9/10 of people in England disagree with this simplistic ahistoric nonsense from Braverman.
Reposted from
Gabriel Milland
Suella Braverman has written this: "For Englishness to mean something substantial, it must be rooted in ancestry, heritage, and, yes, ethnicity."
As someone who, like Suella herself, has very little "English" ethnicity in their DNA, I would like to say that Suella can, to put it bluntly, fuck off.
As someone who, like Suella herself, has very little "English" ethnicity in their DNA, I would like to say that Suella can, to put it bluntly, fuck off.
Comments
Not obvious where I should go back to. Please send help.
Nobody could have become English across a thousand years after 948 AD if the children of migrants needed "ancestry" so couldn't qualify on the basis of birthplace + identification + acceptance by the existing group.
To be fair, I don't think there's anything particularly novel about what Braverman's said.
Similarly, I've lived through separate periods of when the English flag is a refreshing change from the racist connotations of the Union Flag and then the complete opposite.
So could be no objection to Braverman choosing not to identify as English herself
But it is an unthinkingly daft form of illiberal prejudice to impose her preferences on Viv Anderson, Jude Bellingham, Moeen Ali or Priti Patel, who do
Few of those born abroad identify as English as well as British
Most [not all] English-born minorities do
This is unthinkingly moronic.
There can't be 1% of people who think it is 5 or 6, so that not even Wayne Rooney or Harry Kane children/grandchildren could yet be English?!
The fact that only nearly 70% of ethnic minorities feel that way is potentially better than any other country.
But 1 in 5 made to feel "foreign", and 1 in 8 feeling they should, is shameful.
I’m a middle aged, white Australian born Aussie with a Spanish wife, married in China. 2 kids born there. Then moved to Spain, had 2 more kids, before moving to Oz 10 years ago.
Identification and acceptance don’t require being born somewhere, but require acculturation. Which takes time, and is easier the earlier it starts (which is why I’m not considered Spanish or Chinese)
(father had property in Goa, parents from Kenya and Mauritius, spent years in France, 'my husband is a proud Jew and Zionist' - JC 2023)
she doesn't feel personal ties but ignores others might
She only became relevant because she was nasty, hopefully this helps make her less consequential
An ethnic English identity clearly exists, just as Welsh, Scots or Manx, Baganda or Japanese do (one cannot reasonably make the case for ethnic minorities otherwise).
British exists as an umbrella identity.
Even Goodness Gracious Me Coopers sketch wouldn't have dared to say what Braverman is saying.
I've always found this drive to negate an ethnic English identity as curious when it so very obviously exists.
My grand parents on my mother’s side were Italian, my grandmother on my Father’s side was Irish, grandfather English
Am I ‘ethnically’ English?