To be devasted the roundabout in my town has a crappy 'flag' painted on?

[Liesmorelies]

I nearly threw up when I saw it this morning - what a horrible shock.

It's a very small town in the Midlands near a city. Yes it's ex-mining but does reasonable ok now, not deprived eg no contextual offers for my dc for uni, but not massively desirable or trendy. Has a Labour MP now but hasn't always in recent years. Voted for Brexit but only just. In 2019 more people voted against Tories AND Brexit than for them - split the vote so we still got a Tory, but still.

In other words, I did not expect this. It's horrible - looks ugly and badly done even before you get started on the thinking behind it. AIBU to ring the council on Tuesday and ask when they are going to deal with this vandalism?

I did a four hour round-trip on the motorway today too and the amount of flags on bridges was shocking - just make it stop.

I’m wondering if we live in the same place. I live in a very similarly described town which has what can only be described as a febrile atmosphere presently centred around a hotel housing asylum seekers in its centre.
ive had a conversation this morning with my husband that I feel like moving - I just don’t want to live in such a hate filled place.
thank you for your post. Even if we aren’t in the same town, it feels really lonely to feel surrounded by people who feel this way. I don’t even like going out any more. To read your post gives me some hope that the whole country isn’t completely lost.

Doesn't it just. All this from that poster swapping and changing her mind pretending to be toying with things - I will do it, nope I can't I was told no, I am going to be defiant, nope cannot do it, oh yes I have white privilege... is so ridiculous and a bit pathetic isn't it?

And the lies that they were told on here they cannot do it.

I mean I get told not to use my phone on rides at Alton Towers and they will stop that for safety reasons. Doesn't mean they are stopping all phones ever in the UK. But that is their mentality - dramatic and hyperbole central!

Just because you feel that it doesn’t mean that you are right. In Wales all the pro independence parties use the Welsh flag but that doesn’t mean that everyone who puts up a Welsh flag does so to show support for independence. If people want to fly an English flag in their own country they should be able to without being called racist, not everyone will have the same motive.

Its not the white local men standing openly masturbating in my local playground and shouting at little girls to come and look though is it. Its not the white local men who are following teenage school girls and surrounding them in large groups grabbing at them. This is what happens daily and has done for years in my small town, making local residents feel uncomfortable and females not wanting to leave the house alone. So if putting up a flag makes the people doing this feel uncomfortable, I'll decorate my house with them. Infact I'll paint the front of my house as one huge flag. It might give the residents of thd multiple HMO's in the next street something else to photograph and film rather than women and children who are trying to innocently go about their daily life.

Maybe I live in a really nice area but I don't witness racial abuse or would it make you feel better if I just made something up.

To the people saying "It's not the flag, it's what it represents!" - this doesn't change the fact that the OP's reaction is unhealthy.

There's a trans rights flag around the corner from my house. The trans rights movement advocates, among other things, sterilising children and putting rapists in women's prisons. Even then, I don't feel "devastated" when I see it. I don't get a "horrible shock", and I certainly don't "nearly throw up". If a member of my family came home and told me they had seen something that gave them these reactions, I would assume they had witnessed something horrendous, such as a car crash. If they then told me they had seen a flag, I'd burst out laughing.

If the OP really is having these reactions, she needs to see a doctor. Even taking into account a bit of hyperbole and exaggeration for effect, this isn't normal.

I’m on the continent and there are a lot of rainbow pedestrian crossings.

How am I anti-English? I made a comment in exasperation about a tendency some English people seem to have to see themselves as worse off than other groups who objectively have fewer advantages than they do. I find it tiresome in the extreme. Obviously Welsh people can be ridiculous too - as a nation they voted for Brexit despite the fact you can/could barely turn around in Wales without seeing a plaque stating that something had been funded by the EU. So it's not just English people that display this tendency.

But this St George's flag business, or raise the colours movement, is by definition an English phenomenon and that's a fact. Also the constant whining about 'why can't we be proud to be English,' does seem to be pretty unique to England, as encapsulated in the Stuart Lee sketch. No one Scottish, Welsh or from NI moan about why they can't fly their flags as it's generally accepted in the former two cases that they have historically been oppressed by England and the flag is represents defiance against that, which is fair enough as that is objectively true. Then in NI unionists are using it to express loyalty to GB - again fair enough as there is conflict there. So flag-flying has a very different focus and background in those places.

In England, this movement derives the idea that immigrants are to blame for every problem that England now faces and, contrary to the examples above, this objectively isn't true. People have been sold a lie and it's unpleasant and unsettling to watch. And this thread has not been dominated by anti-English sentiment but anti-racist sentiment. It's odd to conflate the two.

This does not apply to everyone who has ever flown an English flag, of course, but to the current movement, which is the focus of this thread.

Maybe you should change who you're "friends" with because none of mine post racist stuff, usually just wishing happy birthday or family days out etc.

Even my local residents Facebook is just people moaning about bin collections, parking or asking what time the chippy/Chinese is open.

If you look around there are many nice areas in the UK.

Can you explain the joke you made about wanking in front of kids. I didn't quite understand it.

Oh it is the white local men who are doing that. White van man cat callers have done that for eons. Look at all the local threads about their short skirts. Imagine thinking white men are never paedos - most of the paedos are white men! That is why it is so common as they pretend not to be and the gullible believe them when they say it is just the brown men who are paedos. Imagine being that thick!

It will not make white van man paedo feel uncomfortable, he is in there with you sitting alongside you encouraging you! He is part of this!!

Imagine thinking people on low incomes and single people are taking photos of kids in HMOs instead of just being normal working folk. Not all people - all poor people eh?

I'm loving this.

Flag flying patriotism is a bit of a mystery to me, I'm British by accident of birth, it's just a fact which I don't personally attach value to but I respect that other people feel differently so I'm pretty indifferent to the campaign. However I am loving the complete overreaction by people who think they know the motives of everyone flying an English flag.

You have had years to respectfully engage in a reasonable debate about what sustainable levels of immigration looks like for the UK but you have dismissed other people's concerns, denigrated them, smeared them and insulted them as thick which is pretty wild considering how stupid you make yourselves look.

This is a peaceful protest, you can ignore it at your peril, which I suspect many of you will do because your egos are so invested in getting your way. You like to silence anyone who protests about things you disagree with whilst calling those people fascists; as I said not as clever as you think you are.

Anyway if you ignore it then what comes next will be really ugly. From those of us who would prefer peace and are happy to debate people we disagree with can I respectfully ask you to stop pouring petrol on the fire. I will say I told you so if, or rather when, the shit hits the fan.

Friends? I am not friends with such people.

Do you not have facebook 'groups' in your area? are they banned too?

Oh yeah you do have it, imagine being friends with people who moan about the chippy and all those residents.

If you look around there are many racists, but you'd have to care of course and you do not. You just blame those who are on the receiving end of it.

Imagine blaming those who were experiencing racism for being where there is racism not blaming the racists themselves!

Now wonder we have an issue with racism if you refuse to hold those who do it to account. Why can you not do that?

💯 Couldn’t agree with you more!

Nice areas also have racists. The fact you think money makes you less racist is real classim.

Imagine saying the poor people are racists and the rich are not.

Maybe I hold racists to account unlike you. That makes me a better person than ones who turn a blind eye and blame the victims of racism for what the racists do.

Who knew that standing against racism makes those people virtue signalling crazy lefties? I've literally heard it all now. And for the record, I know plenty of Conservative voting people who are equally incensed by how the George Cross is being used to divide and 'other'.

Who knew that flying a St George’s flag in England makes those people racist fascists? I’ve literally heard it all now.

Funny how you describe it as othering. It’s uniting. We’re in England. Bet you don’t have a problem when the flag of Pakistan is flown in Birmingham. Now that’s othering.

I can assure you it's certainly not local white men who are doing this. Do you have the middle class privilege of living in a 'nice' area that hasn't been overtaken with immigrants for the last 10 years? If you do then you are lucky.

To dismiss the fact that people are masturbating in public spaces intended for children and joke about it is disgusting. Let's allow this behaviour because we can't offend them can we.

You are not standing up for anything! Many of the people you ‘speak for’ also feel worried about the millions of undocumented people arriving! You don’t have to be white to be worried - your racist assumptions are most offensive. You don’t speak for everyone. You really don’t.

You obviously don't know the meaning of the word "devastated".

I wouldn't know what Facebook groups there are in my area, expect there are lots of different groups but why would I want to join groups that I'm not interested in. There's groups on here that bully you off a thread if you don't vote for the party that they do, so why would I want to go on Facebook and be bullied.

On my local group most of the people aren't my friends, they just happen to live in the same area so not sure what you're going on about there.

I'm not saying racism doesn't exist I'm saying that I don't come across it in my day to day life. I'm not sure why you find that hard to understand.

“In England, this movement derives the idea that immigrants are to blame for every problem that England now faces and, contrary to the examples above, this objectively isn't true. People have been sold a lie and it's unpleasant and unsettling to watch. And this thread has not been dominated by anti-English sentiment but anti-racist sentiment. It's odd to conflate the two.“

You’re right, it isn’t true. It’s the fault of every dear leader we’ve had in the past 25-30 years. But it is immigrations fault as a concept. For example:

If you import infinity migrants to make the GDP line go up on a graph you therefore have:

More demand for housing = higher house prices / higher rents. Gobbling up green belt to accommodate this constant demand.

More demand for healthcare = waiting lists going up and up. Stretched services = poorer care and outcomes.

More demand for support = a benefits bill spiralling out of control. Insane tax rises for those of us who do contribute to cover it.

More people / more transport = extra pollution and a nightmare getting anywhere. Unsafe roads. People on the roads who shouldn’t be. Every week in my local news the people creating fatalities on the roads are not native English.

This is just common sense and undeniable. This is before you get into the fact we’re bringing people in with mediaeval attitudes to women and children and cultural practices that place additional strain on our already stretched services. First cousin marriage, polygamous marriages with way more children than Brits typically have. Taking disposable income out of our economy and sending it back to the third world.

ALL of our problems stem from the fact we have too many people who take but don’t contribute. And to top it off we’ve had two years of many people rubbing it in our faces that they support terrorists who would kill us and our children. But when we display our flag it’s a problem. Give me a fucking break.

I say you have been sold a lie, being made to feel like being proud to be English and maintaining our culture is something shameful.

The whole flag painting thing is messy and just kind of weird, but you’re massively overreacting.

Ironic that a thread about roundabouts is permeated by such circular thinking and arguments.....

You love it so much that it's only just occurred to you to fly it? You've clearly just been biding your time waiting for the latest bandwagon to come by.

You literally said you have joined one of the local groups! Duh!

Imagine saying that me walking with my brown partner is the reason I got racially abused and not the fault of the racists.

You don't live where brown people are so there isn't people commenting you mean and because I do and because my partner is brown then it is my fault for living there and having a brown partner and I brought it on myself you say?

If only I lived in a place like yours where they blamed the victims.

What happens if someone in my area gets raped - would you say that was their fault for living there too?

Why do you not think the people who should be blamed for racism are racists and not the victims?

I wouldn't like to live somewhere where they supported racists like they do in your town. Why are they like that? Why do they blame victims where you live and not the perpetrators?

Odd that you say those in your local groups are not your friends but say that the ones in my local groups are. Why is that?