist.
Some of them are people being cunts yes but chances are it hasn't anything to do with your race. You can't just blame all cunty behaviour on racism that's ridiculous. And... arguably, actually racist. People just doing their job and you're calling it racist because they are a different race.

The thing is - it happens in a lot of countries .
Humans are assholes.
I lived in irelad - there was a lot of racism there. Same in france and spain.

I hope that somewhere in the world is better, Maybe Scandinavia or Canada might be more enlightened countries.

I would not eat on local train unless buffet car

I think its worth a note to the train company because the conductor shouldn't be announcing what kind of railcard you are using, he should just ask to see your railcard. I've only once had a conductor ask to see 'your disabled railcard please' and it did make me feel awkward, especially as I was sat with a hard hat and high viz next to me!

My daughter was friends with some Asian girls at her grammar school. She wasn't allowed into their house and they weren't allowed to visit ours. Those parents were very racist.

Have you used a train this century?!

None of it is acceptable though, is it? Why is ME racism OK but Asian isn't?

No racism is ever acceptable.

It is true that Asian people can also be racist to white people.

I know some Asian familirs who will not ley their daughters and sons have a white boyfriend/girlfriend

You can’t just blame Nigel Farage, Boris et al. If these people weren’t popular no one would ever have heard of them.

So we have to ask ourselves why are they popular? The answer may be that a lot of people are feeling overwhelmed by immigration. People are fed up of services being eroded, money being spent on hotels for asylum seekers etc while their own quality of life appears to be eroding. This is the perception, rightly or wrongly.

So unfortunately anyone with a darker skin is getting lumped in, in some people’s eyes, with boat people. And boat people are costing us money. It must be horrible and I completely sympathise.

If we were a rich country and clearly managing our borders I doubt there would be half the level of racism. As with all irrational prejudices, they are based on fear usually, not hatred.

I think along those lines too GrimlyPinemarten and agree with what @Whitehorses67 said about different groups. Although I don’t view legitimate comcerns about overpopulation as in any way racist. I am however concerned about the shit way some of my colleagues from other countries get spoken to and I don’t appreciate the rise of aggressive white males anywhere. How can we raise legitimate concerns without fuelling the outright racism which does unfortunately exist here?

Well, with the amount of uncontrolled immigration in this country over the past few years, people are becoming suspicious of each other and resentment is rising. Just wait till unemployment rises. Many centrist voices called for limited immigration many years ago and they were ignored, or called xenophobes, so now we are going to have to deal with the consequences. I am brown myself FYI.

The security staff were all white.

About 108,000 people claimed asylum in the year ending in March. This was at most the 5th highest in Europe. Net immigration in 2024 (latest figures) was about 431,000.

Immigration is not being driven by people seeking sanctuary. Do you mean something else by the phrase ‘uncontrolled immigration’? Because the government has really clamped down.

Sweden, so not particularly diverse, I’m yet to experience any racism since moving here, well actually I did once, however it was a group of drunk scousers on the metro. Obviously at some point I will, be in the UK it was a weekly event.

Racist attitudes were reasonably under the carpet until Brexit IMHO. Certain people were and will always be Racist. Soon after people like Farage were given way too much of a platform in this country all the idiots crawled out from under that carpet.

I have even gone NC with my BIL and SIL because I was told to " leave if you don't like it here" for the crime of calling them out on his racism.

The irony is that I am a blonde haired, blue eyed, fair skinned mixed European whose maternal family have not been here as long as some South Asians.