Increased xenophobia/racism

[Parker1]

I was told by an elderly lady on Saturday that "I sounded like I have been in the country for a while".

I was born here 43 years ago..

I hope this does not escalate to the nastiness of my childhood in the late 70's and early 80's.

I still have the scar where a National Front thug put a cigarette out on my right foot.

I was a 10 years old at the time.

[midivydale]

Parker, I am so sorry

[miga]

FFS.

School gate story: van rocks up to the lights, a mum (Btitish, like it matters) of Pakistani background with two kids waiting to cross. Man leans out of window, waves and says "Bye, bye!". This was Friday.

[miga]

Although, of course, correlation doesn't equal causation, I have no video evidence and I don't have statistics to compare pre and post referendum hate crime. Just getting in there before the crypto-bigots take these stories apart.

[PennyDreadful]

Friends of mine have experienced similar xenophobic comments. It's distressing and terrifying. I feel that all these incidents need to be collated; partly so that people don't feel isolated within their own experience and partly to document what's going on so that it's not just all separate anecdotes. Searching for something like the 'everyday sexism' project, I came across the following twitter account, to which I would urge everyone to post details of xenophobic incidents: @PostRefRacism

[JohnL]

People will be patrolling the streets soon I think.

http://www.standard.co.uk/news/mayor/sadiq-khan-issues-rallying-cry-to-londoners-after-brexit-vote-triggers-surge-in-hate-crime-a3281456.html

[JohnL]

PennyDreadful Wrote:

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> Friends of mine have experienced similar

> xenophobic comments. It's distressing and

> terrifying. I feel that all these incidents need

> to be collated; partly so that people don't feel

> isolated within their own experience and partly to

> document what's going on so that it's not just all

> separate anecdotes. Searching for something like

> the 'everyday sexism' project, I came across the

> following twitter account, to which I would urge

> everyone to post details of xenophobic incidents:

> @PostRefRacism

Baroness Warsi was collating some on twitter - not sure if there

is an official list.

[JohnL]

Loz Wrote:

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> This, really, should be Fallon's chance to push

> the Lib Dems front and centre. Where is he?

Lib Dems are campaigning on ignoring the Referendum.

I actually think a new center pro remain party might

appear.

[Jeremy]

JohnL Wrote:

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> I actually think a new center pro remain party

> might appear.

I imagine that the next version of Labour we see will fit that description.

[Sue]

jaywalker Wrote:

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> I am ashamed of my country.

So am I.

[DulwichFox]

I've been ashamed of this country for most of my life..

If you wern't aware of Racism .. Xenophobia in this country before last Friday, then where have you been..

People jumping on the bandwagon 'Oh look at me.. I'm so ashamed'

Well shame on you.. Part time socialists.. when it suits.

DulwichFox..

[????]

Weird that you've been ashamed of your country for so long but want it separate from Europe by itself etc..there is no logic or consistency to your stream of consciousness stupidity is there?

[Earl Aelfheah]

The police, as well as the prime minister seem to have acknowledged an increase in racist attacks and linked it to 'Brexit'. People can pretend there is no link if they like. We are in 'post fact' Britain now after all.

https://www.theguardian.com/uk-news/2016/jun/27/sadiq-khan-muslim-council-britain-warning-of-post-brexit-racism

[Earl Aelfheah]

a quote from that article linked to above:

"Initial figures show an increase of 57% in reported incidents between Thursday and Sunday compared with the same days four weeks earlier, the National Police Chiefs? Council said ? 85 incidents were reported compared with 54 during the earlier period.

?It?s no coincidence this has come off the back of the EU vote,? said a police source.

Senior police chiefs have discussed how to respond amid concerns the continuing heated debate may contribute to heightened tensions.

[Blah Blah]

I think police just have to contunue as they are and prosecute hate crimes where they happen. That will soon send out the message that nothing has changed under the law.

[Lordship 516]

I have a friend who is Irish..we were having a drink in a bar, chatting about post Brexit for UK & Ireland. Idiot comes up and says 'Off back home then?' with a silly grin on his face. However, my friend has the last laugh [actually laughed, like Irish people usually do] - he has an Irish passport and a UK passport so he can go & come wherever he wishes & whenever he wishes..HAH! I really learned a lesson from my friend - water off a ducks back, smile, have another glass & move on.

[Earl Aelfheah]

Reports of spike in islamophobia

http://www.independent.co.uk/news/uk/home-news/brexit-muslim-racism-hate-crime-islamophobia-eu-referendum-leave-latest-a7106326.html

[WorkingMummy]

Lordship 516, I wish it were the same for my family. Only our children have dual nationality. Three adults contribute to their care and upbringing: one of us is British, one Swedish, and one Swiss/German. None of we adults has the right to live or work in each other's country other than via our membership of the EU. We haven't laughed very much since Thursday. We have received some nasty anti-German WW2-referenced memes in our inboxes though. And I have been called a "silly bitch" near the Rye, when speaking German to the kids. None of us was laughing then.

I've read posts which question the link between Brexit and these anecdotal experiences of hatred. I am afraid I fail to follow. How could the "win" of a campaign driven by UKIP and fronted by Farage have any other effect? You can protest all you like that "concern about levels of immigration doesn't make you racist". Der! Of course it doesn't. But continually speaking about the EU as if it WAS an immigration problem; constantly talking the language of war (which Farage did continually, for years); continually appealing to people's innate, natural but nevertheless ugly sense of "otherness" (we are us, and we are of here and we belong; and "they" are them and they are from somewhere else, and they do not belong); continually building on a sense of tribalism, Britania Gloriana, a small island, little room to spare, better off without all of you lot out there. It all appeals to something which is latent and prehistoric and dark about humanity.

Farage continually gives himself away as a bigot and a demagogue. Even if you had never heard him speak before, the language of his celebration speech on "independence day" (!) was a dead giveaway. I was in my kitchen, serving breakfast to my children, with the sound of the pound crashing to historic lows in the background, fighting back my tears of grief and worry, my heart breaking for my country and my family, when Nigel Farage's jubilant tones informed me that this was, "A victory for real people, a victory for ordinary people, a victory for decent people". The necessary implication is that half of the UK's voters are neither "real", nor "ordinary" nor "decent". That, is the language of denigration. It is the language of the hard right. It is the language of the human, and the sub-human. It is the language of the Third Reich.

Fortuantely, Nigel Farage is about as likely as I am to become a national leader. So Britain will not become 1930's Germany. Thank God. But you cannot deny that many leave voters were with Farage, and accepted his message. They protested that he "was not racist" - for example - to say that we have to control immigration because just look at what happened to women assaulted by immigrants on the continent last week. No, not a racists, just a "truth teller". Many were ferociously inspired by all that. And now Leave has won, those people who really were FOR Farage (as opposed to perhaps just for Leave in some other guise) and who relished his hateful message of "otherness" are drunk on that "victory". You can hardly be surprised (nor should you laugh) that in the immediate wake of all that, someone feels empowered to shout out "stupid bitch" at a woman in the park who is doing nothing more 'indecent' than talking German to her children.

I can very easily not take the insult of a thug personally. His insults say nothing about me. I hesitated whether even to share what occurred and I did try to shrug it off.

But I am not going to laugh.

[rendelharris]

Hut auf ab sie, WorkingMummy, for both eloquence and sense. Don't let 'em get you down,

Rendel

[heartblock]

This reported rise in hateful behaviour is extremely worrying. I spent my youth campaigning with anti-racist organisations and I am really concerned. There was a Tory MP on a special Question Time on Sunday, I'm not sure of her name, but she was speaking for remain - she said that she had been too quiet on the subject of race and immigration during her tenure as an MP so far, but from now on she would promote the benefits of immigration and different cultures for the UK. She was quite tearful and as a leftie listening to a Tory I was heartened by her comments. If the racists are on the rise, then all of us anti-racists need to challenge and act.

[Lordship 516]

WorkingMummy, I know I cannot make up for the lowlife that abused & bullied you but I feel your distress and assure you that, although these neanderthals are visible & vocal, most UK people are not racist. Farage is a florid barrow boy with a loud turn of phrase and most of his associates will reject him and probably quite soon. Johnson is a megalomaniac, crazed to get power at any cost, personal life, friends - nothing matters other than getting power - he will also feel a cold breeze & also likely quite soon. I apologize for their crass behaviour & also assure you that you and others in your situation are always welcome anywhere in the UK. Big hug..!

[WorkingMummy]

Thank you, 516. I believe you. I love this community and I really do not feel any less safe walking around my immediate neighbourhood than I did last week. There are about 10 nationalities represented in my house and the houses immediately on either side and we all look out for each and each other's children all the time. I myself am British. (I speak German badly.)

Your reassurances and good faith are very much taken as read by me. And I didn't mean my post to imply otherwise.

I'm just saying, the minority of people whose inner neanderthal (as you rightly say) is alive and well would have been silenced into self-censorship two weeks ago, by the decency of everyone else around them. Now they are not.

Rendel - thank you!

[Loz]

heartblock Wrote:

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> There was a Tory MP on a special Question Time on Sunday, I'm not sure of her name,

> but she was speaking for remain - she said that she had been too quiet on the subject of race and

> immigration during her tenure as an MP so far, but from now on she would promote the benefits of

> immigration and different cultures for the UK.

Anna Soubry. That's how mad this current period of time is - I find myself in nodding agreement with people like Anna Soubry and Alex Salmond, who normally have me beating my head against the nearest hard object.

I still think Diane Abbot is a pillock though, so reality is not completely out of kilter.

[WorkingMummy]

Loz, that is perhaps right at the heart of the very worst in all of this.

Neither Leave, nor Remain, represent an ideology or a set of principles. They were both just slogans. That appealed to passions and prejudice. On two sides of a question which should never have been asked. Should we unilaterally - just because we feel like it - rip the rug from underneath the socio-economic-political settlement of the biggest landmass of humanity on earth, which has seen (relative) peace for only the last one-and-a-half generations of its history?

Now that the wrong answer has been returned to that not-very-difficult-to-answer-correctly-if-you-think-about-it question, now that sloganeering and demagoguery have been allowed to triumph over basic common sense and rational argument, what are you left with? Everyone has to abandon what they really care about - their position on housing, education, funding of the NHS - and rally together with people they should be debating on those topics, in order to protect what they should be able to take for granted in 2016.

[DulwichFox]

???? Wrote:

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> Weird that you've been ashamed of your country for

> so long but want it separate from Europe by itself

> etc..there is no logic or consistency to your

> stream of consciousness stupidity is there?

For centuries this country has invaded / attacked / Colonised other lands from the Crusades ... to Iraq..

We are no Saints..

I have no desire to be separate from Europe... I just do not want my country to be ruled by Brussels.

in the same way some people choose a labour government and some choose a Conservative government .. or other..

There could easily of been a system of Unity across Europe which did not have the Dictatorship if Brussels.

WTF does Brussels contol everything ? Because weak spinless governments here and elsewhere have let them get away with it.

Fox