To ask those who are not white brittish how they feel about the flags?

[PicaK]

Birmingham and Tower Hamlets are having St George England flags put up by privately funded groups.
I'm horrified by the implicit racism. I've seen a lot of white people applauding this and "time we took back the country" comments.
I haven't seen many non white people commenting. My feel is that they are too intimidated to do so. Am I right? Or is it indifference or is it that you're dealing with racism on a daily level and this is just one more thing.
Please don't post if you're white.whatever you feel about the flags. I want to hear on white viewd

I'm not sure sectarianism is funny. But perhaps you don't understand.

Well all that has happened is now they are painting flags up. Really,

No flags for anyone outside sports. Or government buildings.

Why? Do you want more symbols to be perceived as racist or fewer?

It is when the right wing are using it to push their rascist agenda. Bit different if they hang them up to show support for the England football team.

I feel that is really sad, as it is your flag !

Your country probably does not have a class system as toxic as the UK. The sneering at the flag comes by way of looking down on the white working class, categorised as the "racist white van and football hooligan" demographic though these people live in more mixed neighbourhoods and more marry out of the race than the upper classes.

This.

As a non white British person it does make you think about Tommy and co. The union jack doesn’t. Someone upthread asked how people felt about the Scottish or Welsh flag. I think because it isn’t primarily hijacked by extreme racist thugs it doesn’t bring about those feelings.

" I'm asking white people how they feel about being branded racist by non- whites for .flying a flag. If you aren't white, don't reply"

Seriously wtaf. How does MN allow your post through?
Goady, OP. Nice try. 🙄

i think there’s a fair number of disingenuous comments here. Of course it’s the English flag but the fact is that it has been co-opted by far right, racists for a while now. I would be suspicious of anyone flying it, in a way that I just wouldn’t be with the Union Jack.

Let me assure you Tommy is also most keen on the Union Flag.

I’m white but not British and yes, I think it has racist overtones. It’s not because you can’t be proud of your country’s flag. It’s because the English flag (as opposed to the Welsh or Scottish) has been utilised by white nationalist groups who have racist views as an important symbol for their cause. I’m not British but I’d very happily put up some Union Jack bunting. I wouldn’t do the same with the St George’s flag because of what I think it would symbolise to other people about my beliefs.

Yes but they have done in response to an apparent directive from the borough of Islington which has decreed that all England and Union flags are an implied threat to 'some people' and must be removed from all public places.
Palestinian flags and Pakistani flags are not being removed.
I fully support the flying of the St George's and the Union flag anywhere in the UK.
Oh and I wish posters would pack it in with the "don't post if you disagree with me" nonsense. Piss off. We are all entitled to respond.

I put my St George flags up during football tournaments, but I’ve got no problems with foreign people hanging their flags. 👍

But the question isn't about white people's feelings.

As were the Irish and Welsh. Victims of colonisation in Asia, Africa, Oceania etc did not stop to parse the differences between these identities and why should they?

I literally have no idea what your father being born in Ireland has to do with St George, but whatever.

And Greece being taken over as part of the Roman Empire has no bearing on whether someone born in the third century was ethnically Capadocian Greek or not either.

You started out agreeing that anyone who didn’t know St George was Turkish was thick - despite a country called Turkey not existing in the third century, or indeed until hundreds of years later. And now you’re declaring, oh, ok he was Roman then? For the third time, ironic.

I just want to point out that if you look anti immigration etc protests in Scotland and Wales, alongside Union Jack they are waving... Scottish and Welsh flags.... So it's not just English thugs.
As I said. Everyone in these groups does this with their flags

There's a major attempt - a genuine one- in the US right now to reclaim the US flag from the Far Right. That is largely linked to the Right trying to remove the flags form POC, LGBT communities and so on. But that flag represents concepts such as freedom and liberty so is an interesting symbol. The reclaim is the part of the No Kings movement. To quote my lesbian SIL ' no one is going to tell me I can't put flags on my lawn on the 4th of July.' They post the flags with statements about beliefs in liberty , equality and inclusion.

That is not what this England based Flag Campaign is about at all.

Completely ridiculous to say our flag is racist. Honestly seriously think about it.

Indeed. That land in Patagonia probably belonged to native people. Let's not mention Scottish owned plantations in Jamaica.

England is a country where the only flag they cannot fly is their own.

Anyway, I’m not English, I’m not even British. No, the individual flags of the UK are not inherently racist. Are some of the people who have co-opted them, racist? Of course they are. But as someone back on the first page said, maybe if more anti racist people took up the baton and also started displaying them, it would neutralise them. And would probably have the benefit of really pissing off the racists.

Always confused as to why it seems only the English are portrayed as racist but not the Welsh or Scottish. I don't fancy being an ethnic minority in certain areas there either.

I wouldn't be putting up a flag up in Newham - it's really scary!