To be worried about the apparent acceptance of racism

[user1499291455]

I'm of indian heritage but born and raised in the UK and married to my white British husband. We have 3 children and I'm worried about racism towards them. I have had racism directed towards me when younger but it seemed to be getting better but now I'm being sucked into the rabbit hole of flags and alternative messages and people having p**i (edited by MNHQ) etc shouted at them by school children. I've always promoted how accepted we are and how this is our home and I feel so anxious and upset. I don't know what I'm expecting just feel sad overall.

What are your feelings about British families feeling frightened for their children because they have brown skin?

@Ablushingcrow @millymollymoomoo and @olderandnonthewiser (as you've said you yourself don't care what anyone's skin colour is).

Racism against ethnic minorities is Institutionalised and Systemic.

The reality is there are pretty regular reports of sexual assaults by migrants who then can’t be deported. It’s frustrating that we have a system that thinks more of the perpetrators than it does of victims

Cant tell you how angry I am at stories where the foreign rapist cannot be deported because he may be targeted in his home country. WHY THE FUCK DO WE CARE?

@Lighttheway I'm sorry that you have lost your job. I have no doubt that this abuse would negatively effect your professional life as well as your private life.

I cannot be of use other than to suggest that you make every attempt to exit as soon as possible. If you are able to document the abuse safely, do so, as it will support your claim. The police have failed you thus far but can perhaps be motivated to investigate with video evidence. It must be terrible for you. Be safe.

In line with @user1499291455 's concerns, this is the sad reality for very many British people of colour in the UK today.

Concerns about immigration are being fueled by racist campaigns of propaganda designed to divide us and gain power for the ultra rich who really don't give a fuck about any of us.

Nigel Farage for example pushes the idea that too much immigration is affecting people's jobs, but if you look at his voting record, he votes against workers rights every chance he gets. Things will get worse under Reform, not better.

Reform is taking people for mugs, and if you think immigration is a the most serious issue today you're falling for the oldest trick in the book. Look up divide and rule.

And if course it's racist. One of my grandparents came here without papers, fleeing war. Am I ever questioned about my nationality or told to go home? No, not once, never. Do you think maybe the fact I'm white has something to do with that? Of course it does.

OP YANBU, I am so sorry your family is experiencing this, and I am ashamed to be a British just now. A mosque near me was recently the subject of an arson attack, women are having their hijabs pulled off them in the street there and there are bloody flags everywhere.

Of course the flag flying is fueling racism. Anyone who says it isn't is lying or burying their head in the sand.

Yes, I'm hearing casual racism I've not heard since the 80s

I'm third generation british and get called an immigrant, racially harrassed and told to go home bascially every day- everyone on my street is involved, not a single person has stood up for me, everyone joins in. I have brown skin and speak glass polished english- posher than anyone on the street. My racist/ abusive neighbours put up british flags straight after the police went and investigated them for their racist harrassment campaign against me. They got away with it and think the police are on their side too, because they're white. It shouldn't be like that.

Racists don't care, they have Super Low Self Esteem and feel the need to put people down to make themselves feel better about themselves, in this case brown people. A confident, happy, fulfilled person wouldn't feel the need to do that, mean hurt people hurt people. It's sad but they're very unhappy, bitter people.

But yeh, this country is not safe for women of colour from my experience at all unless you're in a multicultural area or an area with less racists/ facsists. Not safe for kids either in my opinion, esp if kids learn racism from their racist parents etc.

Im a white immigrant and I've had racist language used against me in the last few months.

And someone put a flag in my face. Smashed it in. And I had one left in my garden. And put on the lamppost outside my house.

Ive lived here more than 40 years and never had this before. These were people I previously considered friends.

I really really really hate racists. I can only begin to imagine how awful it is for non white immigrants.

I consider myself privileged that people that don't know can't see it.

And I hate that too.

I think being worried about immigration doesn't make you racist. I worry about immigration (even legal) because:

• we should be training our own health & other skilled workers, not poaching them from poor countries who need them
• we need to ensure our own young people can get trained up/access entry level roles to work in shortage occupations
• constantly having a labour oversupply suppresses wages which isn't good for the local workforce
• we have a housing shortage, and more and more migration forces a layer of the poorest into increasingly substandard accomodation. We have finite land to build more.
• i worry that illegal migrants don't have the skills to access work in shortage/demand occupations, which means the outcome of them arriving here is either: a) they wind up working in black or grey economy b) they wind up in unskilled jobs competing against the local labour force, which suppresses wages c) they struggle to access work at all and so wind up reliant on state benefits or a partner & don't contribute to the economy. None of a), b) or c) are good.

I don't care if you are brown or black or white, you were born & raised here you're British. You presumably know all the critical things about life in the uk, like never to make tea in the microwave.

This.

https://www.facebook.com/share/r/1A2dhJMDJ8/

It is enraging how emboldened the racists have become with disingenuous political actors using frustration over rising costs, declining surplus incomes, and deteriorating public services for political and financial gain.

It must be horrendous having this literally on your doorstep. Be safe.

As you say, it must be even worse for people of visible non-white British heritage, and gut wrenching for those who are 2nd & 3rd generation British to now be challenged and asked to go home.

The huge rise in racism is one of the reasons we left the UK, we were no longer safe, even children from the ages of 4/5 were being racist towards our son at the local park, so imagine how racist their parents are.

For the first time in my adult life I’m living somewhere where I’m yet to experience racism, in the UK I wouldn’t go a week without experiencing racism. Sometimes just words, othertimes I would be spat at, chased, people would resort to violence or shout to people in the street that I had done something as they were confident knowing there would be so many fellow racists around who would believe them, rather than try to help a non-white person.

Sorry to hear that, noone deserves that kind of abuse.

It's being used as an excuse for the racist scum of britain to crawl out of the woodwork and abuse/ harrass brown people or immigrants, do you not see that? Do you not see that these White Supremacist Terrorists (some of the worst massacres in history were committed by White Supremacist terrorists and now people in England are attacking mosques, attacking innocent people and children- it's getting worse) are the issue atm. Stop making excuses and tackle the actual criminal issue here.

What are your feelings about British families feeling frightened for their children because they have brown skin?

@Peridoteage- as you say you don't care if someone is brown, black or white if they were born and raised here, and are British.

I was born here and am racially attacked and get told to leave my street every day. The racism is out of control- doesn't matter if you're born here or you're 3rd generation, they attack anyone non white- they're racists.

What makes me feel worse is when I start to justify my right to be here.

Well actually i speak very good English.

Well actually I now fit in very well culturally.

Well actually my kids have jobs in the social sector. I raised those kids.

And it makes me sick that I use those justifications to live here to myself. It makes me sick that I'm forced into that narrative.

I think that's why I'm so horrified by racists, that my automatic defence mechanism is to try and go under their radar. Because all humans want is to belong.

When actually I want to punch them in the face, I don't want their narrative, it's bullshit. I don't see why I should, or anyone else ever should, have to justify their existence to anyone. And I think that's why I'm so angry. I don't want to be who they are making me. And I really have no answer for them, because their wants and demands are shit that don't deserve answers. They are not coherent.

I feel for you, @user1499291455 , and for everyone else in your position.

I was driving yesterday on a route that took me through three separate towns over about 10 miles, and the England flags were on every lamp post along the whole distance. The sheer cumulative effect felt oppressive even to this white person, and must surely be positively intimidating to people of colour.

The people working so hard to generate imagery must have known it would be intimidating to every person of colour. Even if in their minds they experienced themselves as making a distinction between people of colour and recent immigrants, it is hard to believe they would do something so knowingly intimidating without racism being part of their motivation, conscious or unconscious.

I live in a relatively white part of the UK, and until recently I had associated racism with the parts of the my region that were most disadvantaged, where anger and a sense of exclusion are rife. But this was in a different part of the county, which I had thought of as more insulated from racism.

Interestingly there were also paid-for billboard ads, with a union jack background, that had messages critical of Labour policy in relation to farmers. It's an agricultural area, and it felt like evidence of the new Reform-style right just seizing on whatever anxious currents they can find and using misinformation to magnify this anxiety.

Keep your pride/ culture, whatever. When racist Brits say immigrants haven't integrated, I too want to punch them in the face. My grandparents, helped the community so much, serviced free food regularly. their English wasn't great and they were Good people, never committed crimes, were never racist to anyone, didnt attack innocent refugee children fleeing from Death, didn't say 'pakis go home', didn't abuse people.

What have those racist brits who try to force feed their culture down their faces done for England, have they given out free food, yet insult my grandmother everyday who worked her ass off, contributed to society, fed people for free in the community and was an angelic soul. Why should I fit in with racists who abuse and harrass people, and why should I give up my grandmothers culture which I am so proud of and love? Racist people are Not Normal, you cannot ever appease a racist person, they still hate you for the colour of your skin, no matter who they are. Chin up and don't acquiesce to abusers.

Same here. I was marching against the National Front in the 70s, I never dreamed that I'd be doing it again against a different group 50 years later.

On a more positive note, my local "Stand Up To Racism" group has had a massive upsurge in interest in recent weeks, with big events next Saturday and again on Nov 16. And I've only seen 3 flags in my town of approx 20k people.

Increased racism is a direct consequence of people feeling poorer and too high immigration (legal and illegal). Successive governments are responsible for this, not just the current one.

When - if - we ever get a government who can sort these two issues out, racism will naturally decline again, I’m sure.

No, its the result of people with super low self esteem trying to step on ethnic minorities to feel better about themselves. Racists are sad bitter losers- no need to try and give them an excuse other than that.

I agree with this.

I'm really fed up of our political leaders trying to appease them when they should be telling them why racism is wrong.

This always get brought up. Of course anyone can be racist but can’t you see there is a massive difference. How often as a white person have I experienced racism? None.

A white person in the UK won’t be followed round a shop in case they are shoplifting because they are white, they won’t be stopped by the police because they are white, they won’t be racially abused in the street because they are white, they won’t fail a job interview because they are white.

So yes, everyone no matter their colour, culture or anything else can be racist but there really is nothing for me to worry about for myself when it comes to other people being racist towards white people.

I’m half Czech and grateful that I no longer use my maiden name, which is very definitely Eastern European! My family suffered from xenophobia when I was growing up, especially since that was during the Cold War. My father was accused of being a Russian spy.

My DSis is more open about her background and has had negative comments about it.

Im well aware that being able to hide behind my very English married name is a privilege I have that non white people don’t have. Like you I hate that.

I’m so sorry you’re having to put up with such disgusting racism, OP.