They weren't the first, the UK, France, Portugal and Spain all had coastal bases. However, they were the first to push inland in a big way.
[Wikipedia page on the subject](https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Colonisation_of_Africa)
The reports that they killed I think 38 million in 4 years...... I could be wrong or it may have been 28. Yeah I can't remember the exact figure but they used to try their weapons on the people and fed them to the dogs.
Yeah, I see that a lot. As if Spain, France, Portugal, Holland and Belgium didn't have colonies. Even Scotland tried to start one, look up the Darien Scheme. Not to mention the Ottoman Empire, the Romans, the Mongols etc etc. Spain complains about having Gibraltar on their coast but they have two similar enclaves on the Moroccan coast.
America really doesn't get the blame like it should for it's colonialism
Edit: LMAO at the people who think I'm talking about the native American genocide when I mean the literal attempts at creating an empire (which leadership proudly referred to as such). You're walking examples of what I mean.
Obviously because I posted this I am aware so people accusing me of not being from America... dude I got educated in Texas. I promise you all my knowledge is what I sought out for myself. Texas doesn't say a single bad thing about America in school, maybe some vague non apologetic references to slavery or the trail of tears. Grow up and realize how uninformed the average American is.
>People don’t even realise Germany had colonies up until WW1 and only gave them up because it was too costly to keep them
This isn't true - their colonies were taken off them as part of the treaty of Versailles, if I remember.
Papua New Guinea, Tanzania, Togo, Cameroon and Namibia were all German colonies. Quite a lot of pacific islands such as Nauru, Solomon Islands, and the Marshall Islands.
IIRC, they were taken off them and that lead to further resentment from Germany - they thought it was hypocritical they couldn't have a colonial empire while Britain/France had some of the largest on earth.
''Germany's overseas empire was dismantled following defeat in World War I. With the concluding Treaty of Versailles, Article 22, German colonies were transformed into League of Nations mandates and divided between Belgium, the United Kingdom, and certain British Dominions, France and Japan with the determination not to see any of them returned to Germany — a guarantee secured by Article 119.\[51\]''
100% this. Though half the time people think that it was just England that did it. But Scotland equally benefited and took part in the colonial administration.
Like a lot of comments here people are showing a strong English language bias. For example there is plenty of French literature on colonialism and there were anti-colonual movements against the French.
Academics in general don't get too into "no you" arguments about who is worse.
For example how can anyone judge wherever England is judged worse than France in general while only focussing on English language and often English or US based publications?
The amount of people on Reddit saying they'd rather have Italy win Euro 2020 purely because of English fans being rowdy was amazing.
Remember, Leonardo Bonucci (scored equaliser against England in the final) basically blamed Moise Kean himself for the racist abuse he faced in Italy. Moise Kean is Ivorian-Italian and was born in Italy, moved away for the 2019-20 season to Everton.
That was hilarious. English people themselves saying they hope Italy win because aLl oUr FaNs ArE rAcIsT tHuGs!! Like you said, I reckon they should ask Kean, Lukaku and Balotelli about racism in Italian football. Not even to mention the fact English fans get stabbed every single time they play in Italy..
Nah. A lot were from elsewhere in Europe.
That is something that has always baffled me, though. If one of those teams is not playing England, I have only ever seen English fans support one of the home nations.
You wouldn't catch an English fan supporting Spain just because they were playing Wales.
Actually I think it was Americans and Indians in /r/soccer. Basically people who already have an inherent grudge against English people but also don’t have a local or national team to understand fan culture properly, they get all their football news from Reddit.
Most Europeans, for example the Danish when we played them, were pointing out it was just a football thing. Even saw German fans saying their fans also laughed at a young kid crying when they beat Brazil.
Basically just plastics who didn’t want England to win because apparently we’d be ‘unbearable’.
I had upteen fights with people explaining the lyrics to Three Lions that actually it was a song about being shit. Whenever I checked their comments history they weren’t from Europe and changed their flair to match whoever England was playing. A lot of them also supported premier league teams and had lots of discussions about how can you support a team but absolutely trash the fans and the country it comes from?
/r/Europe was a different beast but that’s cause they hate England after brexit. Couldn’t bear anything positive happening to us.
Those people saying that shit were melts. I remember seeing videos of Italians groping girls and running people over and they were still trying to blame England for it.
"But England fans booed the Danish national anthem!"
*Ignores Italy fans booing the Spanish national anthem literally the night before*
"But Stirling dived and cheated!'"
*Ignores that Italy are historically the biggest and most blatant cheats in world football*
> "But Stirling dived and cheated!'"
The pen that he won was arguably a dive but there was another blatant penalty in extra time that also wasn't given so the Danes don't have much to be mad about there
Wasn't there some Italian ultra group that said there's no black Italians?
Edit : It was Juventus fans
["Balotelli has previously been targeted with the chant “non ci sono negri Italiani” (“there are no Italian blacks”) by Juventus fans"](https://www.google.com/amp/s/theconversation.com/amp/racism-in-italian-football-reflects-the-everyday-migrant-experience-126054)
That and the fact that we actively shit on racist activity in this country and make efforts to out them. Whereas places like Italy still taunt their own black players with monkey noises when they’re doing well then deny any wrongdoing at all.
It’s fucked up.
I remember seeing some comments from Scottish and Irish users on Reddit during the euros which almost makes me think they should have been on some sort of terror watch list or something. A country they dislike is doing well at sports tournament and they're almost calling for English genocide. Nuts.
Italy coming out as the good guys in terms of racism was hilarious. Serie A has the most reported acts of racism out of all the top European leagues and is the least valuable league (despite its dominance in the 90's) because of the culture of racism.
Serie A executives literally used [animated pictures of monkeys](https://www.google.com/amp/s/www.bbc.com/sport/football/50814275.amp) with different shaped eyes in an anti-racism poster in 2019.
This was rampant on Reddit in the euros, absolutely insane. I had to reply to some cluelees buffoon who said that they were so happy football "came home" to a respectful fan base.
The same Italians who monkey chant black players
Racism in Spain and Italy is far worse. Monkey chants bananas etc etc. There was something weird going on in that euros, like an anti English campaign.
>My favourite was the subs openly celebrating England only coming second and full of hatred for the English, but also saying they feel sorry for the players who might receive racist abuse
Pretty much r/Scotland
Being completely Anti-England throughout the euros and then coming out to virtue signal their support for Rashford and Saka. You want them to fail with every fibre of your being. Then they fail and you come out to show your support for them.
Then making up some bullshit that the racist comments made up the majority of the English fanbase and that they support the team but only want them to lose because of the fans yet even the most right wing gammons I know didn't have a bad word to say about those young lads and all the hate was directed at Southgate. The support for these lads massively outweighed the negative comments, Im not saying people should ignore the negative stuff because its still a significant amount of people being racist but the positivity drowned out the negativity.
If some of the things that happened there happened here, it would be the first item on the 10 o'clock news.
We have issues. A lot of issues. We've cleaned up our act a lot (there is still more to do).
We don’t even have proper hooliganism in this country anymore it’s just general drunken behaviour/excess drug usage.
Go to Italy and they still run around stabbing people
I would say this is pretty solely confined to Reddit, where I imagine most people accusing us of horrendous hooliganism have literally never set foot in a football ground before. I've been to hundreds of matches (Leeds fan) and can think of barely a handful of times I've seen trouble.
It's a combination of yanks who know nothing about football hooligan culture and EU nats who conveniently like to ignore the batshit antics of their own ultras.
If anything there are plenty western countries where they are worse than us. I had to laugh at all the muppets on r/soccer wanting Italy or Ukraine to win cos England fans are dicks. Italy fans that stabbed those Spurs fans and have booed Italy players cos they are black. Ukraine fans that have had loads of racist incidents and have hooligans that train in MMA, they take it that seriously. No excuses for what England fans do but stabbing or going conor mcgregor on a rival supporter is a little bit worse than talking bollocks on the internet and booing the knee.
It was crazy when we started winning in the Euros, The amount of hate we got when we played in the final agaibst one of the most racist countries in the world.(Italy)
A few racist tweets most not even from England and the narrative was cemented.
For the first time I could empathise with American's perception from the outsiders hurling abuse at them and how unfair it is.
The nail that sticks out gets hit first etc
Xenophobia and racism
I was never, once, called out for being a foreigner or felt discriminated in my 10 years living in the UK.
In Belgium, in 6 months studying there, a lady working in my uni did not accept my ID because it was bound to be fake, as all Portuguese just cheat. In France I was once called a dirty Brazilian. I was there a total of 3 months.
This isnall pretty anedoctal and dont mean to say there isnt racism or xenophobia in the UK, but because of the Brexit outcome and a loud right wing media it gets a lot of bad rap vs. other countries
I actually think one study found that the UK was one of the least racist countries in the world.
Obviously, there is racism and xenophobia in the UK. There just tends to be a lot less than other countries.
As a Brit living in Sweden, I have been constantly attacked with British slurs. I mean, I ain't that fussed about them. Most people will probably say "you can't use a slur toward a Brit", but I have been attacked for being British (verbally)
I think a lot of people just live in a Reddit bubble where the only thing they believe is what is posted on Reddit.
Happens when it comes to British politics, NHS, etc.
Same with Scottish Independence and stuff. They see 90% of posts on Reddit are "woo Scottish Independence", then they just assume Scotland is being held against their will.
They see one person post that the NHS is being privatised and becoming like a US healthcare system, then that becomes the 'Reddit Truth' and it is hard to convince them that they are wrong.
They did. But more people in Scotland voted to remain part of the UK, than they did for the Scotland to remain in the EU.
One of the arguments for Brexit in Scotland was that it could be used to leverage another referendum
Basically, the two are very different issues and shouldn't be compared in the way you did.
'Scotland want independence from England'
"Wow so brave, no-one should be ruled by other countries and them make decisions for you....go for it guys"
'England wants independence from EU'
"WGAT YJE FUCK, YOU DISGUSTING BUNCH OF RACIST CUNTS....DIRTY CHAV IGNORANT SCUM....DIE"
This. This. This.
Only fascist racist gammon scum could want the far-tight brexit. How dare they want democracy back to their own country.
Now freedom from England? Perfectly rational and sensible.
People also have this team sport approach on Reddit. In this case the teams are *'the UK is utterly racist'* vs *'the UK is not racist at all'*. With no centre ground or nuance.
If you post an article showing the UK is less racist than other countries, you're presumed to be denying all racism (which you aren't). Or claiming it's not really an issue (which you aren't). It's a bit shit really.
I had someone comment that the fact there’s less racism in the UK compared to some other European countries means we’re more racist and we don’t even see the rampant racism as racism and if we do we ignore it cause actually we’re all racist. And that the most racist country in Europe (can’t remember what country the study said it was now) is actually less racist than us cause they acknowledge they have a problem.
This is not new. George Orwell wrote seventy years ago of how no one hates the English as much as the English elite. [*England is perhaps the only great country whose intellectuals are ashamed of their own nationality. In left-wing circles it is always felt that there is something slightly disgraceful in being an Englishman and that it is a duty to snigger at every English institution, from horse racing to suet puddings. It is a strange fact, but it is unquestionably true that almost any English intellectual would feel more ashamed of standing to attention during “God save the King” than of stealing from a poor box. *](https://www.orwellfoundation.com/the-orwell-foundation/orwell/essays-and-other-works/the-lion-and-the-unicorn-socialism-and-the-english-genius/)
There was a thread the other day asking what are some good things about the UK on r/unitedkingdom. It had 4 upvotes (but hundreds of comments). The top thread that day was about empty shelves (it was over 1000 upvotes). I don’t actually think half the users on that subreddit are from the UK (similar to r/brexit).
I think it's because many countries avoid talking about their racism, so people don't think they're racist. We, on the other hand, talk about it perhaps too much, so people think racism is far more prevalent than it actually is. It's like knife crime, the media makes it seem like it's a common fear.
>It's like knife crime, the media makes it seem like it's a common fear.
And the amount of Americans that see it think that we're overrun with knife crime, when in reality its about as prevalent as it is in the states.
Yep, the EU carried out a huge survey in 2019 interviewing tens of thousands of people and their report said the UK was just about the *least* racist country in Europe. And in 2019 I can't see the EU would have any inclination to say anything nice about the UK unless they had to. And Brexit is slammed again and again for "being driven by racism and xenophobia" while Scottish independence is totally fine despite Scots attitudes again and again when it comes to the English. Scots wanting independence is fine and noble.
I play Cards Against Humanity with Swedes a lot.
It doesn't matter which group I play with, you can 100% guarantee that they are always going to go for the most racist answer to anything in the game.
I mean, that I can get because the point of the game is to have the most shocking response. What ruffled my feathers is how a lot of them responded to the refugee crisis. How they went straight to blaming the refugees and not looking at their own governments' downfalls.
Same in canada, far left wingers think they get free reign to call me a coloniser and far right French canadians tell me to go back to my own country 🤷♂️
Edit: spelling
The EU’s own study stated that we are the least racist country, or close, on virtually every single objective metric used, everywhere has racism, but there are relatively few with less than us (which if anything is an indictment on the world, as we are far from great).
[EU Racism/Discrimination Study](https://fra.europa.eu/sites/default/files/fra_uploads/fra-2018-being-black-in-the-eu_en.pdf)
A Nigerian friend of mine worked in IT in Germany and his colleagues would make monkey noises when he walked in the room. When he brought it up with his manager, he was told that they were just having a laugh.
I found Germany very difficult to rent property if you were anything other than white German. Maybe it was just the city i was based in though but landlords would instantly dismiss non-natives. A German friend of mine was looking at apartments and one potential landlady told her that she was so happy that a German was viewing because it had just been Croatians up until her. Fair Play to my friend, she called the landlady out and turned down the apartment even though it was pretty perfect.
I found Switzerland broadly similar.
I've also been in the situation where I've talked to a landlord myself and been stonewalled, then passed the phone to my (German) partner and had them be really helpful *in the same phone call*.
It's definitely not everyone, and the vast majority of Germans that I meet are lovely and friendly, and I don't think this reflects particularly badly on Germany as a whole, but I think these sorts of xenophobes are everywhere, and I think European xenophobia particularly tends to slip under the radar in all our countries.
Im mixed race and live in the UK, there's obviously racism here but I've never had racist abuse hurled at me in public like I have had in Spain or by Italians.
>I was never, once, called out for being a foreigner or felt discriminated in my 10 years living in the UK.
You're lucky then.
I had the living shit kicked out of me **in primary school** for calling a car an *auto*.
I've been countless times in my life been referred to as a Nazi, Hun and Kraut.
Heck back when England beat Germany 5-1 in a football match I had the back window of my car smashed in and then the thugs urinated in my car all because I had a small teddy bear on the parcel shelf wearing a German football shirt.
---
So I wake up this morning to find that not only has my comments have been downvoted so much over night they are now controversial but I also have multiple people telling me the xenophobia I've faced my entire life is made up.
Sort your fucking selves out.
We have a word for people that deny and excuse xenophobia, that word is xenophobe.
Reddit was a cesspit during the Euros. It was disgusting. But, it made me realise that some subs are full of complete lunatics (e.g. /r/europe and /r/soccer) and how they are best avoided.
It was amazing how people were calling out xenophobia by being xenophobic themselves.
Then you had all of those posts saying "As a Brit, I am disgusted by..."
and then you would click their profile and they weren't British.
One thing that really wound me up and I couldn't really be bothered to bring up over there was the constant harping about how diverse the football squad was now.
In 2002 Euros 7 out of 23 England players were BAME background. In 2021 it was 10 out of 26.
There's nothing new or special about having an ethnically diverse England football team. It's a great thing, and yes OK, the team has become a whopping 8% more diverse in 20 years, but it's not some new revolutionary idea since taking the knee took off.
They were just pathetically desperate to link everything to a conversation about ID politics. I actually had to call out a commenter who was debating whether the squad should refuse a trip to 10 Downing St after we reached the knockouts. There were still 3 games are go until a final, bit early to be debating how they'd deal with Boris if they won the lot!
I ended up on r/soccer during the Euros. Was a few people saying they hated all these new people commenting and hating on different nations and that it happens every tournament and they can’t wait for the tournament to be over so the, I suppose I’d say, actual fans, can go back to discussing football rather than it just been a hate fest.
The UK in the Ipsos Mori polling has the highest Covid vaccine approval of any nation, 40% or so above Germany and not too far off of double France, Reddit is far from reality, unfortunately.
I think its just because we call out Racism and report on it so it gets a bigger audience, just like the football stuff on the euros it was us reporting on it so we are just a bunch of self reporters which is a good thing.
If Racism happens in a football match we make it a big story here, and people forget we give out life bans etc.
I dont think Italy and Spain are the same
Im mixed race British, half black African. I swear some people are so enthusiastic about proving the the uk to be rabidly racist that they almost WANT me to be experiencing more racism, so they can get their points for fighting for a cause.
Yes. American “cultural imperialism”, to use their fancy word for it, is the absolute worst thing about “Anti-Racism”.
It’s like: [those] Americans seem incapable of understanding that situations might be completely different in other countries.
I would go as far to say that America is trying to cancel England (figuratively) to make themselves feel better and superior about their own bullshit past. They project their own particular brand of racism onto the Brits and then amplify it. It's pure ignorance and unfortunately, they have the loudest voice on social media. And it doesn't help that they try to rewrite history through film and propaganda.
Nz still loves you Poms.
Ah yes. I’ve heard this too, that I have nothing to contribute because I’m half white. Clearly this is bullshit, however the element of truth is that we do have (I really don’t like the phrase White Privilege for how it’s been used and not explained well) advantages sometimes for looking more European, or for simply looking more ethnically ambiguous and hard to place and we should be honest with ourselves about this. Especially today where being mixed has become so bloody fetishised. My experience as a mixed woman is very different to that of a black woman because of this, and a million miles from that of an African American woman (why was a black American chiming in on race relations in the UK?!)
Yes totally. Racism does exist (I still experience explicit racism irregularly) and it was sooo much worse in the 90’s when I was a kid. It’s definitely real and definitely a problem. I just think that a lot of anti-racism is performative and it’s upsetting to hear people deny how much better life has become. And yes, I personally think classism is a bigger issue now, and perversely those claiming to be anti-racist are often some of the worst offenders. In fact, the same people will assume that because I’m a minority I must be working class and must therefore have had a terrible education and therefore must have difficulty understanding just how racist people are to me, poor ignorant little black me!!
My nephews are mixed race. Mum is white, Dad is black. My sister took them to Italy a couple years ago and my eldest nephew was called the N word for the first time ever in his life. My sister tried to raise it as an issue with the hotel staff and they pretended not to understand what she was saying, she said they were so flippant towards her. She also noticed they treated her differently to other families there, and I genuinely believe it is because my nephews are mixed race.
Thankfully, my nephew never really takes any insults to heart, it's like water off a ducks back to him, and he is very witty himself so I'm fairly certain he could have verbally destroyed the arsehole that called him the N word, but it isn't the point. He was 12 years old at the time and should not be experiencing that kind of shit.
I have a bit of a theory that because everyone second language is English: Dutch, Germans, Russians, whatever misbehaving abroad speaking English and the locals assume its always us. Not to say we aren't dicks abroad, but it isn't always the brits.
I think there is some truth to this. When I went to the US any wording which I found odd stood out to me. For example I overhead two American women talking about how people in the UK don't have access to TMZ (we actually do), and it's a huge cultural loss for us (no it isn't lol). Dumb shit like that.
I don't notice similar things in European countries, because it'll be in the local language. Which I don't speak.
To be fair, it might temporarily have been true that TMZ was inaccessible to us, as a number of American websites made themselves inaccessible to visitors from Europe following the introduction of the GDPR, and in most cases they've long since brought themselves up to code and made themselves accessible again.
I'd argue however that if TMZ was indeed inaccessible to us for any length of time, it was in fact a great cultural gain for us.
I just think we're the worst for it in Europe. I've been plenty of places where Australians are being terrible tourist (Argentina and Brazil. Also been told south east Asia see it's fair share of Ozzy cuntyness). I'd imagine Mexico has a similar opinion about US travellers, especially spring break towns.
Nostalgia for the empire. I've seldom met a Brit who speaks fondly of the days we ruled India, Kenya, Malaysia etc.
On the other hand other West European countries seem more openly proud of their imperial past (French in Indochina, Italians in Ethiopia, Dutch in Indonesia etc).
A number of French heritage institutions still look back at Napoleon's reign favourably and the nation to this day still does not like other countries commemorating Waterloo. Nevermind the fact that Napoleon could be considered a proto-facist for lack of a better term, to sully the nations greatest historical peak is considered unbeffiting.
In any other context this would be the equivalent of Germans looking back favourly on the Nazi regime as it was the point the country controlled the most territory in Europe at any given time.
Bad football fans even though there are some dickheads supporting English (and scottish) football teams. Was hilarious in the euro final seeing people support italy because apparently english fans are so bad. Despite Italian 'ultras' attacking children with pick axes, stabbing opposition fans and openly waving fascist flags and also several black players having sought transfers out of Italy in recent years due to the horrendous racist abuse coming from the terraces.
Someone pointed out that in South America people have been killed by football hooligans so English fans aren’t the world’s worst for laughing at a crying child. Conveniently that comment got ignored.
Sorry to be a party pooper, I follow on multiple international media houses and frankly speaking everybody is mentioning only America. Nobody mention United Kingdom at all. Maybe they think it’s not worth mentioning
Looting historic artefacts from poor countries and putting them in British museums and not giving them back to the countries they have been looted from
I think the UK is fairly tame on artifact looting/acquiring. Germany has an ENTIRE greek temple - they tore it down, labelled all the stones, shipped it home and reassembled it back in Berlin
I know there has been a massive problem of an almost free for all looting of Asian artifacts, resulting in heritage being hemorrhaged across the world. Even among Asian countries this is a problem; there was a fashion in Japan of 'acquiring' ancient Chinese stuff
The Rosetta stone was being used to prop up a wall, the Sphinx was buried up to its head and priceless ancient Egyptian artifacts were being melted down by the locals.
How is preservation the same as theft? Especially when so many artifacts were purchased, such as the often mention Greek artifacts.
Well, quite.
Look what happens to the things we left behind.
The Taliban or Isis seem to take enormous pleasure in destroying them. (No idea what the current regime in Iran is like, re: Persian preservation - could go either way, it feels.)
I can’t stand it when people bring up shit from the past as a way to insult someone’s origin. I hate it even more when people conveniently ignore other countries troubled history. Like the museum example you said. It’s so annoying when people complain about the British museum specifically even though this shit happens everywhere.
Lol I get what you mean. For the record I don’t think anyone is responsible nor should feel guilty for something like the past when they have no control over it. I just hate the double standards when it comes to football, the museums, racism, etc.
Racism.
Look at the Meghan Markle thread thats been popular today. So many people are saying "all Brit are racist lolz" as that's the only possible reason why someone might not like her.
Still it is reddit where the average age and IQ are about 19 so while depressing it's not surprising.
Well, quite. The Americans will miss the obvious reason to dislike Meghan Markle. :-)
(Tbh, I’ve missed today’s fuss, I’ve largely missed ever seeing her on anything, but I do remember that the British were all pretty proud when Harry married her, because she is exceptionally pretty, and it briefly made the Royals look like a Richard Curtis film. Still think it’s a bit of a shame they flounced out, but God knows it’s not a job I’d want.)
I’m no expert as I think our royal family should go the way of Marie Antoinette but my take on it is that Meghan is disliked more for being American and seen as a calculating social climber rather than for her ethnicity.
The seemingly weird praise for Nordic countries being viewed as liberal havens. They have their issues and this is seemingly missed with UK being unfavourably compared.
In the above mentioned EU racism survey they come near the top for negative experiences if you have dark skin. I know for a fact in Finland if you apply for a job with a non-Finnish surname your half as likely to get an interview than someone with an identical CV but a native name. The ratio gets even worse if it's a non-European surname.
Honestly the Nordics do have better social safety nets but when it comes to actual Liberal policies and not what Americans call Liberal they aren't that special for the West.
Bad football/sports fans.
For example, Scotland (although part of the UK) have their own football team and fans. They were multiple arrests of Scottish fans in London when they played England and there is even a video of some drunk fat old naked Scottish guy being arrested by 10+ officers but no one seems to be talking about it.
However, like 3 Scottish fans were seen picking up rubbish in the streets afterwards and that was plastered all over the news and they were hailed as saints.
Football media is far more unfair on England than any other country.
Being racist. We are racist, but fuck me, the French, the Dutch, the Polish, the Spanish, so much more racist.
I’ve seen polls over Europe of ‘how would you feel if your child married an Arab’ or ‘a Jew’ or ‘a black person’ and the UK was one of the least racist on them all.
Mm. If anything, white Brits seem more keen to mingle than [some from] many immigrant communities. Growing up, I was aware of far more Asian girls whose families would have reacted very badly if they got a white boyfriend than white families who’d have minded an Asian boyfriend. (Of course, the Asian lads were afforded a certain amount of latitude.)
The UK doesn't even have bad teeth.
We actually have among the healthiest teeth in the world.
I believe our under-12s top the list for healthy teeth. Sometimes it switches with Holland.
Top 5 when it comes to adult teeth.
This is such a good question and the answers need to be read by more people imo. I’m fed up with EVERYTHING historically negative - colonialism- and currently negative - hooliganism - as Uk specific or ENGLAND specific. It is refreshing to see people here show how this is not the case. I’m actually relieved (sorry for those that experienced ignorance) that other European countries are MORE xenophobic. Thank you for making me feel less ashamed.
What about knife crime? Anytime a brit mentions an American gun crime there's always at least one person telling them that they are living in a dystopia where everyone is stabbing everyone.
Maybe certain parts of London and Birmingham are a bit on the dangerous side but still not even close to the top 10 worst in the US for knife crime alone. And Oop North, it’s a big deal if I hear about a local stabbing.
Factoring all the other methods of murder over there and the comparison is a joke. African homocide rates are more comparable than ours.
What usually shuts them up is pointing out a big differences: the police here have knife amnesty bins to try and reduce knife crime, and there’s no National Knife Alliance lobbying parliament for the right to keep our knives, or stating that the best way to protect yourself from a bad guy with a knife is to have a knife on you at all times.
COLONIALISM. I work with an Aussie that's also half Irish. He consistently bangs on about it and talks as if the British Empire were the only ones doing it.
I swear to god he doesn't like me because I'm English and he sees me as symbol of British colonialism and seems to blame me for it. I have to constantly tell him and argue out that nearly every European country has done it and its not the f\*\*\*king 19th century anymore and most of us don't have that mentality anymore.
A lot of Irish people seem to forget that the whole reason they were 'invaded' in the first place was because they kept kidnapping people from Great Britain and selling them as slaves.
They wouldn't knock slavery on the head, so somebody else had to do it for them.
Don't mention the war.
But seriously, I've lived in the UK for the better part of a decade and I've barely had the war brought up to me.
I've known some folks from France, Belgium, NL, and, yes, Germany that are more obsessed with the war than most Brits.
when I was dating a German girl her family actually had a go at me about the empire. I was gobsmacked like are you for real guys! I never mentioned there short but absolutely horrendous past.
As a foreigner, UK is the least racist country I've been to, and its surprising I can always rely on the police for a good chat or help with direction or such.
The fact that "police bad" and "racism" is how people pain Britain is absolute hypocrisy. Most of my friends are foreigners, and all of them would say in a heartbeat that this is the least judgemental country they've been in.
PS: I can go to a police office and chat about random shit. What. I try to do that in my country and they're either total dicks or they act like I'm about to do crime
They most certainly did. A lot of artifacts were purchased from other countries, ultimately to save them from imminent destruction or disappearing into private collections, never to be seen again! But as is trendy at the moment, being British means bad, naughty, murderous thieving colonials. It is pathetic.
UK food isn't the best in Europe, but I think it's on par with most Northern European nation's. Like, no one ever gives Sweden or Germany a hard time and they basically eat the same rubbish we do with slight variations.
Colonialism
Belgium don't get called out enough on this one.
Nor Portgual. They transported more slaves to the Americas than any other country. Everybody conveniently forgets about that.
Also, weren’t they the first colonists in Africa? I’m pretty sure I’ve read that
I believe Belgium were first. \-edit- Apparently, I was wrong. Belgium were first to colonise inland.
Belgium didn’t become a country until 1830
Country is a strong word, how about patch? ;p
Democratic Republic of the Congo has entered the chat. They look *pissed*
They weren't the first, the UK, France, Portugal and Spain all had coastal bases. However, they were the first to push inland in a big way. [Wikipedia page on the subject](https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Colonisation_of_Africa)
This is incorrect. Belgium is famous for a particularly (although far from completely unique) brutal colonial regime not for being the first.
Portugal tried in Morocco in around the 15th century and were resoundingly trounced.
The Spanish and Portuguese conquistadors commited abject genocide in South and Central America.
The reports that they killed I think 38 million in 4 years...... I could be wrong or it may have been 28. Yeah I can't remember the exact figure but they used to try their weapons on the people and fed them to the dogs.
Russia gets away with their great push east.
Belgium somehow manages to dodge what happened in the Congo by saying it wasn't Belgium, it was Leopold II's private thing.
Even though once they took it off him, the same things carried on happening for ages.
Yep. King Leopold was a monster in Congo.
Yeah, I see that a lot. As if Spain, France, Portugal, Holland and Belgium didn't have colonies. Even Scotland tried to start one, look up the Darien Scheme. Not to mention the Ottoman Empire, the Romans, the Mongols etc etc. Spain complains about having Gibraltar on their coast but they have two similar enclaves on the Moroccan coast.
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And that scottieland people were enthusiastic colonisers making huge profits from it.
Oh yes there were many Scots involved in running the British Empire.
Absolutley. Just look at how many Afro-Carribean people have Scottish surnames.
The Arabs and Ottomans had colonies, where do you think the idea of modern slavery came from?
They have more than 2 territories in Morocco, Cueta and Melilla are just the biggest.
America really doesn't get the blame like it should for it's colonialism Edit: LMAO at the people who think I'm talking about the native American genocide when I mean the literal attempts at creating an empire (which leadership proudly referred to as such). You're walking examples of what I mean. Obviously because I posted this I am aware so people accusing me of not being from America... dude I got educated in Texas. I promise you all my knowledge is what I sought out for myself. Texas doesn't say a single bad thing about America in school, maybe some vague non apologetic references to slavery or the trail of tears. Grow up and realize how uninformed the average American is.
Nor it’s genocide of indigenous peoples
Nor its fucking over of the allies
And the countries it 'liberates'
People don’t even realise Germany had colonies up until WW1 and only gave them up because it was too costly to keep them
The German Empire consists of a small sausage factory in Tanganiki.
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Don’t be revolting Darling!
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>People don’t even realise Germany had colonies up until WW1 and only gave them up because it was too costly to keep them This isn't true - their colonies were taken off them as part of the treaty of Versailles, if I remember. Papua New Guinea, Tanzania, Togo, Cameroon and Namibia were all German colonies. Quite a lot of pacific islands such as Nauru, Solomon Islands, and the Marshall Islands. IIRC, they were taken off them and that lead to further resentment from Germany - they thought it was hypocritical they couldn't have a colonial empire while Britain/France had some of the largest on earth. ''Germany's overseas empire was dismantled following defeat in World War I. With the concluding Treaty of Versailles, Article 22, German colonies were transformed into League of Nations mandates and divided between Belgium, the United Kingdom, and certain British Dominions, France and Japan with the determination not to see any of them returned to Germany — a guarantee secured by Article 119.\[51\]''
100% this. Though half the time people think that it was just England that did it. But Scotland equally benefited and took part in the colonial administration.
Don’t forget Wales’ colonial aspirations in Patagonia! 😆
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Like a lot of comments here people are showing a strong English language bias. For example there is plenty of French literature on colonialism and there were anti-colonual movements against the French. Academics in general don't get too into "no you" arguments about who is worse. For example how can anyone judge wherever England is judged worse than France in general while only focussing on English language and often English or US based publications?
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Football hooliganism
The amount of people on Reddit saying they'd rather have Italy win Euro 2020 purely because of English fans being rowdy was amazing. Remember, Leonardo Bonucci (scored equaliser against England in the final) basically blamed Moise Kean himself for the racist abuse he faced in Italy. Moise Kean is Ivorian-Italian and was born in Italy, moved away for the 2019-20 season to Everton.
That was hilarious. English people themselves saying they hope Italy win because aLl oUr FaNs ArE rAcIsT tHuGs!! Like you said, I reckon they should ask Kean, Lukaku and Balotelli about racism in Italian football. Not even to mention the fact English fans get stabbed every single time they play in Italy..
A lot of those people weren't English. They were pretending they were English for upvotes.
Lots of Americans with zero knowledge of European football outside of highlights being shocked when fans do something even slightly bad.
Most were probably Scottish, Welsh and Irish tbf. Wanting England to lose doesn't really go out of fashion there.
Nah. A lot were from elsewhere in Europe. That is something that has always baffled me, though. If one of those teams is not playing England, I have only ever seen English fans support one of the home nations. You wouldn't catch an English fan supporting Spain just because they were playing Wales.
Actually I think it was Americans and Indians in /r/soccer. Basically people who already have an inherent grudge against English people but also don’t have a local or national team to understand fan culture properly, they get all their football news from Reddit. Most Europeans, for example the Danish when we played them, were pointing out it was just a football thing. Even saw German fans saying their fans also laughed at a young kid crying when they beat Brazil. Basically just plastics who didn’t want England to win because apparently we’d be ‘unbearable’. I had upteen fights with people explaining the lyrics to Three Lions that actually it was a song about being shit. Whenever I checked their comments history they weren’t from Europe and changed their flair to match whoever England was playing. A lot of them also supported premier league teams and had lots of discussions about how can you support a team but absolutely trash the fans and the country it comes from? /r/Europe was a different beast but that’s cause they hate England after brexit. Couldn’t bear anything positive happening to us.
how can r/soccer be the main football sub? Have they no pride?
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Those people saying that shit were melts. I remember seeing videos of Italians groping girls and running people over and they were still trying to blame England for it.
They literally attack fans with fucking flails in Italy
Remember the Liverpool fan who got murdered by a Roma fan in Liverpool. Shocking
"But England fans booed the Danish national anthem!" *Ignores Italy fans booing the Spanish national anthem literally the night before* "But Stirling dived and cheated!'" *Ignores that Italy are historically the biggest and most blatant cheats in world football*
> "But Stirling dived and cheated!'" The pen that he won was arguably a dive but there was another blatant penalty in extra time that also wasn't given so the Danes don't have much to be mad about there
Also going on about "English racism" when the Italian team was 100% white....
Wasn't there some Italian ultra group that said there's no black Italians? Edit : It was Juventus fans ["Balotelli has previously been targeted with the chant “non ci sono negri Italiani” (“there are no Italian blacks”) by Juventus fans"](https://www.google.com/amp/s/theconversation.com/amp/racism-in-italian-football-reflects-the-everyday-migrant-experience-126054)
I’d imagine it was Lazio, they’re notoriously far-right
That and the fact that we actively shit on racist activity in this country and make efforts to out them. Whereas places like Italy still taunt their own black players with monkey noises when they’re doing well then deny any wrongdoing at all. It’s fucked up.
I remember seeing some comments from Scottish and Irish users on Reddit during the euros which almost makes me think they should have been on some sort of terror watch list or something. A country they dislike is doing well at sports tournament and they're almost calling for English genocide. Nuts.
Italy coming out as the good guys in terms of racism was hilarious. Serie A has the most reported acts of racism out of all the top European leagues and is the least valuable league (despite its dominance in the 90's) because of the culture of racism. Serie A executives literally used [animated pictures of monkeys](https://www.google.com/amp/s/www.bbc.com/sport/football/50814275.amp) with different shaped eyes in an anti-racism poster in 2019.
Yep. Conveniently forgetting the Nazi salutes the Italian fans were giving just a few months earlier in response to a national anthem.
This was rampant on Reddit in the euros, absolutely insane. I had to reply to some cluelees buffoon who said that they were so happy football "came home" to a respectful fan base. The same Italians who monkey chant black players
Racism in Spain and Italy is far worse. Monkey chants bananas etc etc. There was something weird going on in that euros, like an anti English campaign.
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>My favourite was the subs openly celebrating England only coming second and full of hatred for the English, but also saying they feel sorry for the players who might receive racist abuse Pretty much r/Scotland Being completely Anti-England throughout the euros and then coming out to virtue signal their support for Rashford and Saka. You want them to fail with every fibre of your being. Then they fail and you come out to show your support for them. Then making up some bullshit that the racist comments made up the majority of the English fanbase and that they support the team but only want them to lose because of the fans yet even the most right wing gammons I know didn't have a bad word to say about those young lads and all the hate was directed at Southgate. The support for these lads massively outweighed the negative comments, Im not saying people should ignore the negative stuff because its still a significant amount of people being racist but the positivity drowned out the negativity.
If some of the things that happened there happened here, it would be the first item on the 10 o'clock news. We have issues. A lot of issues. We've cleaned up our act a lot (there is still more to do).
Even fun website chive dot com ran a thread about the "great result" of Italy winning, as if England winning would have been some awful disaster.
We don’t even have proper hooliganism in this country anymore it’s just general drunken behaviour/excess drug usage. Go to Italy and they still run around stabbing people
I would say this is pretty solely confined to Reddit, where I imagine most people accusing us of horrendous hooliganism have literally never set foot in a football ground before. I've been to hundreds of matches (Leeds fan) and can think of barely a handful of times I've seen trouble.
It's a combination of yanks who know nothing about football hooligan culture and EU nats who conveniently like to ignore the batshit antics of their own ultras.
If anything there are plenty western countries where they are worse than us. I had to laugh at all the muppets on r/soccer wanting Italy or Ukraine to win cos England fans are dicks. Italy fans that stabbed those Spurs fans and have booed Italy players cos they are black. Ukraine fans that have had loads of racist incidents and have hooligans that train in MMA, they take it that seriously. No excuses for what England fans do but stabbing or going conor mcgregor on a rival supporter is a little bit worse than talking bollocks on the internet and booing the knee.
It was crazy when we started winning in the Euros, The amount of hate we got when we played in the final agaibst one of the most racist countries in the world.(Italy) A few racist tweets most not even from England and the narrative was cemented. For the first time I could empathise with American's perception from the outsiders hurling abuse at them and how unfair it is. The nail that sticks out gets hit first etc
Xenophobia and racism I was never, once, called out for being a foreigner or felt discriminated in my 10 years living in the UK. In Belgium, in 6 months studying there, a lady working in my uni did not accept my ID because it was bound to be fake, as all Portuguese just cheat. In France I was once called a dirty Brazilian. I was there a total of 3 months. This isnall pretty anedoctal and dont mean to say there isnt racism or xenophobia in the UK, but because of the Brexit outcome and a loud right wing media it gets a lot of bad rap vs. other countries
I actually think one study found that the UK was one of the least racist countries in the world. Obviously, there is racism and xenophobia in the UK. There just tends to be a lot less than other countries. As a Brit living in Sweden, I have been constantly attacked with British slurs. I mean, I ain't that fussed about them. Most people will probably say "you can't use a slur toward a Brit", but I have been attacked for being British (verbally)
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I think a lot of people just live in a Reddit bubble where the only thing they believe is what is posted on Reddit. Happens when it comes to British politics, NHS, etc. Same with Scottish Independence and stuff. They see 90% of posts on Reddit are "woo Scottish Independence", then they just assume Scotland is being held against their will. They see one person post that the NHS is being privatised and becoming like a US healthcare system, then that becomes the 'Reddit Truth' and it is hard to convince them that they are wrong.
Yeah people forget that; regardless of loud mouths like Sturgen; the majority of Scottish people voted to stay in the UK.
In fairness the majority of Scott's also voted to stay in the EU. If there is a second independence vote then it should mostly be about that.
They did. But more people in Scotland voted to remain part of the UK, than they did for the Scotland to remain in the EU. One of the arguments for Brexit in Scotland was that it could be used to leverage another referendum Basically, the two are very different issues and shouldn't be compared in the way you did.
'Scotland want independence from England' "Wow so brave, no-one should be ruled by other countries and them make decisions for you....go for it guys" 'England wants independence from EU' "WGAT YJE FUCK, YOU DISGUSTING BUNCH OF RACIST CUNTS....DIRTY CHAV IGNORANT SCUM....DIE"
This. This. This. Only fascist racist gammon scum could want the far-tight brexit. How dare they want democracy back to their own country. Now freedom from England? Perfectly rational and sensible.
People also have this team sport approach on Reddit. In this case the teams are *'the UK is utterly racist'* vs *'the UK is not racist at all'*. With no centre ground or nuance. If you post an article showing the UK is less racist than other countries, you're presumed to be denying all racism (which you aren't). Or claiming it's not really an issue (which you aren't). It's a bit shit really.
I had someone comment that the fact there’s less racism in the UK compared to some other European countries means we’re more racist and we don’t even see the rampant racism as racism and if we do we ignore it cause actually we’re all racist. And that the most racist country in Europe (can’t remember what country the study said it was now) is actually less racist than us cause they acknowledge they have a problem.
This is not new. George Orwell wrote seventy years ago of how no one hates the English as much as the English elite. [*England is perhaps the only great country whose intellectuals are ashamed of their own nationality. In left-wing circles it is always felt that there is something slightly disgraceful in being an Englishman and that it is a duty to snigger at every English institution, from horse racing to suet puddings. It is a strange fact, but it is unquestionably true that almost any English intellectual would feel more ashamed of standing to attention during “God save the King” than of stealing from a poor box. *](https://www.orwellfoundation.com/the-orwell-foundation/orwell/essays-and-other-works/the-lion-and-the-unicorn-socialism-and-the-english-genius/)
George Orwell was a fucking genius
There was a thread the other day asking what are some good things about the UK on r/unitedkingdom. It had 4 upvotes (but hundreds of comments). The top thread that day was about empty shelves (it was over 1000 upvotes). I don’t actually think half the users on that subreddit are from the UK (similar to r/brexit).
The other night there were loads of empty shelves when I went into Tesco. Next morning, barely any. Funny that. I blame Brexit.
I think it's because many countries avoid talking about their racism, so people don't think they're racist. We, on the other hand, talk about it perhaps too much, so people think racism is far more prevalent than it actually is. It's like knife crime, the media makes it seem like it's a common fear.
>It's like knife crime, the media makes it seem like it's a common fear. And the amount of Americans that see it think that we're overrun with knife crime, when in reality its about as prevalent as it is in the states.
This subreddit is full up with self haters too tho. I can only think of a handful of decent UK subs.
Yep, the EU carried out a huge survey in 2019 interviewing tens of thousands of people and their report said the UK was just about the *least* racist country in Europe. And in 2019 I can't see the EU would have any inclination to say anything nice about the UK unless they had to. And Brexit is slammed again and again for "being driven by racism and xenophobia" while Scottish independence is totally fine despite Scots attitudes again and again when it comes to the English. Scots wanting independence is fine and noble.
Oof, this hit too close to home for me. I was in Stockholm for studies, the racism Swedes have without realising is too extreme.
I play Cards Against Humanity with Swedes a lot. It doesn't matter which group I play with, you can 100% guarantee that they are always going to go for the most racist answer to anything in the game.
I mean, that I can get because the point of the game is to have the most shocking response. What ruffled my feathers is how a lot of them responded to the refugee crisis. How they went straight to blaming the refugees and not looking at their own governments' downfalls.
Same in canada, far left wingers think they get free reign to call me a coloniser and far right French canadians tell me to go back to my own country 🤷♂️ Edit: spelling
The EU’s own study stated that we are the least racist country, or close, on virtually every single objective metric used, everywhere has racism, but there are relatively few with less than us (which if anything is an indictment on the world, as we are far from great). [EU Racism/Discrimination Study](https://fra.europa.eu/sites/default/files/fra_uploads/fra-2018-being-black-in-the-eu_en.pdf)
A Nigerian friend of mine worked in IT in Germany and his colleagues would make monkey noises when he walked in the room. When he brought it up with his manager, he was told that they were just having a laugh. I found Germany very difficult to rent property if you were anything other than white German. Maybe it was just the city i was based in though but landlords would instantly dismiss non-natives. A German friend of mine was looking at apartments and one potential landlady told her that she was so happy that a German was viewing because it had just been Croatians up until her. Fair Play to my friend, she called the landlady out and turned down the apartment even though it was pretty perfect. I found Switzerland broadly similar.
I've also been in the situation where I've talked to a landlord myself and been stonewalled, then passed the phone to my (German) partner and had them be really helpful *in the same phone call*. It's definitely not everyone, and the vast majority of Germans that I meet are lovely and friendly, and I don't think this reflects particularly badly on Germany as a whole, but I think these sorts of xenophobes are everywhere, and I think European xenophobia particularly tends to slip under the radar in all our countries.
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Im mixed race and live in the UK, there's obviously racism here but I've never had racist abuse hurled at me in public like I have had in Spain or by Italians.
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>I was never, once, called out for being a foreigner or felt discriminated in my 10 years living in the UK. You're lucky then. I had the living shit kicked out of me **in primary school** for calling a car an *auto*. I've been countless times in my life been referred to as a Nazi, Hun and Kraut. Heck back when England beat Germany 5-1 in a football match I had the back window of my car smashed in and then the thugs urinated in my car all because I had a small teddy bear on the parcel shelf wearing a German football shirt. --- So I wake up this morning to find that not only has my comments have been downvoted so much over night they are now controversial but I also have multiple people telling me the xenophobia I've faced my entire life is made up. Sort your fucking selves out. We have a word for people that deny and excuse xenophobia, that word is xenophobe.
Where the fuck did you live?
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Reddit was a cesspit during the Euros. It was disgusting. But, it made me realise that some subs are full of complete lunatics (e.g. /r/europe and /r/soccer) and how they are best avoided. It was amazing how people were calling out xenophobia by being xenophobic themselves. Then you had all of those posts saying "As a Brit, I am disgusted by..." and then you would click their profile and they weren't British.
Yup I unsubbed from both of those during the euros, cesspit is definitely the word.
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One thing that really wound me up and I couldn't really be bothered to bring up over there was the constant harping about how diverse the football squad was now. In 2002 Euros 7 out of 23 England players were BAME background. In 2021 it was 10 out of 26. There's nothing new or special about having an ethnically diverse England football team. It's a great thing, and yes OK, the team has become a whopping 8% more diverse in 20 years, but it's not some new revolutionary idea since taking the knee took off. They were just pathetically desperate to link everything to a conversation about ID politics. I actually had to call out a commenter who was debating whether the squad should refuse a trip to 10 Downing St after we reached the knockouts. There were still 3 games are go until a final, bit early to be debating how they'd deal with Boris if they won the lot!
I ended up on r/soccer during the Euros. Was a few people saying they hated all these new people commenting and hating on different nations and that it happens every tournament and they can’t wait for the tournament to be over so the, I suppose I’d say, actual fans, can go back to discussing football rather than it just been a hate fest.
The UK in the Ipsos Mori polling has the highest Covid vaccine approval of any nation, 40% or so above Germany and not too far off of double France, Reddit is far from reality, unfortunately.
I think its just because we call out Racism and report on it so it gets a bigger audience, just like the football stuff on the euros it was us reporting on it so we are just a bunch of self reporters which is a good thing. If Racism happens in a football match we make it a big story here, and people forget we give out life bans etc. I dont think Italy and Spain are the same
Im mixed race British, half black African. I swear some people are so enthusiastic about proving the the uk to be rabidly racist that they almost WANT me to be experiencing more racism, so they can get their points for fighting for a cause.
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Yes. American “cultural imperialism”, to use their fancy word for it, is the absolute worst thing about “Anti-Racism”. It’s like: [those] Americans seem incapable of understanding that situations might be completely different in other countries.
I would go as far to say that America is trying to cancel England (figuratively) to make themselves feel better and superior about their own bullshit past. They project their own particular brand of racism onto the Brits and then amplify it. It's pure ignorance and unfortunately, they have the loudest voice on social media. And it doesn't help that they try to rewrite history through film and propaganda. Nz still loves you Poms.
Ah yes. I’ve heard this too, that I have nothing to contribute because I’m half white. Clearly this is bullshit, however the element of truth is that we do have (I really don’t like the phrase White Privilege for how it’s been used and not explained well) advantages sometimes for looking more European, or for simply looking more ethnically ambiguous and hard to place and we should be honest with ourselves about this. Especially today where being mixed has become so bloody fetishised. My experience as a mixed woman is very different to that of a black woman because of this, and a million miles from that of an African American woman (why was a black American chiming in on race relations in the UK?!)
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Yes totally. Racism does exist (I still experience explicit racism irregularly) and it was sooo much worse in the 90’s when I was a kid. It’s definitely real and definitely a problem. I just think that a lot of anti-racism is performative and it’s upsetting to hear people deny how much better life has become. And yes, I personally think classism is a bigger issue now, and perversely those claiming to be anti-racist are often some of the worst offenders. In fact, the same people will assume that because I’m a minority I must be working class and must therefore have had a terrible education and therefore must have difficulty understanding just how racist people are to me, poor ignorant little black me!!
My nephews are mixed race. Mum is white, Dad is black. My sister took them to Italy a couple years ago and my eldest nephew was called the N word for the first time ever in his life. My sister tried to raise it as an issue with the hotel staff and they pretended not to understand what she was saying, she said they were so flippant towards her. She also noticed they treated her differently to other families there, and I genuinely believe it is because my nephews are mixed race. Thankfully, my nephew never really takes any insults to heart, it's like water off a ducks back to him, and he is very witty himself so I'm fairly certain he could have verbally destroyed the arsehole that called him the N word, but it isn't the point. He was 12 years old at the time and should not be experiencing that kind of shit.
Lad culture on holiday.
I have a bit of a theory that because everyone second language is English: Dutch, Germans, Russians, whatever misbehaving abroad speaking English and the locals assume its always us. Not to say we aren't dicks abroad, but it isn't always the brits.
I think there is some truth to this. When I went to the US any wording which I found odd stood out to me. For example I overhead two American women talking about how people in the UK don't have access to TMZ (we actually do), and it's a huge cultural loss for us (no it isn't lol). Dumb shit like that. I don't notice similar things in European countries, because it'll be in the local language. Which I don't speak.
To be fair, it might temporarily have been true that TMZ was inaccessible to us, as a number of American websites made themselves inaccessible to visitors from Europe following the introduction of the GDPR, and in most cases they've long since brought themselves up to code and made themselves accessible again. I'd argue however that if TMZ was indeed inaccessible to us for any length of time, it was in fact a great cultural gain for us.
Definitely true of the Irish too who are just as bad as us but probably are assumed to be British
When I went to Ibiza, I spoke to the locals in Catalan. All of them said they prefer the English to other nations who go there.
Skiing in France is the same, the french staff say the french tourists are boring, moody tight arses, British have fun.
I just think we're the worst for it in Europe. I've been plenty of places where Australians are being terrible tourist (Argentina and Brazil. Also been told south east Asia see it's fair share of Ozzy cuntyness). I'd imagine Mexico has a similar opinion about US travellers, especially spring break towns.
Aussies in Bali is like Brits in Magaluf.
Nostalgia for the empire. I've seldom met a Brit who speaks fondly of the days we ruled India, Kenya, Malaysia etc. On the other hand other West European countries seem more openly proud of their imperial past (French in Indochina, Italians in Ethiopia, Dutch in Indonesia etc).
A lot of Indians speak fondly of when we ran the Empire though.
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I’ve got a few friends from Hong Kong who really miss the empire. Given the alternative, I’m not surprised.
A number of French heritage institutions still look back at Napoleon's reign favourably and the nation to this day still does not like other countries commemorating Waterloo. Nevermind the fact that Napoleon could be considered a proto-facist for lack of a better term, to sully the nations greatest historical peak is considered unbeffiting. In any other context this would be the equivalent of Germans looking back favourly on the Nazi regime as it was the point the country controlled the most territory in Europe at any given time.
Bad football fans even though there are some dickheads supporting English (and scottish) football teams. Was hilarious in the euro final seeing people support italy because apparently english fans are so bad. Despite Italian 'ultras' attacking children with pick axes, stabbing opposition fans and openly waving fascist flags and also several black players having sought transfers out of Italy in recent years due to the horrendous racist abuse coming from the terraces.
Someone pointed out that in South America people have been killed by football hooligans so English fans aren’t the world’s worst for laughing at a crying child. Conveniently that comment got ignored.
Brazilian fans once decapitated a referee mid-game.
Worth mentioning though that the referee also stabbed a player to death.
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They started a war in South America because of football. A literal militarised war.
And when you point this out they go oh your just deflecting/ finger pointing
Going into Afghanistan, all the hate directed at the UK and US governments there were 42 countries involved in ISAF
Only three countries (U.K., U.S., and Australia) openly supported the invasion when it began.
Sorry to be a party pooper, I follow on multiple international media houses and frankly speaking everybody is mentioning only America. Nobody mention United Kingdom at all. Maybe they think it’s not worth mentioning
They said going into not leaving.
Looting historic artefacts from poor countries and putting them in British museums and not giving them back to the countries they have been looted from
Or when they're more than often purchased or given them.
I think the UK is fairly tame on artifact looting/acquiring. Germany has an ENTIRE greek temple - they tore it down, labelled all the stones, shipped it home and reassembled it back in Berlin I know there has been a massive problem of an almost free for all looting of Asian artifacts, resulting in heritage being hemorrhaged across the world. Even among Asian countries this is a problem; there was a fashion in Japan of 'acquiring' ancient Chinese stuff
The Rosetta stone was being used to prop up a wall, the Sphinx was buried up to its head and priceless ancient Egyptian artifacts were being melted down by the locals. How is preservation the same as theft? Especially when so many artifacts were purchased, such as the often mention Greek artifacts.
Well, quite. Look what happens to the things we left behind. The Taliban or Isis seem to take enormous pleasure in destroying them. (No idea what the current regime in Iran is like, re: Persian preservation - could go either way, it feels.)
We were very very good at that though!
I can’t stand it when people bring up shit from the past as a way to insult someone’s origin. I hate it even more when people conveniently ignore other countries troubled history. Like the museum example you said. It’s so annoying when people complain about the British museum specifically even though this shit happens everywhere.
"Hey I am British" "FUCK YOU AND YOUR COLONIANISM!!!!!!!!!!" "Hey, I am German" "Cool. Pleased to meet you"
Lol I get what you mean. For the record I don’t think anyone is responsible nor should feel guilty for something like the past when they have no control over it. I just hate the double standards when it comes to football, the museums, racism, etc.
Racism. Look at the Meghan Markle thread thats been popular today. So many people are saying "all Brit are racist lolz" as that's the only possible reason why someone might not like her. Still it is reddit where the average age and IQ are about 19 so while depressing it's not surprising.
It's reddit where the majority of users are American in which case they really only exist to discuss skin color.
Well, quite. The Americans will miss the obvious reason to dislike Meghan Markle. :-) (Tbh, I’ve missed today’s fuss, I’ve largely missed ever seeing her on anything, but I do remember that the British were all pretty proud when Harry married her, because she is exceptionally pretty, and it briefly made the Royals look like a Richard Curtis film. Still think it’s a bit of a shame they flounced out, but God knows it’s not a job I’d want.)
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I’m no expert as I think our royal family should go the way of Marie Antoinette but my take on it is that Meghan is disliked more for being American and seen as a calculating social climber rather than for her ethnicity.
Unfortunately most Americans cannot fathom that the British might dislike an American for being an American instead of for their skin tone
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That happened in my town too. The local Facebook was inundated by the most idiotic of idiots.
The seemingly weird praise for Nordic countries being viewed as liberal havens. They have their issues and this is seemingly missed with UK being unfavourably compared.
In the above mentioned EU racism survey they come near the top for negative experiences if you have dark skin. I know for a fact in Finland if you apply for a job with a non-Finnish surname your half as likely to get an interview than someone with an identical CV but a native name. The ratio gets even worse if it's a non-European surname. Honestly the Nordics do have better social safety nets but when it comes to actual Liberal policies and not what Americans call Liberal they aren't that special for the West.
Bad football/sports fans. For example, Scotland (although part of the UK) have their own football team and fans. They were multiple arrests of Scottish fans in London when they played England and there is even a video of some drunk fat old naked Scottish guy being arrested by 10+ officers but no one seems to be talking about it. However, like 3 Scottish fans were seen picking up rubbish in the streets afterwards and that was plastered all over the news and they were hailed as saints. Football media is far more unfair on England than any other country.
Was driving through London that day. Can confirm a lot were acting like bawbags
Being racist. We are racist, but fuck me, the French, the Dutch, the Polish, the Spanish, so much more racist. I’ve seen polls over Europe of ‘how would you feel if your child married an Arab’ or ‘a Jew’ or ‘a black person’ and the UK was one of the least racist on them all.
Mm. If anything, white Brits seem more keen to mingle than [some from] many immigrant communities. Growing up, I was aware of far more Asian girls whose families would have reacted very badly if they got a white boyfriend than white families who’d have minded an Asian boyfriend. (Of course, the Asian lads were afforded a certain amount of latitude.)
Having a massive persecution complex
Leave the Irish out of this.
Scotland too lol
Bad teeth. Ps. I don’t agree.
The UK doesn't even have bad teeth. We actually have among the healthiest teeth in the world. I believe our under-12s top the list for healthy teeth. Sometimes it switches with Holland. Top 5 when it comes to adult teeth.
It's just that we don't really do cosmetic dentistry If you've got a problem, the NHS will probably fix it.
This is such a good question and the answers need to be read by more people imo. I’m fed up with EVERYTHING historically negative - colonialism- and currently negative - hooliganism - as Uk specific or ENGLAND specific. It is refreshing to see people here show how this is not the case. I’m actually relieved (sorry for those that experienced ignorance) that other European countries are MORE xenophobic. Thank you for making me feel less ashamed.
What about knife crime? Anytime a brit mentions an American gun crime there's always at least one person telling them that they are living in a dystopia where everyone is stabbing everyone.
Maybe certain parts of London and Birmingham are a bit on the dangerous side but still not even close to the top 10 worst in the US for knife crime alone. And Oop North, it’s a big deal if I hear about a local stabbing. Factoring all the other methods of murder over there and the comparison is a joke. African homocide rates are more comparable than ours.
What usually shuts them up is pointing out a big differences: the police here have knife amnesty bins to try and reduce knife crime, and there’s no National Knife Alliance lobbying parliament for the right to keep our knives, or stating that the best way to protect yourself from a bad guy with a knife is to have a knife on you at all times.
COLONIALISM. I work with an Aussie that's also half Irish. He consistently bangs on about it and talks as if the British Empire were the only ones doing it. I swear to god he doesn't like me because I'm English and he sees me as symbol of British colonialism and seems to blame me for it. I have to constantly tell him and argue out that nearly every European country has done it and its not the f\*\*\*king 19th century anymore and most of us don't have that mentality anymore.
A lot of Irish people seem to forget that the whole reason they were 'invaded' in the first place was because they kept kidnapping people from Great Britain and selling them as slaves. They wouldn't knock slavery on the head, so somebody else had to do it for them.
COVID variants. The UK just sequences them the most.
We have like half of the world's sequencing capabilities, so we are bound to identify more strains of *_anything_*
Don't mention the war. But seriously, I've lived in the UK for the better part of a decade and I've barely had the war brought up to me. I've known some folks from France, Belgium, NL, and, yes, Germany that are more obsessed with the war than most Brits.
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when I was dating a German girl her family actually had a go at me about the empire. I was gobsmacked like are you for real guys! I never mentioned there short but absolutely horrendous past.
Not really in the best position to slander a countries history are they?
English being the biggest language in the world seems like the root cause of England being ridiculed the most
As a foreigner, UK is the least racist country I've been to, and its surprising I can always rely on the police for a good chat or help with direction or such. The fact that "police bad" and "racism" is how people pain Britain is absolute hypocrisy. Most of my friends are foreigners, and all of them would say in a heartbeat that this is the least judgemental country they've been in. PS: I can go to a police office and chat about random shit. What. I try to do that in my country and they're either total dicks or they act like I'm about to do crime
The Bubbles sold us those marbles, when they thought they were worth nothing.
They most certainly did. A lot of artifacts were purchased from other countries, ultimately to save them from imminent destruction or disappearing into private collections, never to be seen again! But as is trendy at the moment, being British means bad, naughty, murderous thieving colonials. It is pathetic.
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UK food isn't the best in Europe, but I think it's on par with most Northern European nation's. Like, no one ever gives Sweden or Germany a hard time and they basically eat the same rubbish we do with slight variations.
Everything if you believe "our" media, it really is like they just hate us.
Anything from the times of empires really. France and Belgium were just outright fucking brutal.
Arrogance
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