In response to racists: strike!

[carmenitapink]

Lots of predictable racism following the census and defending Lady's what's her name demanding that a black British woman reveal where she is "really from" when i'm sure she doesn't ask the same of white Americans or South Africans.

So much more online around non-Brits "stealing jobs, stealing housing" and general xenophobia since Brexit campaign.

My solution:

(1) All 1st, 2nd and 3rd generation people from the global majority (I.e. anyone who is not white) should strike for 2 weeks.

(2) All the Brits who constantly claim their jobs are being stolen can spend the 2 weeks working in those roles.

In that 2 weeks the entire public sector (and many areas of the private sector!) would obviously crumble & most roles would remain empty despite the high number of part time workers and unemployed, but that's sort of the point.

Who thinks this is a good idea for 2 weeks?

Do you truly thinking striking is a good method of magically transforming racists into non-racists? Do you think it will magically make racists realize that black people are all right, after all?

Nice idea if it could happen.

They'll always be racist anyway so the point would be for them to STFU and get on with the jobs foreigners do here. They wouldnt though, would they? The shrill complaints and shrieking would be heard for miles around re their dry reasons why it's an outrage that we strike. Aka we hate you but we're too lazy and (delusionally) see ourselves as too superior for some jobs; and lots of us actually can't do them anyway which inexplicably annoys us too

How would you feel if people descended on you and bullied you to STFU?

I just don't think this is a great solution.

It's probably more xenophobia than racism as a lot of non-Brits are white. I think it's a mad idea. Unity not division.

No it wouldn't be designed to make people less racist... it's so that all the tiring "go back home" comments would stop.

All I hear is "immigrants stealing our jobs" when actually there is the highest rate of job vacancies right now because many Brits just feel they are above certain jobs.

Immigrants are still told to go back home and other sh*t about stealing jobs etc and benefits, when in actual fact "immigrants" are literally keeping the country running

Wouldn't care.

Hopefully they'd be busy filling to empty job vacancies they supposedly desperately want...

Are you serious?

Unity my ass.

Is being British born but still being told to go back home unity?

Obviously suggestion is a bit tongue in cheek but I wish it were possible!

There is a lovely precedent for this op 😊
“Forty years ago, the women of Iceland went on strike - they refused to work, cook and look after children for a day. It was a moment that changed the way women were seen in the country and helped put Iceland at the forefront of the fight for equality.”
Chaos ensued as dads had to take kids to work and sausages sold out…

www.bbc.com/news/magazine-34602822.amp

First gen immigrant husband has asked if you could schedule it during his two weeks off work 😂 there’s no helping some people.

@carmenitapink - "immigrants are literally keeping the country running" - absolutely agree with this, it'd all crash without them, and they very often have a far better work ethic that some of us natives. I'd give them all the 2 weeks off but make the long-term unemployed (ie. the "can't be bothered to work") do the jobs instead.

😂😂😂

The people who bang on about non Brits stealing jobs are, in my experience, disinterested in working themselves.

The only anti immigrant stuff circulating currently is regarding people being put in hotels that have arrived in small boats. I haven’t seen any immigrants stealing our jobs stuff for ages. I’m the DD of an immigrant so have always been interested.

I endured racism as a child, I wouldn’t strike personally over this. Plus issues arise between ethnic groups if you think everyone that’s not white automatically gets on you are wrong. I actually hate how non white people are all lumped together as a big homogenous mass.

Somehow I don't think striking is going to make people who can't find housing less upset.

This thread reminds me of that great clip that was doing the rounds early pandemic when we were clapping of a Thursday evening. I don't know if i can find it but the line "you clap for me now" stayed with me. I doubt it made racists think, but who knows.

The strike idea is probably useless. The consequence of Brexit is a drying up of immigration which has had disastrous results for the NHS, hospitality and other industries. Both Parties talk up training, etc., but never explain where those to be trained to fill the jobs of tomorrow are coming from. Both are terrified of anti-immigrant voters in the northern working class communities and in the Tory shires hence all the nonsense about taking back control (of immigration, of course).

Even if people did strike for 2 weeks - which would never happen, incidentally, as the NHS and other public services would grind to a halt to the extent that the potential "strikers" just wouldn't let it go ahead due to the likely devastating impact on vulnerable people - the racists still wouldn't get it. You'd just get a load of the usual claptrap about training up "our own people" to do the skilled jobs and paying "fair wages" to do the not so skilled ones.

People like that are simply not intelligent enough to understand that Britain would not function without immigrants and the descendants of immigrants. They will never get it even if it's staring them in the face because they just don't want to know.