Embarrassed to be English

[Traballi]

Got ancestry results back recently and apparently I'm 98% English, tiny bit of Irish but not even Scottish or Welsh. It wasn't a surprise as already looked into family history and been here for centuries.

I'm actually embarrassed of my English lineage to be honest. What's there to be proud of with our appalling history of colonialism and more recent dallyings with the far right and flag shagging?

I see the British flag up where I live and I honestly cringe. I'm also married to someone who is from a country we have a history of conflict with too so that doesnt help although DH doesnt hate us excessively (won't name country in case outing but with our history of wars/ conflict/ invasion, it could be dozens of places lets be frank)

I guess I've had a different perspective on Englishness over many years through the people I know from overseas and I speak other languages too. I also went to a Catholic school (in England) which taught us about slavery and what happened in Northern Ireland. None of which was nice about the English (teacher was Irish). I'm grateful for these perspectives though as I wouldn't want to be brainwashed into being a blind patriot.

I have friends with strong Irish and Welsh roots and they have a real sense of identity to hold onto with it, ancestral languages that they're interested in and a feeling a pride.

If you're English, it's hard to feel like that unless you're in Tommy or Nige's crew, which makes me even less inclined towards patriotism tbh.

Does anyone else feel like this? It's a bit sad really. I'd love to at least be half something else to cling to that identity instead and ignore the English but.

Luckily my DC is only half English and has two other nationalities through DH, and is being brought up in Wales so will probably feel more Welsh. I'm also obtaining a passport from another country through DH soon and I'll be using that for all overseas travel as soon as I can so I can appear to be from there instead.

AiBU or do others feel like this? Being English just isn't cool.

Not “everyone” - but vast numbers have risked their lives to come here so it can’t be all bad .

Sounds like you have a family that judge you for things you didn't do. Not a nice family.

Just ask the Scots Irish and Welsh- they’ll tell ya!

honestly OP I think you should sign up to do an evening class in history or world current affairs.

The Industrial Revolution and technological advances made in the early 19th century played a very large part I think … ?

It happened, we cannot change it, but hopefully learnt from it. It’s history now, as horrid as things were, it happened a long time ago, very sad, but can’t change it, no matter what we do

You are overlooking how much of the nation’s wealth derived from the agricultural and industrial revolutions, which began here. Some came from slavery for sure, albeit a large proportion ended up in private hands. The empire also brought in wealth. But it’s untrue to say it all came from slavery and the colonies.

I’m delighted to be English. Imagine being French haha, or German OMG, that would be terrible. Although Danish would be good (Vikings) or Italian (Roman Empire) or Spanish (Conquistadors).

I’m blonde and blue eyed so might look out of place as African or Asian. So English is good.

Amazing and beautiful England with a fantastic history.

It’s the Irish education system in the 80s through 90s, it seems to have got better though as people educated later than that seem more grounded and less (at least openly) racist and nationalistic.

English history, and the country itself, is incredible and the strength of this 1 tiny island is basically unmatched the world over. It’s actually fairly astounding how it has managed to do the things it’s done. Game of Thrones is based on English history as GM found it so fascinating (and yes, bloodthirsty - but also full of clever, brave, resourceful characters).

I’m very proud of be English, and I think sometimes the eyebrow raise and smile type greeting we get from other countries is misconstrued as ‘hostility’ by people desperate to believe we’re hated because it, somehow, makes them feel better. Basically every European country has a fairly high opinion of us, many Asian countries do, Ukraine does, the States has an entire culture of ‘Anglophile’, and we are also building other relationships which have previously been unexplored.

However if you INSIST on leaving, I absolutely understand why, and look forward to updates on your new life in a fully ethical new homeland.

What utter nonsense.

The Scots also colonised plenty of places and enslaved lots of people.

Maybe you’re a bit behind the times, I know plenty of Irish people in their 30s and they’re perfectly normal nice non racist people so it’s definitely improved. It’s possibly to do with the priest scandal which happened around the 90s

The Irish were certainly also involved.
“From the seventeenth century to the nineteenth century the Irish could be found at every level of white society in the Caribbean “
https://www.dublincity.ie/sites/default/files/2022-01/2021-gilbert-lecture-slavery_web.pdf

Every day I wake up and thank my lucky stars that I am British. Am I proud? No. Everything I am grateful for is due to the good fortune of being born in the right place at the right time and there’s no denying that much of the wealth which affords that privilege was accumulated through colonial oppression and theft. A society can’t grow to create anything without the basic needs of food and shelter which are afforded to us.

The one thing I’m proud of is that my father fought the Nazis. Ashamed on his behalf that fascism is on the rise in the UK.

Yeah it's definitely the education system, it's just a coincidence that decades of conflict ended in the late 90s and that the people with no memory of it are more chill about the whole thing than those who lived through it.

I'm Irish so not a fan of English colonialism but there was an awful lot of it about - the Belgians, the Dutch, the Spanish, the Portuguese, the Germans, the US toward indigenous peoples etc. etc. A lot of pain and suffering and theft imposed on a lot of people by a lot of nations. The point is to acknowledge it and learn from it and move on. Tony Blair's apology for the famine meant a lot to me tbh. As did the way QEII spoke when on her visit to Ireland.

And for me English literature is a gift to the world.

Fucking lol.

Might i suggest you watch the documentary "sex in a cold climate"

State sponsored child kidnap, illegal adoption, murder, paedophilia, sexual abuse not to mention the some of the most horrific oppression of women until as little as 30 years ago.

No country is perfect anymore than anyone’s family is perfect.

I’d like to do one of these DNA/ ancestry/ health tests but don’t like the idea of my dna being stored or held on a database. Do they all do that or do any companies dispose of the dna once the test is complete?

There was no decades of conflict between Ireland and England that ended in the 90s?

I know , the education system over there is shocking. Total whitewash of their history

But the slave trade started in the 16th century, it was because this money was here in England that people could invest in education etc that the Industrial Revolution was possible.

Just to be clear, I was referring to the 1990s in my original post.

Jesus, this is the sort of miserablist hysterical self loathing bollocks you read in the Guardian every week where there seems there is a queue of opinion writers and BTL pundits who have no problems spewing out hatchet job pieces that seek to mock, shame or embarrass anyone who holds even the slightest regard for England, it's culture, it's history or the country's sense of national identity. Sure, such views will get you a load of Pavlovian upticks on comment is free but outside of that echo chamber very few people are ashamed or embarrassed of being English, that does not make them chest thumping Brexiteers,Daily Express readers or Tommy Robinson fans. The UK's counties and towns, it's tribal origins and histories, it's celebrations and traditions, accents and music and food and rivalries and every quirk of culture should be admired and celebrated, and if we were talking about any other nation the left would be doing just that. I'm not even English but it did not take long for me to see the contempt many on the left have for their country and many of the people in it.

You can choose for them to dispose of it I think!

I don’t wanna do one because my dad was a bit of a slapper back in the day by all accounts and the last thing I need is a surprise half-sibling popping up. I know of a few people this has happened to (and someone who discovered they were donor conceived) and it’s really shaken their worlds, I’m not sure I’m bothered enough to take that risk!