To think England flags are intimidating?

[Nikki7506]

Let me start by saying I LOVE MY COUNTRY!🥰🏴󠁧󠁢󠁥󠁮󠁧󠁿
I am an Army veteran. I fly a tonne of flags for St Georges Day, major sporting tournaments, Royal occasions because I love the monarchy!! I'm the only person on my street who bothers to get the flags and bunting out, although, there is one other house on the next road who does too👍
Woke up one morning to find England flags all the way down the street. They were well high up on the lamp posts. I couldn't reach them so I complained to the council. I feel like I'm living in an EDL rally. The council finally sent an email saying they had removed the flags but they hadn't. They were still there.
So I decided to fly two pride flags from the lamp posts opposite my house. Before the end of the day an angry GAMMON 😡 ripped them down with such vigour I thought he might have a heart attack.
It made me really sad because to me the pride flag is a symbol of acceptance and kindness to everyone LGTBQ+, disabilities and everyone who is neither white nor English!!🏳️‍🌈
So I have to look at their flags (and its not the flag, the reason they're flying them is because Nigel wants everyone to hate immigrants and they are happy to use the England flag as a dog whistle ) but I can't fly mine😡
Am I being too upset by this? I'm seriously thinking of using a water gun with food dye in it. We have a diverse community here💖 The other day a man said hello to me in mandarin with his little toddler on his shoulders and it was lovely🌈 I don't just want to cut my neighbours loose and keep quiet😔 they are lovely people who deserve respect.
This feels like a Trump/Farage takeover😡
This sudden display of patriotism (Flag shagging) from folks who don't normally bother is a worry😬

It's not being done in the name of the vast majority of the country I imagine but that's not to say we should all passively sit back and allow this minority of louts to claim the English flag. It doesn't belong to them, it belongs to everyone who considers England to be their home, regardless of skin colour.

Flags are giving MAGA vibes. They are horrible and they are intimidating.

I don't agree with you here. Round here at least, the flags are being put up in immigration protest and spreading hate against immigrants. I wouldn't say that is the same as putting up a pride flag that symbolizes peace and togetherness. I'm English, I'm not hippy, and I'm not even particularly left leaning, but the protests around here using the English flag have been scary. They've been harassing children of colour, setting fire to things, screaming and swearing all while hanging up the flags.

Plus a lot of the flags around here have been put up in stupid places (obstructing views around corners when driving etc). And then we've had lots of buildings, roundabouts etc. graffitied, spray painted and criminally damaged as part of it (we can hardly call that just proud of being British, can we?)

I wonder if the protests have been different in different parts of the country and that's why you've had such a variety of views. I'm pretty surprised at this thread actually.

Me too, and the BNP.

The National Front had a fascist bookshop round the corner from where I lived in Croydon, and there was another one in Welling or Bexley that I think was run by the BNP.

It seems that, like the poor, the racist right is always with us.

Maybe I did not word it right. Its a flag of a country we live it, your country. How come its something you feel threatened by? I understand its probably similar to US, where flags waving is something certain people do - but I doubt anyone feels intimidated and threatened by it there!

The idea that the Raise the Colours type keep spouting that we can't fly our flag or put up British and English symbols has always seemed a bit nonsense in the area I live in. My neighbourhood already had other flags flying alongside British ones before the 'Raise the Colours' idea came about. There is a guy who marches back and forth on the high street with a massive Palestinian flag for hours. That high street has British flags all the way down both sides 10 months out of the year, the other two it's Christmas trees. We also have RBL's lamppost poppies with the soldier and houses decorate in 'Lest We Forget' all year round. When the Duchess of Kent died a few days, we had an influx of flags everywhere, both English and British flags.

I think if it's just the flags up, then YABU to be intimidated In the areas where it's not just that, where there is racist graffiti and horrible demonstrations using them, then yes, YANBU. It's all in the context.

It made me really sad because to me the pride flag is a symbol of acceptance and kindness to everyone LGTBQ+, disabilities and everyone who is neither white nor English!!

I know you meant this as a kindness, but this comes across as saying 'this flag is for accepting everyone who is not normal."

Just like with the English flag can both be used to support England and support the idea that there is only a particular type of English person who is really English, the rainbow pride flag and that acronym is used both in its original sense of celebrating solidarity and the wellbeing of lesbian, gay, bisexual, and gender diverse people, but it's also been used to sell a marketable form of lesbian, gay, bisexual, and gender diverse people that erases many of the people, communities, and differing ideas within them and demonises those who do not fit the current market image. It has absolutely been used to intimidate and silence lesbian, gay, bisexual, and gender diverse people who speak out.

Trying to then put in disabled people and every other ethnicity than White English under it just increases that homogenizing effect. There are already disabled lesbian, gay, bisexual, and gender diverse people, there are lesbian, gay, bisexual, and gender diverse people of every ethnicity and nationality. That representation is already there without bringing in our straight counterparts.

You sound so tedious OP. Get over yourself and stop stretching your level of wokeness.

Well done troll with your AI post.

You're being childish and idiotic
The England isn't intimidating at all.
Get real love

How can you tell plenty of us how we feel, this is real, and it is real to feel intimidated by this to many of us, perhaps you need to get real, and grow up a bit

This isn't America. However if, like in America, folks want to get a flag pole in their garden and stick a flag up, I've not got an issue with that.

What's going on here right now is gangs of white men zip tying flags to anything they can reach in the public domain, and that's different. The people doing this are generally not nice, community minded folks; it's about people who feel like they've been given permission to force this nationalistic shit on everyone, hiding under the banner of 'patriotism'.

I don't feel that's going to happen by letting these 'raise the colours' idiots just do what they want though.
Who's to say people weren't generally patriotic before? What's happening now just feels wrong.

At the moment - it’s being hijacked by an ill informed mob and that makes me sad because I love our flag and remember waving it proudly as a child when trying to glimpse the Queen, and loads of other memories like that - it’s now only being flown by those that hate and I don’t want anything to do with them .

Personally I wouldn't wave it around but I can't help but think that some on the left stir up trouble as much as the right do with this sort of thing by potentially taking offence and stirring up people who might have just shrugged their shoulders about it. After all it's just the flag of the country many from around the world have decided to make their life in?

I don't find people who paint England flags on road crossings intellectually intimidating. It's cute they've found a passion to get themselves up in the morning, shame it isn't a job though.

Exactly, yesterday in London there were protests supporting Palestine with the Palestinian flag being waved by thousands. Our police force were subjected to abuse and nearly 900 arrests were made. Shameful behaviour and yet people are more worried about this country's flags being flown.

IMO

Flags on a house/in a garden - fine
Flags on a parade - fine
Flags ziptied halfway up lampposts - annoying
Flags ziptied outside perceived "others" houses specifically or painted on buildings - intimidating and unpleasant

That goes for pride flags, English flags, Palestinian flags, Ukrainian flags, Israeli flags what have you. It's absolutely fine IMO for someone to be on a march holding a Palestinian flag. It would be intimidating if they were painting it outside the house of someone they perceived to be Jewish/Israeli or putting up a lot of flags around an Israeli owned business. Same for UK flags. Same for the Pride/progress flag. There isn't any contradiction in being fine with Palestinian flags carried on a peaceful protest march and not liking the people videoing themselves painting St George Crosses on other people's houses. Chalk and cheese.

Me neither. However, it's fairly easy to understand why many people do have that experience.

For everyone who thinks the George flag is intimidating and racist,if you care to look it up,st George was the patron saint of: Palestine, Ethiopia, Istanbul and many other countries.. he actually grew up in Palestine.

Not really, no. I’ve been an immigrant at several points in my life, but it would be ridiculous to complain about seeing the flags of those countries on display when I chose to live there. If I didn’t like it - tough. I wasn’t a citizen. Why would my opinion matter? I could leave if I didn’t like it, no one was making me stay.

I don't think you are. I remember the football riots of the 70's and 80's and they waved a lot of England flags around then. I've always preferred the union jack, it's a better design.
If the flag were being waved about for positive reasons then fine, but as you rightly say it's just to show hate and that's never a good thing.

Yeah, gets a bit tedious after a while...

Same as being called names just being you don't agree with someone else's views. Boring......

Not many people have issues with Chinese people IME. Nor Sikhs or Hindus for that matter. It's the cultures that treat women terribly in their own countries and do the same over here that people don't like. I'm still amazed more people aren't shocked about the 1200 sexual assaults that happened on that one night in Germany.

We hear a lot about the 'two women a week' who are murdered. 1200 sexual assaults in one night is just crazy and shows an utter lack of respect from these individuals for the communities whose taxes are supporting them. I'm politically moderate but it seems clear to me that a large part of Reform's popularity is down to people on the Left refusing to acknowledge the misogyny in some cultures.

Sexual assault isn't just 'a different way of life' or a foreign custom.

I actually think in many cases it's more about perceived British values than ethnicity. However, obviously many people from other cultures are non white by default.

There are absolutely loads of non white Britons that are extremely popular with laddish working class men. Look at boxing, for example. Anthony Joshua, Prince Naseem, Daniel Dubois, Frank Bruno, Nigel Benn, Chris Eubank, Amir Khan, Hamzah Sheeraz, Lennox Lewis, David Haye, etc, etc. All working class heroes.

Same with football. And then you have loads of comedians like Lenny Henry, Michael Dapaah (Big Shaq), Sasha Baron Cohen (Ali G), etc. That's just scratching the surface. You've also got musicians like Stormzy, Dizzee Rascal, Miss Dynamite etc amongst many others who are extremely popular with working class youths.

I think it's actually quite rare for anybody outside of the hardcore BNP members to have an issue with non white brits. These individuals aren't remotely big enough in numbers to account for all the support that Reform are getting.

I think a lot of people moaning about perceived 'racists' haven't yet clocked their own problematic views whereby they lump all non white people into the same category. Even when talking about fellow Muslims/Sikhs my workmates will differentiate between somebody born here and 'a freshy' (their words not mine, and not always meant in a derogatory fashion).

Most people wouldn't class an economic migrant fresh off a boat in the same category as somebody like Amir Khan yet a lot of people on the left seem to lump them all together. That's why many can't understand that it's certain cultures that are usually the perceived issue with their ethnicity being a secondary factor.

Many nationalistic people have no issue with non white people that live by our societal code, in the same way they also support British females despite being stereotyped as sexists. Like how loads of blokes are big fans of the Lionesses and Dakota Ditcheva (who seems to have far more male than female supporters).

People don't generally have issues with non white people who share our values. It's those that try and set up their own judicial systems and extend their abuse to the women and children of the countries that take them in that people are getting pissed off with.

Why would you be triggered by an English flag in England?
They look nice, blowing in the breeze.
If you steal one its actually theft as it dosent belong to you!

Our local lefty group have behaved worse than our patriot group.
Our patriot group is going to be ding Christmas hampers for the elderly.