tumblr loves to say “white people face no discrimination” so of course no one ever mentioned what happened in uk post brexit. and i’m just mentioning post brexit because the rest of the time this shit is trivialized, but with brexit, it had a reason to become “huge news”.
no one talks about the polish, bulgarian, romanian, etc. immigrants who got yelled at to “go back to their country” and being told “i voted for leave. why are you still in my country?”. they don’t talk about polish people getting cards with “polish vermin” written on them. they don’t talk about english kids telling immigrant kids that they’ll have to go back to their country now and the immigrant kids being scared to death of what could happen, about that suspicious burning of that traditional romanian store and how, because it was specifically romanian, lots of british people on the internet just assumed that they burnt down their own store to get money. because they were romanian. because that defines romanians.
they don’t talk about immigrants getting spit at or beaten up for being immigrants.
they don’t talk about how the ex head of the ukip publicly admitted that he wouldn’t want to live next to romanians. not next to romanians who happen to be criminals, next to romanians period. good, bad, he doesn’t care. he just doesn’t want them near him.
but thing is, xenophobia towards the east has been trivialized so much that it’s a surprise if anyone ever speaks in favor of us.
of course, there’s good things too, like the british people who helped rebuild the store that burned down or the ones who marched in support of immigrants post brexit, but that doesn’t erase the bad.
i’m just saying: look around you, things are far more complex than they seem. the world is also bigger than you care to admit.
100% agree with everything in this post.
I am a German European. I am just as “white” as a Polish European or a Greek European for Americans, but in Europe I will always be seen in a different light as them. Europe has a completely different code.
I get that Americans have problems with this idea, but when I see a Polish blogger (for example), who fits the American perception of being “White”, being told she is still profiting from her color, I honestly just get angry.
It just shows the unbelievable ignorance of (some) Americans on this hellsite. And unfortunately so many Non-americans have also adopted this idea and now believe themselves to be above racism and xenophobia.
Honestly, I don’t know much about this subject, but every time it comes up I want to share these images and stories, to remind the Brexiters what they voted for:
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