to be Polish and feel sick for being made a scapegoat in this election campaing?

[farmazon]

I made a mistake reading newspapers online today.
All spitting out anti-eastern european/Polish venom.

It doesn't matter I work, do Master's degree and bring my child in love of both British and Polish culture I'm still 'destroying this country'. I give up.

Eric Eric Eric

My dear.

Shall we go through what I said again?

"Dunno, haven't seen any examples of this anti Polish "venom" you are talking about. "

No, really I haven't.

"Nor has anyone else here."

No, nobody else had on the thread up to that point - tho ScreaminEagle has pointed up a nasty one just now

" And you haven't linked to anything."

Still hasn't despite requests earlier

"And I think there's plenty of examples above of what the feelings about Polish people are in this country"

Loads of egs above

"So, sorry, looks like attention-seeking from someone who wants to be a victim.
Meh"

Stand by that until OP comes up with something more than being offended by something - which she hasn't shared - that she read in the paper.

Haven't said anything about her feelings.

HAve told you about mny feelings which is that OP looks as if she is attention seeking in the absence of other evidence.

I have had a discussion briefly over the last few years with the boys I teach (all boys). One lovely Polish boy in the class who they have known since yr 8 when he arrived and had nearly no English and I could tell he was v interested in the discussion.

I am from multi-ethnic (non white) extraction so I deliberately don't focus on the race issue in these discussions. I teach in a very white, working class, 'British' city with a lot of deprivation which the BNP has been targeting heavily in the last 10 yrs.

I inform them of how some of their policies are anti-women, anti-disability, anti-homosexual and point out how these policies are threatening to everyone as they cut across race lines and one day they can personally affect them and their families.

We then discuss what makes us English and does that mean that some of them are more English than others and where does that sort of thinking stop.

I inform tell them how they (BNP especially) use the race issue to be divisive but were they to gain power how they would discriminate against anyone.

Last lesson, One or 2 boys, 'pure' English , openly vented that if this country ever got to that point, they would emigrate.

Sorry for the somewhat off topic nature of the post but I imo also relevant to the wider discussion.

"Meh"

sorry missed that one. Hard to define really, but just imagine me kind of raising eyebrows a bit, shrugging shoulders a bit, you know.

We talked about WW2 and how for generations many races of people fought for the British. One of them added they have seen Sikh graves in the French and Belgian war cemeteries.

One asked what would the bnp do about the Gurkhas? [grin}

I also mentioned this letter to them. Which is probably why he poses with Churchill's picture behind him. Ignoring the irony that Churchill was fighting his brand of fascism.

Catinthehat - I've heard absolutely loads of anti-polish venom from MIL, SIL and FIL. Not my favourite people, as you can imagine after sitting through their racist crap for years.

The insidiously racist comments are the more damaging imo. Because they are seen as acceptable. Like the 'flocks of Eastern Europeans'.

What are they? Sheep? Birds? What do they smell like? Are they allowed in the house?

What if the phrase was 'flocks of Jews', would the Conservatives and the press still think her opinion was OK?

bloody bigots, the lot of them.

I think the problem is that people see all the hard working Poles in jobs and suggest they are taking jobs from locals. They forget that the govt chose to not place a cap on immigration in the EU rather than encourage the long term unemployed back in to work.

I think most people accept that the Poles are hard working and haven't come here for a free ride. I think people are voicing that the govt should have handled the situation better.

Also there's no doubt that the schools, health centres etc in some areas do struggle to cope.

You know what is crap - agencies who employ casual workers. DH (also an immigrant) did some agency labouring work for a while. They occasionally gave them regular jobs but mostly it was a call the day before to see if you want work the next day, average of 3 days work a week, completely unreliable. If you are a regular bloke on JSA it's not actually worth your while to work for those agencies, and if you have to support a family it's not enough money.

The point (there is one, promise) is that lots of Polish guys sign on to these agencies, will do the really crappy jobs that others won't (there are some really awful labouring jobs out there) and tended to live in shared cheapo houses at least 2 to a room so they were able to save money. They were reliable, always turned up when sent somewhere so they were preferred over the english lads who were picky about which jobs they would do (fair enough!) and wouldn't work like animals and expected crazy things like lunch breaks.

I don't blame the polish workers for that, people should be able to expect regular work, proper contracted hours, lunch breaks and extra pay for dangerous work. The fact that there is no regulation whatsoever in the agency industry and employers can pick and choose from thousands of labourers means the jobs are not good enough. It caused a lot of resentment amongst the british lads DH worked with. They never seemed to mind DH tho - the odd racist or islamophobic comment but on the whole he was accepted. he thought it was because the polish lads tended to keep themselves to themselves - but again, if you are experiencing hostility then you are bound to only talk to other polish people...

SGM -

"Can't imagine why the OP would need to tell Catinthehat2 which articles were anti-Polish. Its fairly self-evident which newspapers run racist articles daily immigration"

Wasn't just me that was asking I'm afraid. OP was reading on line articles, shouldn't have thought it was too difficult to provide links.

But:"I made a mistake reading newspapers online today.
All spitting out anti-eastern european/Polish venom."

I still haven't seen these particular pieces of venom, nor has anyone else. And no one else has come up with these mysterious articles in today's papers, local or national. I still see it as attention seeking on behalf of the OP. It's still Meh.

Now - go onto the rest of the thread, and you start getting to the real stuff,ScraminEagles post, TheBossofme, the comments you yourself are hearing daily.

It is the government that are at fault for not providing properly for maternity services,housing and schools for the immigrant population that they have allowed to settle here. Unsuprisingly this has a negative impact on the already resident population, and also unsuprisingly it is all too easy for ignorant people to scapegoat the individuals rather than blame the government.

It's clearly not the fault of eastern european immigrants themselves and I have sympathy for the OP - but not for the government who have allowed the current situation to arise.

was it the mail? they have it in for everyone

I'm sorry everyone for not responding earlier.
My internet connection dropped and then I had to go and do some real life stuff.

Thank you for your lovely words.

I do admit that I had mainly Murdoch's henchmen in mind when mentioned the press.

Can't be bothered to link to garbage in DM about jobs being taken by polish lads who "didn't suffer the handicap of British state education". I kid you not.

In Times Janice Turner writes about celebrating Mrs Duffy's way of thinking. Nice one.

General mood is very xenophobic at the moment especially after Cameron's "victory" in last debate.

I hope it will all die out after election is finished.

I like Poles! In fact I'm going out to dinner with one this evening. I met her in the maternity ward nearly 14 years ago and we're still buddies.

But... as an environmental worrier I do worry about more demand on housing which inevitably follows an increase in the population. I live near a small town earmarked to have 5000 new houses built on fields.

farmazon I've read those articles and agree how draining they are in their insidious implications.

Due to a lot of mixing of genes, I look very Middle Eastern. People seeing me for the first time assume I'm Muslim and I have to say I get the "immigrant" turning up of the nose often. When they get to know me better and realise I'm born-and-bred Welsh their attitudes change. This disgusts me more than their initial reaction and I generally give such people short shrift

Sadly I have heard plenty of anti-Polish/eastern European comments. Lots of nasty remarks about 'waves of them coming' and about eastern European women getting coming in as mail-order brides. DP is Russian and catches a bit of the flack too.

farmazon, don't let it get you down, but I do know how you feel.

TBH it now seems to be the acceptable racism iykwim. It certainly isn't acceptable for me but I do believe that people can rant about 'eastern europeans' without any comeback whereas if they did about, say, asians, there would be uproar.

I haven't met any Poles socially but in general I only ever hear positive things about their work ethic, eg the builders working up the road work flat out from dawn to dusk, are always polite & pleasant if I need them to move their van or whatever.

I have absolutely no problem with European immigration as they have a broadly similar culture and don't try to upset anyone.

I am sorry that you have been upset by such rubbish, and that some of your countrymen have experienced discrimination and hatred.

There is a undercurrent of nastiness, nothing concrete that you could really object to. The referral to the Eastern Europeans flocking to the country - it is so subtle to be hardly noticeable. When you comment on it, you are told you are being unreasonable and over-sensitive.

It is worrying. I have experienced the same in Germany. Suddenly it was ok to moan about the Eastern Europeans, the Croatians, the Arabs, the Turks. Swiftly followed by, "I am not racist, but..."

There is certainly an undercurrent of nastiness.

A british builder was interviewed the other day and was really angry that the 'Poles' would work for 500 a week and that he was unable to get jobs as he needed 1000 a week to work.

I wish one of the political leaders would have the guts to stand up and say, categorically, that European migration to this country has been an almost wholly positive thing. And also, that is NOT GOING TO STOP in the long term as we are part of the EU. So deal with it!

Bottle jobs, the lot of them.

We are not all racists and xenophobes. I for one think it is absolutely disgusting that eastern European migrants are being scapegoated and blamed for all manner of things.

'I have absolutely no problem with European immigration as they have a broadly similar culture and don't try to upset anyone.'

Riiiight. Oh no, sorry, what?

I don't know which immigrants you're thinking of that do 'try' to upset' people.

There are masses of different cultures across Europe, and I don't know what you imagine makes them broadly similar? For example, take language: Hungary is in the EU and yet their language is far less closely related to English than the 'Indo' bits of Indo-European