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 utterly shocking isn't it ? I'm literally aghast at this thread 😱

What a terrifying and enlightening example of people trying to be so unracist that they're being terribly racist.

So far we've learnt : that the British flag is by unconscious default (got to be unconscious as she's not even aware of it !) only for white Brits. And has made some baffling assumption that black and brown British people may be somehow offended by it ?? It's like a little Britain sketch !!! She's basically just said black and brown people can't be British!!!!!!

Reminds me of an episode of 'the office ' where David Brent tries so hard to prove he's unracist then proceeds to say the most ignorant and racist stereotypes!

You are being judgmental and putting yourself on a pedestal.I’ve also been assaulted, l just don’t tar everyone with the same brush, because of it.That isn’t what English patriotism means, thuggery and violence, this is in the minority, it’s not acceptable, but it’s also not common place.It happened to you once, 20 odd years ago, it’s not fair to judge, everyone, who’s proud to be English in the same way.

I am brown. I agree with this poster.

I am brown but I think it’s bit unfair to presume British have nothing to be proud of and only contribution was colonialism. There have been a lot of important scientific and medical achievements coming from the community. There is rich history of literature and arts as well. I don’t think every person alive 200 years ago was coloniser. A lot of meaningful charities were started here including related animal welfare. In recent times, UK was one of the few countries to be able to come up with Covid vaccines and it was the most affordable, also a lot achievement in cinema, tv and Olympic Games especially Paralympics. I find it sad that many British put down their own country.
We don’t say there’s nothing in Germany for its people to be proud of because of Nazi history. Some of their iconic brands had links with nazi but they are popular globally today. Not sure why UK should be treated differently.

Isn’t that because those countries are allowed to be patriotic? Flying their own national flag shows they’re proud to be Scottish or Welsh. They object, quite understandably, to flying the Union flag because it’s the mark of a country that has historically oppressed them.

There is no such anti-English sentiment in England. We adopted the Union flag because the English were proud of the Union. It showed us to be more powerful to fly the Union rather than the English flag.

Somewhere along the line the English flag was forgotten and then subsequently hijacked by racists and now, rightly or wrongly, it is seen as a symbol of racism. Non-racist people have moved even further away from the flag because of its filthy connotations and now it feels like an extremely unsavoury symbol.

If there had been some kind of movement to take back the flag from the racists, by ordinary proud English people, it would be a different argument. There hasn’t. It’s interesting that we don’t object to the George cross during the World Cup - it’s a legitimate way to support our team. Outside of major sporting events it feels grubby.

Maybe as a country we need some kind of movement to acknowledge our Englishness, at the same time as recognising that we have been the historic arseholes of the world, which has left us with a shame and embarrassment that makes us fear displaying our love for our country. We need a modern ‘Cool Britannia’ campaign for England, that renounces the Tommy Robinson brigade and extols our national virtues.

@Livelovebehappywny does it matter if people are or arnt patriotic? This is so weird. Blind loyalty to a political area you were born into by chance.

is there a need to physically symbolise patriotism? Why?

@R0ckandHardPlace
I think if there was a movement to reclaim the English flag, all that would happen is the kind of people in this thread calling everyone racist would call it racist.

Also I think you overestimate how much England has been "the historic areshole of the world". Like most countries we have a mixed history with both good and bad.

I’m Australian and am completely delighted that Australia was colonised by the British. The alternatives could have been far worse. A lot of Americans, Singaporeans and many other hugely successful countries feel the same way.

Are you always this hysterical? Or only about flags. Calm down, it’s not healthy.

No the national flag is not racist. It, by definition, represents the entity that is is the nation state, the country that millions of immigrants come over to live in.

Those always falling over themselves to make this country sound racist, are never able to explain why millions of immigrants are so keen to come here.

While I absolutely agree with your first point.

English is ethnicity. And nationality.
Definition of ethnicity fully supports that

Sadly I think it would hurt precious feelings and there’d be a riot.
i see the Shard has a lovely Union Jack light installation for VJ Day. Beautiful. And moving when you think about it.
All I’ve seen on social media is people screaming to keep it up there. No. It would dilute the commemoration and the reason it was lit.

if we have flags all the flipping time the meaning goes. I love seeing the flag of St George flown on 23 April from our church tower. Every day? No. Pointless

@Charlthgof course the reason why immigrants come here can be explained - surely it’s employment, infrastructure and safety. Or in a different order depending on the person.
It’s not a binary thing. High immigration doesn’t equal the county must be perfect and we must be blindly patriotic does it?

Love how many people here are doggedly ignoring the context to this question - the context being that there has been an explosion of far right activism in this country, which has adopted the St George’s flag as a symbol of their movement.

No I don’t see anything wrong.

You are being overly sensitive.

I know!! Look at all the Palestinian flags being flown everywhere. Maybe we should not let those be flown either right?

BTW - nobody is banning flags.

The council removes items attached to council property - fences, lamp posts etc, because they will remove all objects attached to council property that they haven’t given permission for. Folks will tie these flags to poles near roads, leaving drivers vulnerable to having them blow off and end up across their windscreens.

Another poster doggedly ignoring the context, which is that we have a growing, violent far right movement in this country which has co-opted the St George’s flag as a symbol of their values and beliefs.

@lonelycrab While you're on the hunt for white people attacking police, can you look for the following:

POC attacking police horses, setting fire to the union jack, on a public building, throwing fireworks at police -
You will find that evidence, under the BLM riots and Pro Palestine 'protests'. Nah, you will find every which way to deny that, same as the other posters, who reckons the hard left don't cause trouble. Perhaps I will go and find the photos of that rabble attacking women, at Women's rights events.
How embarrassing to show your own xenophobia and racism, when talking about bigotry.

Is that the same far right, who find themselves on the proscribed terrorist list or would that be the hard left?

I'm white Irish and St George's flags creep me out. A few homes near me fly them and I go out of my way to avoid. I wouldn't have the same reaction to the Union Jack but generally find flag flying a bit basic tbh.

@Underthinker “I think if there was a movement to reclaim the English flag, all that would happen is the kind of people in this thread calling everyone racist would call it racist.”

Exactly. Because these discussions are always and only the English status signalling among themselves.

Q: How you know when someone thinks they’ve outgrown the idea of a limited national community that they didn’t choose, and that they owe obligations to and it owes obligations to them?

A: Don’t worry, they’ll tell you.

What? Your question doesn’t make any sense.

We don’t have a significant problem with ‘far left’ terrorism in the UK. We do have a growing problem with far right terrorism.

From a government report. This was published last year. It’s worse this year:

"The threat from Extreme Right-Wing Terrorism is on an upward trajectory, populated by an increasing number of young people and driven by the internet. There are reports that groups and individuals have sought to co-opt the Covid-19 pandemic, using conspiracy theories and exploiting grievances to radicalise and recruit."

FFS. This whole board is anonymous and anecdotal.

I am fed up with people taking an anecdote and overlaying their own prejudice on top of it.

I doubt you would have said "she doesn't speak for every non-white person" if the anecdote had been about her finding the flag racist and intimidating.

I don’t think anyone here is justifying violence against anyone or any thing.

And even MI5 don’t report that far left activism is a significant or growing threat in the UK.

The growing threat is coming from the far right, which the GC movement are in lockstep with over trans issues.

BTW - the Pro Palestine protests are protests. Not ‘protests’. Why would you not expect people to be protesting about what’s been happening in that region?