Concerns about racism

[PandoraSocks]

Hi there Mumsnet HQ

Many of us are concerned about the uptick of hatred, xenophobia and racism on the site over the past couple of weeks. Most of the bigotry is focused on asylum seekers. MNHQ will of course delete racism etc. if reported, but this has gone way beyond a few hateful posts.

Links below to three examples of threads which have descended into real nastiness.

Cheers.

https://www.mumsnet.com/talk/in_the_news/5385273-civil-unrest-whats-really-going-on?utm_campaign=thread&utm_medium=share

https://www.mumsnet.com/talk/am_i_being_unreasonable/5385914-do-you-believe-there-will-be-a-civil-war?utm_campaign=thread&utm_medium=share

https://www.mumsnet.com/talk/am_i_being_unreasonable/5386073-to-be-so-fed-up-amd-disheartened-with-all-the-xenophobia?utm_campaign=thread&utm_medium=share

Let's hope so. Some clarity would be good.

It’s the racism we don’t like, not the political perspective
Yes, this

More agreement from me - the left all believe this and the right all believe that is nonsense. There are plenty of woke tories and leftie militarists for example

On the feminism board people leant to challenge robustly whilst avoiding personal insults, and generalisations. This avoids deletions. If you are being deleted ask MN for the specific reason. That will help you write better posts and get your message across

remeber if you have been deleted you have not got your message across but you may have persuaded people that your opinion is vile and dangerous enough to be potentially illegal - because usually being potentially challenged in law is the red line that MNHQ are really using

this leads to a more focussed objective discussion

I trust MNHQ will come on - from previous experience they may try to avoid a knee jerk reaction

I see it everywhere to be honest. On the news, in the comments section on youtube.

I haven't read the whole of this thread but agree with @PandoraSocks . The blatant racism now is really sickening.

I agree. A family member told me today they were in the unusual position of having to defend Rushi Sunak on X because he was being attacked by racists over a photograph.

Apart from that’s not what happened.

What happened was you calling anyone that objected to unvetted, unrestricted immigration by men from very misogynistic countries ‘racist’ while refusing to even acknowledge the safety of women as a factor in this.

I really hope that they will avoid a knee jerk reaction. I'm more than happy to wait for a considered response if they are actually willing to take this issue seriously.

If we have to wait hours for a response that doesn't really acknowledge the problem or offer any viable solutions, then there isn't much point.

I don't doubt that these are challenging issues for forum providers. But really, how difficult can it be to decide that racism should not be tolerated?

I don’t disagree that racism as a whole has actually increased, and like you I see a huge number of unacceptable comments on social media. You have my agreement there.

What I object to is the very, very clear and genuine concerns around small boat illegal immigrants being dismissed as ‘racist’, with the absolutely hideous crimes committed recently swept under the rug or dismissed as ‘just what men do in general’.

Can you please point to where anyone said to stop all immigration to prevent rape by asylum seekers? There were bloody good posts on that, professionally dodged by many posters who have turned up here to complain because they couldn’t answer them.

This is pretty much what I meant by This desire from MN to “counter on the thread” is at direct odds with their “do not engage with trolls/troll hunt” message

OTOneH - challenge on thread
OTOtherH - its troll hunting to say the PP or OP is lying, even if you use “Sir Humphrey speak” to say it.

Either HQ want us to report trolls posting blatantly false propaganda and/or conspiracy theories or they don’t. However if they insist its all down to us to “challenge on thread” for the clicks then perhaps they can stop deleting posts for troll hunting when they do precisely that.

Well I would have a look at that thread, but ...

This thread has been hidden
This thread has been hidden until the MNHQ team can have a look at it.

Not according to some posters on here, no. It’s racist - end of. We have learned nothing from Rotherham. Absolutely nothing.

Oh I think we have learnt a lot from Rotherham!

@childofthe607080s

exactly, we need more data. I think that it’s a very naive position to say “they don’t want to live under the Taliban (for whatever reason, including economic or tribal), so they must have the same attitudes to women as we would have”, but it’s obviously unfair to assume every Afghan is a rapist in waiting. There are other countries who seek to provide education in attitudes to migrants to bridge the gap as best possible - how could we do so unless we have data that isn’t either wishful thinking or prejudice?

I could quite easily make the case that there isn't an issue with people expressing their concerns about small boats or specific crimes if they are able to do so in ways that are not racist or designed to promote hatred.

However, having seen lots of your posts on other threads, I am not willing to engage. You aren't worth the time and effort, and I am not interested in rising to your bait so that you can try to derail the thread.

Can you please give me an example of how you can do it in a way that is not racist? I’m genuinely curious as any post, no matter how mild or vague, has been deemed racist by you.

I would, but the thread has been taken down.

Wish I had taken screenshots tbh because some of the worst racism I’ve seen in a long time. Including one poster who stated that even genuine asylum seekers- you know the ones at risk of torture and murder in their own countries- are “absolutely not our problem”

As usual, you're making stuff up. It's very, very tiresome.

Concern is fine. Misinformation is not. The very term 'small boat illegal immigrants' itself is misinformation, because it is not illegal to come to the UK in a small boat and claim asylum. Such a person is not illegal until their asylum claim has been rejected and they then do not leave.

And this is the problem.

@JamesMacGillbut what you just did was directly link small boats with hideous crimes without any evidence / that’s a generalisation that is unsupported

I am not saying that no one in a small boat never did anything wrong
i am also not saying that immigrants who come legally never do any wrong

I am saying that you have made a link without any evidence that people on small boats are significantly more likely to commit hideous crime than others ( especially after normalising for age and wealth )

normalisation is saying let’s not compare 10 young men with 10 elderly women / let’s instead compare 10 young men who arrive on boats with another group of young poor men where the only difference is nationality/ place of birth

we need real data to enable these questions to be addressed and understood

Thank you @PandoraSocks

What I have learned is there are people like Tommy Robinson who are willing to get these grooming gangs off scot free just to get their racist, inflammatory points across.