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.

Catch yourself on

Nice try OP.

OP your whole premise is false as people living on the south coast of England and lowland Scots have the same DNA* but I guess it doesn't do to muddy the waters with facts.

*see the BBC TV series "blood of the Vikings"

🙄

Anyway op has mysteriously disappeared. Can someone confirm the time in Moscow for me?

Now do the Spanish, the Germans, Portuguese, the French, the Italians, the Ottomans, the Viking’s etc etc etc
There isn’t a single nation that hasn’t got skeletons in their closets. They’ve all taken advantage of their ability to dominate others and enslave women, children etc
Do you really think England has NOTHING to be proud of?

My thoughts exactly.

Oh give it a rest.

What nationality are DH and his family ??

so they slag off England, the bloke has married an English woman, and presumably they live in England ???

cheeky fuckers - don’t let them treat you like shit and make you feel ashamed to be English - if it was that bad, why are they living here and not their home country ??????

As far as I can make out its the name for ppl that like to display a union jack flag

We forget that there's hardly, if any 'pure' English. We're all mongrels to a greater or lesser degree.

But the OP went to a Catholic school and had an Irish teacher therefore can’t be brainwashed….oh hang on a minute.

The answer is to not let the fascist Little Englanders win. England is a great country, beautiful, with a great culture and mostly great people. But a loud minority want to tarnish that because they've been told to hate immigrants as a diversionary tactic so they don't look at the people who are actually making life harder for everyone.

There are definitely things we need to acknowledge about our history but I strongly dislike the idea that people can inherit guilt from other people's historical actions. You didn't participate in the Atlantic Slave Trade or set up a concentration camp in Africa. It's extremely important to be aware of what this country has done and the pain it caused and continue to causes, to ensure it doesn't happen again. But that isn't the same as feeling personal guilt for something that happened many years ago before you were born. That kind of guilt hurts you and helps precisely no one. Do something productive with that energy instead.

Just bear in mind I'm in Scotland - it doesn't rain much where I am but also I don't want to risk an intranational fracas with football supporting 😁.

Maybe some Rugby with the Lions might be more sensible and would be an easy transition

I'd wager they are exactly the same nationality as OP.

Which is unlikely to be English.

It’s not but it was particularly barbaric in my view - and the sheer size and cruelty

fairly recent history too

I’d watch David Ulusogu’s recent series on bbc “Empire” - 3 parts - very interesting and explains how empire moved to India after couldn’t exploit colonies in America any more - horrendous what was done to Caribbean islands - really good at showing you how indentured slaves were treated to nothing like African slaves who weren’t even regarded as human

Some people literally have no respect for themselves whatsoever. Can you imagine just sitting there like a lame duck as your so called in law family disrespected you and your family....these pp need therapy and educating. It is not okay to be so rude, in any culture. Jesus the bar just gets lower.

@Traballi the reason I make that connection is that feeling personal shame for an inherited national or racial identity is exactly how group based moral responsibility works. That way of thinking does not come from liberal individualism, which judges people by actions. It comes from Marxist and post Marxist traditions, even when the people expressing it do not see themselves as political.

People call “white guilt” communist not because it comes from the Soviet Union, but because it follows a Marxist moral structure, even after the economics have been stripped out.

Classical Marxism did three things that matter here.

• It relocated moral responsibility from individuals to groups.
• It framed history as a story of oppression and exploitation.
• It treated guilt and consciousness as political tools.

Those three moves still exist today. They have just been re-skinned.

In addition, if you are going to spend decades telling people they are morally responsible for the deeds of those who lived before them, that they share some kind of inherited guilt by ancestry, then you cannot also claim that history is purely individual when it suits you. You cannot say blood and continuity matter only for blame, but never for achievement.

Either we are connected across generations or we are not.

And if we are, then it is simply false to pretend that England’s history consists only of exploitation. The same civilisation produced parliamentary democracy, common law, abolitionism, industrial science, modern engineering, and institutions that many other societies voluntarily adopted because they worked.

You do not get to collectivise guilt and individualise credit. That is not moral consistency. It is communist ideology in nature.

How much world history have you studied.

I recommend Andrew Marrs a history of the world (really good audiobook available), basically for as long as humans have existed they've been shit to each other, all countries towards others or towards their own, it's what humans do best unfortunately, and is definitely not an exclusively English or British trait.

I will not apologise for being white British and for the way rich white people treated others. My descendants were in the work house, tenant farmers etc etc.

I do believe in tying up inheritance tax laws so that those families (Grovesnors) still rich based on wealth built through slavery and colonisation don't continue to benefit.

OP, you don't work for the BBC do you?

Most countries in W Europe have a colonial past. Portugal played a bigger role in the slave trade than Britain. But are Portuguese people ashamed or embarrassed about their country? Of course not. They wouldn't be that daft.

No, they were oppressed too, obvs. Despite Glasgow being the second city of the Empire.

Anyway, I don't even know what "English" means. How you speak - ie your accent? There's no other way of telling if someone is "English". And your DH's family hate people based on their accent? Well that's....interesting.

🥱 so soon after Christmas for the run of the mill baiting miserable self hating thread. I pity you actually.

I totally get it OP. Just listen to any radio phone in and it has become totally cringe. The level of intolerance and ranting by people who usually have their facts wrong.

Since all the Brexit rabble rising, there has a complete dehumanisation of many groups because they happened to be born elsewhere which is shameful. All by people who probably contribute very little to their communities and this country yet are happy to take because 'they have paid their taxes'.

Most people I know like this do all they can to work cash in hand and never volunteer locally. If you love your country then bloody get involved in litter picking instead of sticking up flags, help the most disadvantaged and stop voting in a way that destroys public services. You did not survive ww2, rationing or undertake national service. So stop making out like you did and acknowledge you have done really well out of the last few decades, the EU and globalisation.

Im not English and I think you should feel proud of your nationality OP. Yes historically Britain was guilty of many things, most of which aren’t taught today as you point out. But that’s what was done in those times, it’s just how it was. It took some brilliant strong people to change things bit by bit and many of them were English too.

I actually think it’s quite shit that so many people feel like they can’t fly their flag because of far right nationalists hijacking it.

This, am really hoping that this ridiculous self flagellation stops being so trendy soon. It’s bloody tiresome!