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

It’s great to see expressions of national pride, good!

🙄

Because, as so perfectly demonstrated during the Diane Abbott/Robert Peston faisco recently, white immigrants suffer a completely different type of racism to non-white immigrants. Many of them "pass". There's a whole slice of society in the US who have lived through generations of passing, not really something that's widely understood in the UK.

I suppose I don't take patriotism that seriously. It's just a bit of fun. But of course, it can spill over into some dangerous territory, like the Third Reich. However, your average everyday patriotism like when England is playing in the World Cup is all just good fun. And when there's a royal wedding, that's fun too. An excuse for tea parties and a bit of oooh, can't wait to see the dress. It's still nice to come together as a country occasionally, even if I do think the RF has way too much and is way too extravagant.

Yes, supporting the underdog is a very British attitude, lol!

I am white British but I am based in Birmingham so have some thoughts on this!

I absolutely do think some groups are putting up flags in a deliberate racist and xenophobic sentiment but I don’t think this applies to all of the flag flying incidents in Birmingham.

I think there is a frustration in Birmingham that the pro-Palestinian sentiment (which is evident by how many flags have been put up around the city and in certain areas, they are everywhere) is obscuring local issues which comes at a time when local issues that are nothing to with flags or Palestine and are totally down to local council mismanagement are causing hassle for locals and remaining totally unresolved.

We saw it in the general election where lots of independent candidates in Birmingham specifically came close to toppling Labour candidates when they ran entire campaigns devoid of local issues and focusing only on Palestine. People aren’t having their bins collected because of the ongoing recycling strike but council tax has gone up by 7% and nobody is listening to how resident’s feel.

A whole row of Palestinian flags appeared on a major road in Birmingham overnight and by the next week someone had replaced them with Union Jack’s and the St George’s flag. It wasn’t done randomly.

I'd rather the flag was claimed back by normal people than co-opted by racists. I don't know how one achieves this...

It's because in England rejecting the flag allowed mcp types to feel superior to the working classes. They like to look down on wc concerns as racist, because they themselves benefit from the same policies that tend to be a stress on working class communities. They have no interest in differentiating between actual far right nationalists and people with concerns about jobs and communities being affected, they just want to be able to easily holiday or work in Europe.

So they leave the flags to the wc people, who they sneer at as racists, and the flag becomes a symbol of racism to the mc.

I can guarantee there's a heck of a lot more Palestinian flags and i would be able to name the specific areas. I was born and bred in Brum. Do you have a problem with that glag and its possible connotations?

Ive seen these on.my commute to work in Birmingham. I'm.mixed race British- Caribbean. There are racist connotations to St George's flag as it has bern hijacked. It makes me nervous when I see the flag because this is the first thing I think of. This is not right. We need to claim the flag back.

Sparkhill, Bordesley Green, I'm betting.

I spotted a black guy in Bournemouth (possibly an asylum seeker) wearing a t-shirt with the George Cross, England flag. The faxt that he chose to wear it made me feel proud to be British.

everyone buys a flag and flys it, it loses its meaning as a far right protest flag
At first far right would feel they had "won" but soon realise the flag had become redundent

A national flag is just that. I can’t see how a nation’s flag is racist. If a council wants to ban all flags then that is fine as a policy but to ban a national flag and allow others is in my view anti British and to be honest likely to increase Reform votes.

The flag does have racist connotations and so if you saw a group of people walking down the street with them, you would automatically feel unsafe.

However, instead of taking flags down we should put them up everywhere and take the power away from the racist idiots.

I’ve seen them all over the aforementioned areas but I’m actually talking about the Bristol Road - from the University all the way into town. I drive that route daily so instantly noticed!

If they have been told they aren't going to be allowed to fly the flags of their country, would that not explain the "take back our country" thinking?

While mc liberals have been spouting this shit about it being wrong to fly these flags for ages. Of course people see that as an attempt to suppress their culture.

The USA isn’t at war either but lots and lots of people have the American flag outside their homes

See my previous post. There are Far Right groups trying to stop certain businesses, organisations, festivals and campaign groups flying the US flag because they are 'unAmerican'. The whole No Kings movement sees the important symbolism of the Stars and Stripes.

I.saw on hoggs lane

Birmingham has been let down so badly by it's council, now bankrupt. I understand the anger when you've paid your council tax and can't get even your recycling collected. WTF have they done with the money that the people have handed over every month.

Absolutely agree with @Dangermoo. I think one of the problems is that we have SO many flags in GB. Scotland, Wales and Northern Ireland flags are not considered offensive, nor is the Union flag.
If the Right Wing want a flag, they can pay a consultant several million ££££ to create one. They are not having mine.
@PicaK Comparing St George's flag to Nazism is offensive to my multicultural family.

I wonder if it's uni students putting them up - plenty of student digs around there. It wouldn't surprise me.

I see anyone born and raised in Britain to be fully British, no matter the colour of their skin. They might have non-British heritage, sure, and sometimes that heritage results in a British person with darker skin than one whose line has always lived in the British Isles, but if someone was born and raised here then they're British, and the fact that they might have had non-British parents or ancestors doesn't change that. It's their heritage that's non-British, not them.

What's that got to do with flags on lampposts?

The students aren't there. It's the holidays.

It's also hugely hugely unlikely.

It certainly IS offensive to your multicultural family and to Jews.