To wonder how I turned out the way I am?

[cupcakesandbunting]

My brother and I are both very liberal in pretty much all aspects. Sometimes I wonder how because my mother is one of the WORST bigots I know of. This may get a bit long and ranty but really, I must vent...

My mum is a lovely woman; dotes on her grandchildren, will help anyone out and is generally good BUT I cannot tally this with some of the awful things she comes out with regarding immigrants/people not of white british origin. First off, she comes out with "they come over here" which gets my hackles up instantly before coming out with some stupid, stupid remark about Poles having their own section in the supermarket (wtf is wrong with that anyway?!) then wehn I point out that when she goes on holiday to Greece, the greek supermarkets stock British brands she will reply "that's different" which I suppose it is, but still.

She will not listen to any reasoned argument with regards to the open door policy within the E.U and that she is as able to go live in Poland if she choose as the Poles are able to choose to live here. She knows my feelings on the BNP (they need to fuck off and never come back) and when I was expressing horror at Griffin's £50K to fuck off back to where you came from idea, I'm sure her eyes lit up.

I just don't understand her. She refuses to try and even understand a tiny bit about other cultures and why people might wish to leave their own country so they don't get burned out of their bloody houses ("yes but why must they come HERE?") yet she has a very good black friend but then she does make remarks like "John doesn't like the amount of Poles and HE'S black!" like not being white and expressing the same opinion as a white person makes them a black person worthy of note.

I just kind of wonder how brother and I ended up being very accepting of pretty much everyone when mother darling is clearly Nick Griffin in a wig and lipstick

Yeah she does, I'm afraid.

She came round today and complained that a Pole barged her with his shopping basket in Tesco. "How did you know he was a Pole?" I asked. "You can tell, can't you?" she said. Ummm, no? Unless Poles have a unique way of hitting you with their basket that I do not know about.

They were paying fine. I worked there.

And my dad worked there for 30 years.

People are too quick to blame immigrants for unemployment in English people. I have two mates who work in the Job Centre and they are banging their heads against brick walls because of english people refusing minimum wage jobs because it isn't worth their while.
If you aren't happy working for minimum wage then you should have got a standard of education that would have allowed you into the preofessional jobs market. Don't blame immigrants because YOU didn't take full advantage of a free educational system.

FWIW I work a minimum wage job and i am degree educated. I needed a job to fit in with having a kid and this is what I got offered. I'm not too proud to work for crap pay. Just because you get more on the dole than if you get a McJob, doesn't mean you shouldn't work.

I was working in Poland in the early 90s, and Warsaw was full of jolly accountants and the like saying "it's marvellous - I can have a 5 course meal and drinks and come home with change from a tenner", congratulating themselves on being paid UK wages in what was a really really poor country.

So now there are Poles having not such a brilliant time over here. If I'd been Polish, or indeed from any other country less well resourced than the UK, I might have understood the argument that I could stay and try and build up my own country, if I saw the opportunity to make something better for myself and my children in the UK, I would have taken it.

My point is, I don't "deserve" to be British and live here, it's just my very good luck. If someone else comes along and is willing to do a job I don't want to do, or does it better, well, more fool me. I should go and find an opportunity for myself rather than sitting around complaining about it.