The racism on the Huntingdon train threads is appaling

[Perplexed20]

Just as the title says. The blatant racism and jumping to conclusions on the threads has been terrible. Mumsnet used to be a more informed intelligent place.

Let's get this right.

Yes, up to last year (afaik), we had a million odd immigrants come. Guess what? Nearly all of those people were granted visas by our government to come work/study here.

Then, you complain about the infrastructure. This is a valid point.
However, who do you think is in charge of our infrastructure? The same government who grants those visas.

The same government who actually CUT the funding for years, under austerity, for all those things we need, schools, NHS, housing etc while still granting record numbers of visas.

Who really is to blame here? The immigrants or our flipping governments? Let's get angry with the right people.

Firstly, I would point out that we live in an era where terrorist attacks are not unusual and there have been previous terrorist attacks where knives were used. Under which circumstances it is not racist to speculate about the identity of the perpetrators, and whilst I appreciate that the police did state that it was not terrorism-related, the information was drip-fed and you have to accept that at least some of the people speculating had not seen the police statement when they posted.

I am mixed-race and I have to say that I am heartily sick of people (many of whom have never experienced racism themselves) calling out racism where none exists. Rooting out posts for speculation and reporting them, when you know that moderators will delete just because there has been a complaint, and then triumphantly posting about it as if it makes one a dispenser of justice, is a particularly foul form of bigotry.

We're living in a powder-keg in this country. Telling people they can't express their fears and then jumping down their throats when they do so clumsily doesn't help any of us. I am proud of my heritage, but if I am subjected to racism I will deal with it, and I don't need someone who can't even define the term muddying the waters in order to make themselves feel superior.

There are racists everywhere. A friend of mine was murdered and the stuff that was said about him was horrific. They dragged his name through the mud. He was called a pedophile. It was suggested that he groomed the person that killed him. That she was his drug mule. She said in court that he was kind to her. That he was a mentor to her. That he was never inappropriate with her. That in a moment of anger she stabbed him. He lost his life but the trolls destroyed his name.

I said people are entitled to their own opinions based on their life experiences. Oddly that was reported and removed by MN. Why should anyone report that, was it you?
We live in a world of the terminally offended.

I think we have a lot of arrivals that have had very violent experiences, and that had normalised extreme violence in them that just doesn’t happen in the UK. The civil war in Rwanda saw people running around hacking up perfectly innocent bystanders with machetes. There are similar atrocities happening in Sudan. Arrivals from these countries need therapy, but that just doesn’t happen when they arrive in such massive numbers.

Can someone send me the link to the original thread so I can see for myself?

It's natural to feel fear when these things happen. I'm sure when Dunblane happened anyone who had a child in primary school must have felt afraid.

But I don't remember anyone saying the killer must have come from a backward culture and all other white people must be put under suspicion.

Really? Coz carrying knives is a massive problem in the UK, esp with the youngsters. Very much a weapon of choice, not just for white, all.

Your statement requires evidence.

I am ill and was awake in the middle of the night scrolling Facebook and the wall to wall "we've got to mobilise and fight them and get Labour ahhtt" comments on the poxy Facebook threads started by sheer dumb idiots were pretty indistinguishable from the comments on the Mumsnet threads. Absolutely shocking.

Nah, I didn't report it, am completely happy for people's stupid comments to stand.

And that's not all what you said...

Of course if we were really worried about abuse of the asylum system we'd set up a processing system in France so that people's claims could be properly assessed before they were granted refugee status.

i know! they told us straight away they were black honestly why speculate?

None of those were mass stabbings.

There are people on Twitter saying all migrants (ie non-whites) should be dragged out of their homes and "got rid of".

But it's all just people concerned about infrastructure, right?

The racists couldn’t give a hoot about the poor victims . They just want to use this opportunity to spout their vile racist views
it is so disgusting

23 out of the 31 terrorist attacks since 2000 have been by Islamic extremists.

MI5 say this: “Islamist terrorism is the most significant terrorist threat to the UK by volume. Islamist terrorists are generally driven by an extreme interpretation of Islam”

So it doesn’t seem unreasonable to suspect a terrorist attack in the Huntingdon case, especially as police initially called it a terrorist attack and the suspects at the time fitted a common profile.

The length of time it took to release any info compared to the spies Ruth ehh h they identify white criminals is suspicious. Just remember that Axel Rudakabana was described as a Welsh choirboy until the truth came out.

I said 'reporting racist posts'. If the racism is obvious, why would you not report it? You seem to assume that people see racism where none exists. I'm sure that does happen sometimes but I think it's far more rare than people claiming they weren't being racist when they were. You also seem to assume that someone was 'rooting out' racist posts, rather than just stumbling across them. And why would you think someone pointing out racism is doing it to make themselves feel superior?

Exactly. Foul, often violent racists hide behind "we just have reasonable concerns" bullshit.
Before anyone terminally hard of reading takes that to say I'm saying "wot, are you saying everyone is a racist if they are just concerned about numbers?"
No. No I'm not.
Anyone talking or doing any "dragging out of homes" worries me far more than anyone who may or may not be a migrant based on the colour of their skin.

My response to an appalling, brutal attack is not to start speculating and whipping up hatred. My response is to wait for the facts to come out and in the meantime do what I can to stop aforementioned unfounded speculation and accusations against minorities.

The police never called it a terrorist attack.

Rooting out posts for speculation and reporting them, when you know that moderators will delete just because there has been a complaint
Lol, that hardly ever happens though. Half the time you're told to "challenge on the thread" and it's left to stand. They don't just delete because there's been a complaint!

If there was an arson attack on housing for asylum seekers, I would suspect that it was radicalised white racists. And I would condemn it, and the polarisation of society which has encouraged some people to dehumanise people who don't have the same beliefs or ethnicity as them.

No one is saying that only one 'side' commits atrocities.

If a woman is found dead in a park, I tend to think a man did it. It doesn't mean I think all men are murderers.

Legal immigration that you speak of is essential for our country.

Foreign Students pay 3x more than a local student and bring in money to the country to support their living expenses. They don’t get and are not eligible for any student loans here. British universities attract researches and phd applicants that we are and should be super proud of. Attracting the cream of the cream from abroad to study here and stay here is what we desperately need so we can be the centre of excellence and innovation and creation because that’s what drives the economy.
The people who come here on working visas come here for jobs like carers that no one in the uk wants to do and there are not enough people to do it anyway as we are an aging society.

OH- next time you get care from the NHS or private I dare you to find British born healthcare professional, we simply can’t train them fast enough because we don’t have the facilities to do so and don’t have money to recruit more even if we can. I know a lot of British GPs can’t get jobs because they are recruiting advanced nurse practitioners instead who are cheaper.

You were barking at the wrong tree.
Blame your current and old governments for not investing in any of the essential infrastructure and letting it rot.

Blame the immigrants is a cheap scapegoat that the far right are using to win votes. The problem is much deeper than that.

Given far right wing/white suprematists are a growing and significant threat in this country not far behind other terror groups I think everyone should have waited to let the police do their job because it could have been anyone.

I think it’s disgusting how many people on those threads were frothing at the mouth for it to be an immigrant to fit their nasty narratives and racist agendas.

You justifying them is just as bad.