TheEmpireStrikesDak

What?

  • 0 Posts
  • 9 Comments
Joined 3 years ago
Cake day: June 15th, 2023
  • TheEmpireStrikesDak@thelemmy.clubtoUK Politics@feddit.uk•Reform By-Election Candidate Slammed For 'Handmaid's Tale' Suggestion
    2·
    3 days ago

    In general, I’m lucky that in London there’s a mix of different backgrounds.

    My first experience of racism was as a child maybe 7ish, some gammon called me an Indian git because the bus was crowded and he couldn’t get off. Then at 15 when some yoot saw me waiting at a bus stop and said they don’t allow p**is on the bus (this was late 90s). Also, colourism was a big deal with my parents’ generation (“It’s a shame your sisters got lighter skin and you got dark skin” kind of thing), so I grew up being taught from both the media and my own family that light is good, dark is bad, and hating my skin colour and thinking as soon as I’m an adult, I’m going to use skin lightening treatment.

    Post 9/11 there was a lot of animosity towards anyone looking vaguely Muslim. I don’t remember experiencing anything personally at that time though. I’ve had the general white saviour types telling me I’m soooo oppressed because I choose to cover my hair and I should really take my hijab off and be free. Like, naff off woman. It’s a piece of cloth.

    One woman even asked me if I wasn’t hot in that, when I was wearing a simple hijab and plain black cotton dress. So I said you’re probably hotter in that tweed coat. And she shut up.

    About community, not really. I’m autistic and also match schizoid (doesn’t seem to be a thing that’s diagnosed here, so my GP could only go as far as saying I match all but one symptom) so I don’t really have much connection to anyone (hence why I fall l into codependency, both my exes had childhood abuse trauma and treated me like dirt, all it takes a little lovebombing to get me on the hook). But I can tell you, despite that Islam explicitly states your race gives you no superiority over anyone, a lot of my parents’ generation do have some racist tendencies, if I wanted to marry a black man, it would have brought shame upon my parents. They also fell for the colonial divide and rule tactics and look down on Pakistanis. It’s all really stupid.

    As I said, in London we’re such a mix, so we’re used to mingling with people of different backgrounds, it’s just normal. I can’t imagine London going right wing, my area is largely Orthodox Jewish and Afro Caribbean, I can’t see them voting reform or tory. It’s been labour here as long as I can remember. I think most of London is safe. But reform’s popularity, combined with social media propaganda does embolden the racists. YouTube is determined to force far right propaganda. Once I looked up a clip of Rudy’s rare records on a private mode window, and the recommended videos under it were 90% right wing propaganda.

    My parents’ generation experienced horrific racial abuse. My uncle (gen x) did a Twitter post about it years ago, I think I screenshot it, I’ll see if I can find it.

    If anything, I experience sexism these days more than any kind of racial or religion discrimination (I work in the bike industry and men, and sometimes women, will immediately ask for a man and assume I know nothing, even though I’ve trained as a bike mechanic. I have a whole thread on mastodon if you’re curious).

    In general, I think most people are good. I think most people just want to get on with a peaceful life. But the loudest voices are the voices of hate. And the media loves to platform these people. And I’ve seen how easy it is to fool people with the most basic propaganda. I look at what’s happening in the US and feel it’s only a matter of time before that happens here too. It’s scary.

    Sorry, didn’t mean to write such an essay. I hope I answered your questions!

  • TheEmpireStrikesDak@thelemmy.clubtoUK Politics@feddit.uk•Reform By-Election Candidate Slammed For 'Handmaid's Tale' Suggestion
    2·
    3 days ago

    I can’t underestimate the power that social media propaganda has. My ex and another colleague would parrot everything they heard on Facebook and Joe Rogan. My ex even once described fascism as “the best form of government”. And I can only assume he was mindlessly repeating something he saw online with no understanding. He would often parrot the “mozlums are trying to force sharia law on the UK” line, not just to attack me personally, but because he probably believed it, despite living in London where he comes across loads of Muslims and yet he could not produce one real life example. He would also unironically praise and defend yaxley Lennon and farridge. Despite knowing that I would not be safe in a room with either of them. That wasn’t enough to stop him admiring them.

    (And yes I stuck around because I was already fully locked into codependency by the time the mask came off. I’m physically free from him now, but still an emotional prisoner. But I’m working on it.)