Is anyone else getting quite tired of being called a racist?

[Peppatina]

I know it can't just be me.

It doesn't matter what carefully thought out reasons a brexiter has for wanting to leave (I've seen some very articulate and reasoned ones on mn itself) we are still all getting lumped into a stereotypical group of closet racist idiots.

And Lord forbid any of those reasons might just involve any concern over levels of eu migration!

I've been told that I'm essentially imagining the three week waiting list for my GP or that this is nothing to do with eu migration. If I say I know it is because of the names being called out I become the equivalent of Enoch Powell.

The same goes for a certain local estate very much being a no go area, especially for young girls. After braving this street once with my children and being spat on and shouted at by a group of very hostile Romanian men/boys I've been told I imagined it.

When I had my son a few week ago my I was the only English speaking person in my ward. A polish man was shouting and being very aggressive to staff as they were struggling to find an interpreter.

I absolutely know that not every migrant is aggressive and that they should build more schools and go surgeries but I believe I'm right to be concerned about a high number of migrants who are not intergrating with their local community and the unsustainable strain on services.

I'm sick of being told that my experiences don't matter. That to even mention that this is what life is like in our town means I am a racist or little englander.

Good grief, this isn't about 'ingrid is lovely!' That's the WHOLE point. Stop with the personalising 'all my best friends are gay' shit, and find out how this 'two way street' is working out. It isn't and our infrastructure can't support it.

I'm not listening to you because you don't know me.

English people leave this country to live in Australia, Spain, Canada, America and so on. They welcome us into there country because we will make a contribution but not England. I find that very sad.

Quite so Panini.

It's almost like just mentioning a nationality, even if relevant, is racist.

And here was me thinking I had to be stereotyping or derogatory in some way to be labelled that.

Not everyone who's voting for Brexit is a racist, but everyone who is a racist will be voting for Brexit.

And that's one of the many things that worries me about them winning; because the kind of rhetoric that used to be the stuff of elderly drunk uncles and lunatics is now mainstream and acceptable.

OP, I agree with you.

I'd've thought Gordon Brown might have shared a few tips from his disastrous 2010 election campaign with the Remain camp.

"How to lose the popular vote - label people with legitimate concerns over unlimited EU immigration as racist bigots."

Actually if you really look into in , immigration is and has been hugely affected by government policies. There's no guarantee that being out of the EU would reduce immigration. For example labour government encouraged non EU immigration,which back then was higher than EU immigration. Could it happen again? Yup. Could it also be possible that the status quo won't be changed even if we leave? Yup.

Not everyone who's voting for Brexit is a racist, but everyone who is a racist will be voting for Brexit.

Absolutely.

Mountaintoclimb i will explain myself English people are just as aggressive as anyone else. I am English I was born here I have only experianced aggresive English people. I have spoken to people from some parts of the world and they look happy.

I don't think so Rebel because it's been such a huge bone of contention during this referendum.

Mountaintoclimb i don't think racism means what you think it means

Just FYI. I have a 'foreign' name. I was born here. As were my
Siblings,
My husband, my kids, my cousins,
My friends etc etc

I don't think you're racist btw. I think if you feel there are too many immigrants fair enough.

I think immigrants are important and it's the govt that is to blame here for not investing money into infrastructure and letting us become a divisive nation filled with seething resentment.

I think 'English' people are no different to foreigners in their behaviours and temperaments so I'm not going to use that as an indicator of anything. There are arse holes everywhere.

'Not everyone who's voting for Brexit is a racist, but everyone who is a racist will be voting for Brexit.'

Do you think that there are no racists in the Establishment, who are all voting to remain?

I don't call public school and mate of the senior Tories, Jeremy Clarkson, racist, but I find some of his views pretty offensive, but he is for Remain.

MrsBlackthorn has hit the nail on the head.

I think it's really hard to hear negativity about immigrants when you are a child and grandchild of immigrants who came to this country and worked their arses off in English factories because the country needed them 'back then'. My nan worked in an umbrella factory. my mum joined her at 17.
Everything's anecdotal isn't it? I'm getting all ponderous now.

The nasty campaign by senior Establishment Tories against Sadiq Khan for Mayor of London was dog whistle politics and lots of the MPs and Establishment luiminaries involved are all voting with the Establishment to Remain.

Crystalgall I understand that british names are diverse but this is just going by my experience in my GP surgery.

The names that now are the majority called out were not here a year or so ago, so very new and in large number. This is what led me to believe that in my area a high level of immigration had affected services negatively.

I do not see how her saying everyone else in the ward spoke polish is racist, and from my experience it is probably true. People need to just except the fact that some areas are mostly English, some areas are well mixed and some areas are mostly migrants usually from the same country(in each area) and it isn't just English people who find it difficult to live there I can imagine an indian family or person might find it awkward living in an area where almost everyone is polish for instance and vice versa. It is also not great for the migrants in the long term as there becomes less of a need of integration and to learn the language and ways of the British then causing the issue as the lesser you know about people the more likely on both side to make stereotypical judgement and causing a mist of fear between groups of people. So seeing that there is an issue with migration is NOT racist. Also my issue with migration from Europe is not to stop is completely but to screen people who come into the country more strictly, as I find it unfair a criminal from Europe can work and stay here easily and a qualified nurse from the Philippines or Sri Lanka struggle and have no sense of stability when they come to the country and often have to settle for jobs of lesser qualifications.

'I think it's really hard to hear negativity about immigrants when you are a child and grandchild of immigrants'

That is right and understandable and it is increasingly obvious that the refusal to listen to the concerns and fears of people over immigration is itself based on fear, which is understandable.

However, in the longterm it is a huge mistake to silence people's fears because in the end people will end up more strident if they feel they are being silenced and not listened to.

It is better to discuss things openly, respect different people's opinions and listen to the majority view because that is democratic.

The no go areas where I live are almost exclusively populated by white British people.

And that's one of the many things that worries me about them winning; because the kind of rhetoric that used to be the stuff of elderly drunk uncles and lunatics is now mainstream and acceptable

What 'stuff' is that, then, that you find so laughably contemptuous? Who on this thread is saying things you feel is the preserve of drunks and lunatics?

Do you think that's in any way offensive, to dismiss opinion that does not mirror yours, as the stuff of the mentally ill?

Do you feel this way about certain cultural practises? Or attitudes towards, for example, gay people?

It is thanks to this sneeringly dismissive neoliberal cant that the right wing is on the rise in Europe.

Are you proud?

It is years of cuts by the conservative government that is causing long waiting lists, the NHS being more stretched than ever before, same with schools. School budgets are being cut and have been cut over the last few years it is not immigration that is causing strain it's indiscriminate cuts by the conservatives and their desire to privatise all schools around the country. It's an absolute disaster, and now some leaders are trying to blame immigration because of the problems this is causing.

^^ This

DH's school doesn't have enough money to balance the books. This is not because there are immigrants at the school 'taking up places' (there are none), but because the government has cut real terms funding in education.

My GP surgery closed and all the patients were transferred to another surgery. The reason for this was 'not enough GPs'. Again, not because there are too many immigrants on the books (I do not live in an immigrant hotspot).

I don't trust anyone on the leave campaign to invest more money in the NHS or in schools - and we're talking about Gove here who has systematically destroyed state education - nor do I think they will have anymore money with which to sort out these issues.

If we come out of the EU we will still have a Conservative government who does not value or believe in public services. Nothing will change.

I genuinely am sorry if I have upset anyone but I still don't believe it is racist to say these things.

I am not dehumanising people, I don't want to make people feel unwelcome or hated. But I am increasingly worried that pretending that there are no problems with recent levels of immigration in some areas of the U.K. is dangerous and might give people who maybe do want to dehumanise or 'other' immigrants a louder voice than they should have.

There are problems. I am certain mine isn't the only community suffering negative affects of high immigration and that isn't any good for any of us.

Pretending it isn't real or that whole communities a racist or just don't understand 'the big picture' is wrong and not helpful.

Gordon Brown called a lifelong Labour voter concerned about immigration "a bigoted woman". When the public discovered his real opinion, he rushed to apologise to her and drove to her house to do so as he feared for his election prospects now that the public had discovered what he thought of some of the public's concerns.

The arrogance and contempt for public opinion by a lot of the great and the good who are not affected by immigration and who dismiss the concerns that some people have about it as being bigoted, will backfire for the great and the good.

I agree with chica. What do people believe will actually happen?

I just don't believe the govt is going to put
Money into the NHS or at other public service. It won't happen

*effects