Anti immigration and England being 'racist'

[AngryBird6122]

Do people know that this is not just a UK thing? I see so many people saying they are ashamed to be british etc but this is happening the world over. And it can work both ways! I have close family in Japan and there are protests there too and they are being treated very differently - yes, white english! The right are gaining traction there too. Are the Japanese allowed to be proud of their country and fly their flags? What's people's thoughts on this?

And for good reason they are called racist - they have racist laws! My friends son is married to a Japanese citizen, they have a daughter and he was (mostly) worked there for decades. Most non-Japanese people get temporary work ongoing with no security. When there are redundancies they literally picked all the non-Japanese first and sacked them - and were upfront about it because the law allows it. His daughter is regualrly bullied because she is "mixed race", which is a dilution of Japanese purity in many peoples eyes.

But beyond that
(a) there is one race - the human race - and if we all got our heads around that then maybe we might improve somewhat, and
(b) I find it curious how often the "well they are racist too" line is trotted out to justify our own racism. After 200,000 years or so practice, you would have thought we might have got better at being human.

I'm a little scared by what is happening here really. DH works in canary wharf where there has been quite a lot of protesting and he is brown. He has had no issues so far though, but yes it makes me a little nervous.

@AngryBird6122 There’s nothing to worry or be nervous about in Canary Wharf (well, apart from being knocked over by a stressed CW worker rushing to get to their lunch if you happen to get in their way). It’s one of the safest places in the U.K. Every inch is covered by cameras and it’s all closely monitored for even the hint of a security threat. I’ve been to security briefings there and even tourists taking photos of buildings are monitored (they could be taking photos for terrorism planning etc).

Yes there were some protests because of the Britannia Hotel (which has been an absolute shithole for many years) being used to house asylum seekers but no one is going to attack a CW worker, brown or otherwise.

Well aware that other countries are racist too. I’m in Ireland with the racists and far right using the Irish flag in a divisive way. It was flying (half mast) on every lamp post on the school run today. Which is very annoying as the Irish flag is supposed to represent unity.

I’m still very much pro the Irish flag. I’m just against it being used in this way.

So your stance, which you are rather disingenuously attempting to project as just a casual observance, appears to be that because other countries of ethic origin are anti-immigrant or xenophobic, then that means that anti-immigrant feeling is natural, it being a global phenomena and there is nothing to be concerned about and here in the UK we are not exceptional for our anti-immigrant views and perhaps rather justified in them.

It is never just about immigrants though, that is just the cover. Because it were really about a desire to curb immigration, then people who feel strongly about the issue, especially strongly enough to go around tying flags to every available straight horizontal and vertical surface, would take more responsibility about whom they vote for and scrutinise very carefully their foreign policy, and ask themselves the question: Is this party/candidates foreign and economic policy goals aligned with my desire or the parties proclaimed manifesto of reducing net immigration?

If their foreign policy beliefs include that is right and good to provide artillery support to other countries who wish to subjugate people in the middle east, entertaining ideas about taking mineral resources from other countries through upheaval and regime change, handing contracts to firms that exploit people in MEDC and LEDCs, giving subsidies to polluting industries that wreck havoc in environments abroad that allow those people to sustain themselves there, then one has to question whether their party aims are actually truly conducive or in line with stopping the amount of people rocking up and looking to improve their lives here and then if such flag tying people are truly sincere, they would, one imagines, not vote for those people.

But as it is, we're all being asked to believe that the real motive is not racism or xenophobia but simply having a 'sensible conversation' about reducing the numbers of people coming here, when the same persons are breaking their necks to vote for people who promise to continue doing all the above with even more gusto.

I think one of the problems is that it's difficult to separate specifically English cultural practices from wider British ones, and I don't know why it's even desirable.

Say there's a folk session in a lovely old pub somewhere near the Scottish Borders, say Northumberland. As far as I understand it there's a distinct Border culture that spans both Scotland and England, so some of the songs sung would be from that. Then I'm sure some Scottish ballads from further North would creep in, as well as a lot of folk songs from Northumberland. Some songs from say Norfolk or Essex might be sung, but they would probably be more alien in style than many of the Scottish ones!

Yorkshire has a distinct culture. Essex has a distinct culture. Cornwall has a distinct culture (and doesn't at all consider itself English, although it officially is. Not a single St George's Cross to be seen down here!). They can all be included and celebrated as part of British culture, but English culture seems to more define itself by what it isn't, rather than what it is. Hence, it is a pretty fragile construct.

To conclude: British culture is a culture of inclusion. English culture is a culture of exclusion.

Thank you for attending my lecture 😆

Many, many citizens, of many countries, are protesting about increasing immigration.

Many countries fly their flags, as a matter of course.

It’s not just in Britain.🤷‍♀️

It’s not racist to be concerned about unknown people arriving here in rubber dinghies.

And it’s not racist to fly a flag if you want to.🙄

Racism, of all types, existed long before any protests and flags.

I'm 51, and can confirm that that's a good fighting age for a woman. The perimenopause gives you an endless well of rage.

Seems to me the real issue everywhere is wealth being funnelled into fewer and fewer hands, leaving the rest of us fighting over what’s left. But instead of dealing with that, every country seems to have picked its own marginalised group to use as a scapegoat.

Still, I’m sure once we’ve stopped the boats and deported every asylum seeker we’ll suddenly have an endless supply of doctors and dentists, millions of affordable homes, the lowest energy bills since the invention of electricity and all our problem will be solved...😅

Unless I've gone mad, since when is a black cab a culture or a custom, or any number of the other things on that list inherently or exclusively 'British'. The fact is that Britain is a centuries old mash up of influences from all over the world. Even our most popular dish is a curry!

White Supremacists are obsessed with Japan

I didn't know that, very useful piece of info. Thanks.

I think the thing is, thanks to the internet and faster transport, the world is changing at an exponentially rapid pace, much faster than we can keep up with. For example, social media and gaming meant that my DH grew up speaking natural English without ever formally learning it in a country far away. TripAdvisor etc means you can plan all kinds of visits to remote places that were once a magical private discovery, only to find the place full of selfie sticks and queues for the car park.

Everything about progress is a double-edged sword. When I was a kid, this is what the local shops looked like. There wasn't much in them; you could count on the fingers of one hand what to expect for Xmas. Up to a point I welcome the mind-boggling array of choice nowadays, but I still get a nosebleed when I walk into Boots and find almost an entire floor dedicated to makeup.

Becoming more and more a global community is to be welcomed, but it also comes at the sacrifice of the local, and I think it's natural to feel a kind of grief about losing familiar surroundings and feeling overwhelmed by change. More controversially (based on my own traumatic experiences of this; obviously, YMMV), I also think it's natural to feel anxious about sharing your home environment with people whose cultural values are different enough to create conflict.

Historically, civilisations around the world have imploded at some point under various stresses. This is the first time global humanity has been so closely connected, and it sometimes feels like a massive endgame... like chucking every known chemical into the same pot, as a crazy experiment, to see what happens next. There is no controlling the outcome -- some kind of transformation will work its way through, but the chaotic process towards what will eventually be understood as progress is not comfortable for anyone.

Personally, it’s the fact that it’s happening in other countries that worries me. Some countries are further ahead in this process and I hate to think we might head in the same direction. I have no problem with people flying a flag to rep sports teams or when we celebrate things as a nation or show solidarity with certain causes but I feel like the current wave of flag flying is much more sinister in many cases and is grounded in hatred. And misplaced hatred because immigration is an easy target but isn’t going to magically fix what’s going on in the UK.

As a side note: as someone who is no fan of Christmas, could the Muslims hurry up and ban it please -as the far right keep on telling us they're threatening to- because I'm sick of having to do the Christmas stockings.

Agree. It’s telling that there are so many threads atm on anti immigration and flags. I think it’s due to an increasing number of people being very vocal about their concerns on immigration and the boats, and the left hate it. They’re used to being able to just utter ‘racist’ or ‘bigot’ and it closes people down, but this no longer works, mainly because the words are thrown about so much that they are now meaningless. The left just don’t get that just because you have concerns about immigration, it doesn’t mean you’re affiliated to Tommy Robinson. They’re desperately trying to link the two. Posts on here get progressively more aggressive the more people push back. It’s sad that people are told they can’t have their own opinions without being sworn at or name called.

They are though. When I visited China, I saw some of the most explicit racism I’d ever seen, mainly directed towards black and Indian people. I found they treated white people differently but had respect for them but openly admitted to “not liking” black or Indian people. And they repeatedly told me how much they hated the Japanese but I think that goes both ways.

Just thought the exact same thing before seeing your comment.

Before the war in Ukraine the fixation was Russia. Seen as a homogenous white country with traditional strong patriarchal Christian values.

Some right leaning Americans joined a relocation to Russia programme. Some have been surprised that the culture is indeed substantially different from their traditional American idea of the WASP.

I think they thought 'white' was the culture.

That would be like me being of mixed Carribbean origin rocking up to Nigeria and expecting things to be similar except for a few language differences.

The root source of it is far right pundits like Tommy Robinson.

Of course there are those on the bandwagon who have “concerns” about immigration but are not fully far right.

I do agree we need to stop with the knee jerk “racist” reaction though. We need to make people’s lives better. Invest in housing and healthcare, reduce inequality, deal with the cost of living.

Then there will be less reason for people to look for answers in hate.

I didn't say they didn't exist anymore. The answer was to a pp who didn't know what English culture was!

They do! When people say their culture is being eroded, this is code for being uncomfortable with an increase in different skin colours in a country. Nothing more.

Immigration and emigration are a big part of British culture though. From the olden day explorers bringing back artifacts from around the world, and making other bits of land "British", expecting this Commonwealth to help us when we needed it (World Wars, then skilled workers on the post war period, and still now!) But then simultaneously complaining about them doing so.
A few years ago it was "patriotic" to welcome Ukrainians.
People complaining they can't live in their Spanish villa all year round anymore

Far too many people are just blaming the wrong thing really.

I don’t relate to the negative conclusion.

I don’t word myself very well which is probably part of the problem but yes it’s a bit hard to have a conversation when those are the kind of answers you get! Makes it pointless to have a discussion

Did I say they were, read the thread, someone asked what English culture was so I responded off the top of my head with some examples.

@HundredMilesAnHour thank you. He’s not had an ounce of trouble so nothing to worry about really, it was just after I saw some stuff on the news, but then that’s blown up to look more dramatic anyway.