This thing about having “an open and honest conversation about immigration” - the problem is that too many white English people treat non-white people as fundamentally inhuman. It’s simply as that. When people like that say “immigration” they mean “infection”. - ThreadSky

okwonga.bsky.social • 1 day ago

This thing about having “an open and honest conversation about immigration” - the problem is that too many white English people treat non-white people as fundamentally inhuman. It’s simply as that. When people like that say “immigration” they mean “infection”.

Comments

baron-of-navan.bsky.social•1 day ago

Sad but true BREXIT,has replaced mostly white Eu workers with Black and Asian commonwealth workers , we are lucky to have them . I do hope they are shown a lot more love than the Windrush generation

buffy-slayer.bsky.social•1 day ago

I had a recent convo with a dude who genuinely thought any brown person was an immigrant. He was confused and sceptical when I pointed out the vast majority are as British as him. Racists aren't interested in facts I guess

untypicalboro.bsky.social•1 day ago

We've been having that 'open and honest conversation' for what feels like about 20 years now and it is exhausting. The right always say "we are not allowed to talk about it" but they never shut up. It is relentless. And you have to argue back or they fill the vacuum.

discodiscourse.bsky.social•1 day ago

I always find those comments so revealing. They are essentially admitting that they want to express racist opinions but they know that they will be called out on it.

liamjmulvey.bsky.social•1 day ago

It's really depressing where we've gone in the last decade+. 2012 Olympics really felt like we were in a good place and things were gonna keep improving. Instead we've turned into an absolute cesspit of far right rhetoric and demonising of any minority we can find to punch down on.

untypicalboro.bsky.social•1 day ago

And giving a mass media platform to ever more open racists. Remember when Nick Griffin got minced on Question Time and there was a national consensus that was a good thing?

liamjmulvey.bsky.social•1 day ago

UKIP and Reform repeatedly getting air time despite having literally no MPs.

untypicalboro.bsky.social•1 day ago

Farage was MP for the safe seat of Question Time Central.

rogerokeeffe.bsky.social•1 day ago

When did the BBC start featuring Farage prominently?

untypicalboro.bsky.social•1 day ago

I think the UKIP breakthrough into the mainstream was the 2013 local and 2014 European elections and then they started to put pressure on the Tory right and Cameron panicked a bit. So round about then.

rogerokeeffe.bsky.social•1 day ago

Yes, in retrospect, I do seem to recall that the Olympics afterglow was rather short-lived.

okwonga.bsky.social•1 day ago

Exactly this.

samtbennett.bsky.social•1 day ago

I also think this framing of it does not include migrants and those from non-GB backgrounds as the people who might be part of the conversation. They are the objects spoken about/for

samtbennett.bsky.social•1 day ago

Linked to this, keeping citizenship further out of reach means migrants cannot vote in elections and so can safely be demonised without any political blowback at the ballot box. Denied a voice in so many ways.

amencarini.bsky.social•1 day ago

It’s definitely part of the equation but historically white-on-white xenophobia has also been a big one, see migration from Eastern Europe

I wonder how big of a component is hating migrants who have good jobs, like if those jobs should automatically go to Brits no matter their skills / work ethos

bascb.bsky.social•1 day ago

I seriously doubt the quality of work, the exact type of jobs, their education etc. have little to do with it. Othering and creating external enemies to blame our lives on (boosted for decades by toxic tabloids) have more to do with it.

pipkazan.bsky.social•1 day ago

It wasn’t all that long ago that Eastern Europeans weren’t necessarily seen as *white*

amencarini.bsky.social•1 day ago

Italians had that too

pipkazan.bsky.social•1 day ago

When I was young I definitely met older people who didn’t think the French were white, let alone Greeks.

leemeade.bsky.social•1 day ago

‘The Polish Plumber’.

wiermayne.bsky.social•1 day ago

Made even worse when they get [redacted] to do it for them.

eeibeman.bsky.social•1 day ago

Way too many. And more and more as the media environment/politics whips things up.

But not all of them.

sunsetcrest.bsky.social•1 day ago

When you FA in other countries, you FO after. You are now responsible.

brionykidd.bsky.social•1 day ago

Yes. There is no debate that every person on earth deserves the chance of a decent life. Only racism says otherwise.

vernfaulkner.bsky.social•1 day ago

My sperm donor was one of those polite British racists. You know the type, very colonial, never said anything *really* bad in public, but behind closed doors was a "the wogs begin at Calais," racist. It's very insidious. He knew it was wrong, but hid it with a veneer.

bingohandjob.bsky.social•1 day ago

This is what the 'open and honest conversation' people don't want to talk about: https://bsky.app/profile/bingohandjob.bsky.social/post/3loxrpnee6s24

masmedium.com•3 hours ago

It’s either increasing taxes from income or increasing taxes on wealth, neither of which the elderly want, while wanting to increase the taxes on those working who also can’t then afford the BTLs those pensioners bought.

I suspect we need an horrific collapse to clear the logjam.

mdouglaswray.bsky.social•1 day ago

Spot on. The reason they don't WANT immigration is because they KNOW it will let people SEE that they ARE humans and HAVE RIGHTS.

Can't have that.

bartiddu.bsky.social•1 day ago

We know from the rise of the Nazis how easy it is for politicians armed with a good propaganda machine to make people start dehumanising minorities.
The conversation needed is why is our political class so sociopathic today it will happily use wedge issues like migration & trans rights to get votes

gnedreams.bsky.social•1 day ago

He only likes whites!

catanonim.me•1 day ago

And when they say "stranger", they mean 'foreigner'.

djbabidadi.bsky.social•1 day ago

White people have colonized a lot of indigenous land against the will of the peoples, displacing them..

Any immigration conversation that doesn't start there is classist on its face.

brokenminor2hbh.bsky.social•17 hours ago

What scares me is maybe we aren't having an open and honest conversation. We're being open and honest but they're not because they know they can't truly say exactly what they feel because it is probably horrifying.

Comments

Posting Rules

Reply