Flag bearers, marchers- these are your (white) people…

[Dannydevitoiloveyourart]

AIBU to think that if you attended the Unite the Kingdom rally and/or displayed English flags because Tommy Robinson told you to- the racists in the linked video are your people and you are either a racist or complicit with racism.

A black YouTuber went in disguise to the rally and had no difficulties finding racists happy to openly air their views:

My husband often hears similar comments to those in the video from ordinary local white people who feel comfortable and mistake him as one of them, but don’t realise he’s married to a brown person.

Just because you agree with the views of a racist organisation or cause on a single issue, does not make it ok to join that racist organisation or cause. In the same way believing in a free Palestine does not make it ok to join Hamas.’ Dissatisfaction with post WW1 reparations and sanctions did not make it ok for Germans to endorse the Nazi party. Anger about economic policies does not make it ok for Americans to vote Trump. If you want to join those causes over a single issue, you should admit that you are in fact a terrorist/ racist/ xenophobic.

YABU- it’s unfair to call someone racist just because they have marched with Tommy Robinson or hung flags in support of his movement

YANBU- you cannot support a racist/xenophobic movement without actually being racist/ xenophobic

I think it’s terrifying. People are upset because they are seeing their living standards fall, with no hope for improvement for so many, housing just keeps getting more and more expensive unless you own your own house, which a whole generation is now finding close to impossible. Then the media, that’s owned by terribly rich people who don’t want inequality to be the story, come along and say we’ve got immigrants in hotels (they gloss over the awful conditions these people are living in for months or even years while their asylum claim is being processed) and the far right, as they always have, say ‘we can fix this’.

Then working people are divided, and the rich continue to get richer and avoid scrutiny and taxation.

These people are hard of thinking and someone has sold them an answer that won’t solve their problems. The left needs to step up, call it out and come up with some credible ways to improve the lives of working people.

What a wonderful example of DARVO. Absolute text book. Minoritised people in this country are the ones who have been silenced for decades and their experiences of racism whitewashed. But here you are deflecting that experience, claiming that your majority voice is silenced, and reversing the victim. Claiming that the (majority white supporters) of Robinson are being "dehumanised" when that is precisely what has happened to black people for centuries is particularly tone-deaf and actually maliciously, intentionally provocative.

OP, Mumsnet is a fertile ground for white fragility, and weaponised white women's tears, as is clear from many of these responses.

Ok so your boss thought it was fine to join a march organised by a known racist, criminal thug who founded the EDL- an extreme nationalist and xenophobic organisation with a history of agression and violence against foreigners, ethnic minorities and Muslims? And you’re ok with that?

Where is the line drawn then? In 1932 millions of Germans marched with Hitler and the Nazi party in protest against the state of the economy and political unrest in Germany, and with full knowledge of Nazi beliefs about Jews. So in your view it would be fair to say those Germans weren’t racist or complicit with racism by piggy backing on the Nazi marches and movements?

Your boss is highly ignorant then. Of course turning up to someone's event is showing support for them. If it wasn't, then those who just to show they won't be "stopped from flying the English flag" (which they've never been, by the way) could just have a lovely flag-waving party without piggy-backing on a right-wing, racist, thug.
The company people keep tells us a lot about them.

Sick of these types of posts. No they're not racist. No we're not a racist country. They were just normal people there standing up against losing our whole identity. Mothers, fathers, grandparents. Plenty of non white people there too. Muslims. Black people. Go watch the video of the Muslim lady who went to the rally alone, expecting to get racially abused, only to find she was kindly accepted.

Must be nice to hold such views from up there on that high horse.

They're fascists. Time to call it what it is, no more pussy footing around. Starmer didn't help, with all his crap about "thugs". None of this mealy mouthed prevarication does anyone good. Why be afraid of hurting the feelings of fascists? We all know this nasty little white European problem when we see it. It's the refusal to name it that's given them so much leeway, that's let them shift the overton window.

But we need to be clear. If you with implicit or explicit threat demand exclusion of groups of people based on race, culture or religion, you're a fascist.

I spent a fair bit of time watching various live streams that were available during that Saturday of the protest.

Whilst, earlier on, some of the protesters seemed to be good natured, as the day wore on it got increasingly grim. On these streams you could clearly hear the chants, the two main ones were

Keeer starma is a waaankaar
(sung unimaginatively to the white stripes song as copied from the original Jeremy corbyn chant, ironic lol)

and more troublingly,

Alla, alla, ooo da fuk is alla?

Hardly a family day out is it.

I then watched the police horses corralled in Whitehall getting pelted with bottles, smashing on the poor animals faces whilst the “patriots” strained to get through to the, mostly older men and women (completely passive) to stove their heads in. Lovely.

Don’t give me tiny minority. There were thousands doing this.

I can link to these live feeds if anyone is interested, they’re still up on YT.

They probably all voted brexit too. Which is the single biggest driver of the increase in undocumented migrants. So they're actually marching against and putting flags up in response to their own poor choices. "Take our country back" they say. Well, you just did. And how's that going for you, fuckwit?

Oh they can .. of course you can racially abuse a white person however to suggest it’s on par with hate crimes against ethnic/black and Asians is disingenuous but then you knew that. It’s a pathetic attempt at derailing ops thread.

@Lonelycrab have I understood this correctly?

You saw "thousands" of people being violent?

Anyone who supports Tommy or attends his gatherings is racist. There’s. I question about it.

If you’re genuinely concerned about ‘migration’ then there’s appropriate forums to do this. Attending hate matches and shouting racial slurs isn’t really a good look.

Racist is bandied about to so many people now it’s no longer the insult it was . We’re all racist apparently so let’s just agree we are so the left have nothing left to argue about .

They are embarrassing. There are distinct patterns to the attendees at these marches. It’s mostly (for want of a better word) the underclass, the ones who have been left behind, outcast, under achievers in life, possibly lonely and Isolated and have chronically low self esteem. This is also why a significant number of them turn out to be wife beaters and paedophiles. Taking their weaknesses out on immigrants makes them feel powerful and superior. Every single one of them he talked to seemed like a loser who was as dumb as a post.

It’s racism. Let’s call a spade a spade here, and just like all bullies and thugs of life, it’s never to do with the victims, and everything to do with the deep seated self hatred of the perpetrators.

There is an excellent documentary on YouTube where a Muslim journalist meets neo nazis in America to try and understand what drives this kind of behaviour. I found it a very good watch. It’s here if anyone is interested

How old are they? It’s a horrible video, very hard watch indeed. To be clear its great undercover journalism and exposes what most or many of us already knew but it’s still difficult hearing the open hatred from so many.

I’m sure he didn’t have to look very long or hard among that crowd of protestors to get those views. They are not some fringe minority - at least not in those gatherings . Disgusting.

YANBU, OP.

@hattie43 No one has ever suggested I'm a racist, and I would guess this is true of the majority of the population. If you're happy to call yourself a racist, you likely are one. Hth.

This. And when you call it out they say that’s what pushing them to vote reform, it’s like no you were already racist if you were attending or supporting these kind of marches - just own it.

Yeah classic. "Look what you made me do!!!" Err, no. You did that pal. You decided to be a fascist, all by yourself. You looked at the world around you and all the people in it and thought that was your best option.

Go on then, you skip to 3hr 28 mins on this video and count them then; you’ll see the glasses being thrown at the police horses too. Dozens of police and horses straining to hold back the crowd, getting punched, sworn at and bottles thrown at them.

Hundreds and hundreds of them. It takes 50 people to span that road and they are many deep. Watch it and tell me I’m wrong. Perhaps you weren’t following exactly what was going on.

Yobs

I am sorry you have a boss devoid of critical thinking.

No-one - not even Keir Starmer (sarcasm, sorry, i feel i have to make it clear) is saying you can't fly the English flag. Or the British flag.

We are saying it is great to see those flags flying to support e.g. our sports teams, or national events such as a jubilee. Also great to see them flying on an everyday basis.

But when they are being put up in response to racists calling for immigrants (some if them anyway, I don't hear much outrage against white Aussies / Kiwis / South Africans etc) to be deported... well, it does rather come across as flying the flag to support racists

I keep saying this but it's got fuck all to do with race or skin colour or nationality, its about people taking the piss. That includes people coming here and then bringing lots of relatives and those already here who manipulate the system whatever colour they are, especially when so many are struggling.

We are a very tolerant country and welcome anyone here who works and pays their taxes, integrates into the community they live in and doesn't rape or kill us.

Starting a thread like this is designed to cause division and shame on that reporter for cherry picking his interviewees. You know as well as I do that many people on that march were there to tell Starmer and his nasty bunch of cronies where to get off.

Yeah, it’s pure spite. It’s because they’ve got the emotional maturity of a two year old stamping their feet! ‘That nasty person said I was wacist and stewpid, I’ll show them now!’ They don’t care if they suffer, just as long as someone they dislike suffers more. It was the same with Brexiteers when asked what was the best thing about Brexit? They say ‘Remainer tears’. These are grown arse adults. It’s laughable 😂

I didn't attend. A 14 year old from my town was sexually abused and considered a suitable sex partner by a resident of the local hotel. It could have been my daughter. Is he a perv who has been here for 8 days from some random country? Yes. Do I think our government doesn't care about women here? Yes. Would you be happy if it was your daughter? Would you?

Sadly not. Look at the Windrush scandal.

Look at Farage saying even people who have come here to fill skills gaps, paid their taxes and contributed to the community should be deported.

This says a lot about you. Racism, sexism, homophobia, xenophobia, etc are not buzz words or insults but real life discrimination and hatred affecting marginalised groups.

Must be nice to ignore racism simply because it doesn’t affect you. Some of us have to live what you dismiss as point scoring for the left. I have to tell explain to my kids why a small minority of their peers are now openly using racial slurs around them/ causally talking in racist ways…Conversations I was hoping I wouldn’t have to have with them until they were older but have been fast-tracked by the increasing open racism we are experiencing as a result of the current climate

And the (male) protesters who have history of domestic abuse?

And then chant slogans about protecting 'our' women? (Just not the women they abused)