[BrutusTheBear]

Not sure my post warranted a 'do one' SK.  Thought I was being fairly measured in pointing out that Devon isn't an anomaly.

Also... you know nothing of my background or expertise and have made some big assumptions....

[reeve]

To be fair Brutus, the tone of your post came across as dismissive of Sean's first hand experience, to me at least.

From your posts generally I'm sure you're not a racist! But the way i read this bit it does sound like it's on the wrong side of the line between understanding the source of racism vs sounding like an apologist:

Firstly, people do not develop their attitudes in a vacuum and the idea that there are no excuses seems unconstructive.  Perhaps, there a reasons rather than excuses but I think the point stands.

[seankenny]

Your claim that “racism is an everywhere problem” is sort of true but it also doesn’t tally with actual lived experience of going years without any problems to then getting shitty vibes the very first day you are in a new area. Of course other places are bad, when we go to my native East Yorkshire it’s not great either, but our experience in Devon was what it was. Maybe it’s just random and we were unlucky… but some places are worse than others, that’s just how it is.

Your comment about “holidaying amongst the proles”, yeah I get it was tongue in cheek but racism has fuck all to do with class. There are millions of anti-racist working class people in the UK, and British cities have plenty of poor people in them too, even London. So… it’s just an off thing to say, why propagate the idea that working class people are inherently racist when it just isn’t true?

[kac]

Sean do you mind if I ask where in Devon this was?

[seankenny]

No problem, Tavistock and surrounds. I can imagine Exeter is very different. Fwiw we had a good time, it’s a beautiful part of the world.

[SA Chris]

The rest of the world wants revolution, dwellers on the moor want evolution.

[BrutusTheBear]

Was definitely with tongue in cheek but I get that the voice in my head doesn't magically translate into the words on the page.
No intention to dismiss personal experience or cause upset, so apologies for any caused.
I have personally experienced/witnessed some very abhorrent attitudes and behaviour in Devon. I made a promise to a very influential person in my life a long time ago and will personally never let something go unchallenged.  (I have a great story about a local pub and BNP recruiter that I may share one day).
Fair enough re: class. I was trying to point more towards rural/ urban attitudes/differences prole was the wrong word to use.  ie. Definitely think you are more likely to encounter the kind of overt racism you've experienced in a Devonshire market town as opposed to an urban centre.  Agree some places are worse than others and Devon is definitely one of those places.

Not an apologist for discriminatory behaviour it is inexcusable but have an interest in how people aquire their attitudes.  There are reasons why someone feels OK with discriminatory behaviour and I am interested in how/why the comes to be. Not really a riddle that can be solved on an Internet forum by bunch of boulderers but nonetheless there are plenty of lines of influence within our society that are fanning the flames.

[kac]

Thanks Sean. Why am I not surprised it's a small market town. I come from one and wouldn't want to go back! FWIW my partner's Asian and we didn't have any issues in Torbay so can recommend staying there. Glad it didn't ruin the holiday!

[Ged]

Was definitely with tongue in cheek but I get that the voice in my head doesn't magically translate into the words on the page.
No intention to dismiss personal experience or cause upset, so apologies for any caused.
I have personally experienced/witnessed some very abhorrent attitudes and behaviour in Devon. I made a promise to a very influential person in my life a long time ago and will personally never let something go unchallenged.  (I have a great story about a local pub and BNP recruiter that I may share one day).
Fair enough re: class. I was trying to point more towards rural/ urban attitudes/differences prole was the wrong word to use.  ie. Definitely think you are more likely to encounter the kind of overt racism you've experienced in a Devonshire market town as opposed to an urban centre.  Agree some places are worse than others and Devon is definitely one of those places.

Not an apologist for discriminatory behaviour it is inexcusable but have an interest in how people aquire their attitudes.  There are reasons why someone feels OK with discriminatory behaviour and I am interested in how/why the comes to be. Not really a riddle that can be solved on an Internet forum by bunch of boulderers but nonetheless there are plenty of lines of influence within our society that are fanning the flames.

I work in a school in South Devon, but I don't know how important that is. I've experienced some.shocking comments from students, but then I also did in weston super mare, Bristol, Sheffield, and Newcastle. So I have no idea if Devon is a "worse" place. What I do find interesting/alarming down here is that people will make sweeping statements about "the immigrants", without having every really had an encounter with a non white non devonian person. I don't know if that makes it better or worse.

I think I get where Brutus is coming from in terms of what makes people have these attitudes. We often use a phrase at school, about general behaviour rather than racist attitudes, but I think it is still relevant; "don't ask what's wrong with them, ask what happened to them".

[Oldmanmatt]

Your claim that “racism is an everywhere problem” is sort of true but it also doesn’t tally with actual lived experience of going years without any problems to then getting shitty vibes the very first day you are in a new area. Of course other places are bad, when we go to my native East Yorkshire it’s not great either, but our experience in Devon was what it was. Maybe it’s just random and we were unlucky… but some places are worse than others, that’s just how it is.

Your comment about “holidaying amongst the proles”, yeah I get it was tongue in cheek but racism has fuck all to do with class. There are millions of anti-racist working class people in the UK, and British cities have plenty of poor people in them too, even London. So… it’s just an off thing to say, why propagate the idea that working class people are inherently racist when it just isn’t true?

Devon, where I was born and now live (when in the UK), has a Xenophobia issue. It isn’t simply a matter of racism, which certainly appears  more rife than many more urbane areas of the UK. However, you do have to view it in the light of the animosity that certain people from “x” part of the county have towards people of “y” part of the county and the collective disdain they all have for people from other counties…
My feeling is this is a fairly typical “thing” for relatively rural communities, everywhere I have travelled.
I don’t think they are much more racist than any other community (as a whole), perhaps just not as versed in hiding it as those in areas with a greater mix of races, ethnicities and nationalities.
Living in Devon with a Romanian wife, we both experienced this. Quite a lot of people, everywhere, are quite unpleasant in these matters.
Demographics play into it too. Large retirement age group, from all over the country and, frankly, there are some horrendous attitudes to all sorts of social groups, races and “bloody foreigners” amongst my parent’s generation. I often idly imagine slapping some sense into my elderly aunts, when they launch into one of their rants about this weeks demonised group.
Unfortunately, a different skin colour is an unmistakable badge of membership in one of those groups, my wife usually had to tell them where she was from before they decided to be rude.
It isn’t anything like as common amongst younger people or as bad as it was.
As a kid in Cornwall, my olive skin was enough to have me branded “Dago”, “Wop” and most commonly “Gandhi”.

Having said that.
I am, however (at least partially) with Brutus. There are reasons.
These are neglected communities in their own right, and victims of both ignorance and propaganda as well. Add in the stress that tourism, “second home” buyers destroying small communities, “benefits by the sea” migration and reduced public services etc etc bring and you get massive distrust of “outsiders” of all stripes.

I’m sorry for your experiences Sean, it really isn’t everyone.

[TobyD]

I would say that I hear more racist attitudes in Devon than I do in Northern cities, I went to school in Newton Abbot and in Exeter, and certainly remember a lot of it then, although that was in the 90s, maybe it's better now. Having said that, I'm sure Devon is no different from other neglected coastal areas of the country, I just don't really know the East coast much.

[seankenny]

Thanks for all the replies! I think it's worth saying that it's obviously not everyone, lots of people were super friendly when we visited and didn't bat an eyelid. Same as when we go back home to the east coast, the vast majority of people are great, and my friends up there are as accepting as anyone down here.

I think it's mainly proximity to big cities or to the widening of the big city effect that changes attitudes, and I guess Devon is just further away from large centres of population. Plus, as Matt says, demographics, though part of me struggles with this. My family is pretty liberal, culturally and politically - my grandad had visitors from Uganda and Kenya stay at his house in the mid 1950s as part of a Rotary visit and welcomed them with open arms - and I never really grew up with that kind of casual racism in the background at home. (School was a different matter.) What gets my goat is that I have in-laws in Sri Lanka who are elderly, don't speak much English (ie not part of the Anglophone elite) and are really traditional, and who treat me incredibly well, as one of their own even though I'm a foreigner. It makes me want to grab the English racists and go "see this little old lady who you'd think is backward, she's more bloody forward thinking that you'll ever be!"

I'm not sure I agree that people in more mixed areas are better at hiding their dislike of other groups, I'm sure some are but honestly, I live in one of the handful of boroughs in England where white people are a minority and if you got worked up over seeing black people or hearing a different language you'd go spare every time you stepped out of the front door. Like, why would you bother staying here? It'd be miserable!

[TobyD]

Who is the worse MP for their constituents, Matt Hancock, in Australia on reality TV for a few weeks, or Boris Johnson, who yesterday made apparently his third ever reference to his constituency since 2015 in the Commons, and is almost permanently seemingly on holiday at the moment?
I have little to no sympathy for the former whatsoever, and have better things to watch on TV, but I think he'd be justified in feeling that his former boss is, and was far worse than he, but he was the one who resigned almost immediately and has been more pilloried in the press.
On the plus side, as long as they don't do or say anything stupid, Labour look to be in a pretty good position at the moment.

[petejh]

On surface impressions undoubtedly bojo is worse at representing his constituency. Various polls predict he’ll lose his seat at the next election. If he does, I’d expect him to reappear as MP for another constituency whose constituents were less discerning - Henley for e.g. 
I read somewhere he employs others to do the day to day constituency work, leaving him to concentrate on being the posh buffoon figurehead for the serfs to admire. He’s a bit like the monarchy.

[TobyD]

On surface impressions undoubtedly bojo is worse at representing his constituency. Various polls predict he’ll lose his seat at the next election. If he does, I’d expect him to reappear as MP for another constituency whose constituents were less discerning - Henley for e.g. 
I read somewhere he employs others to do the day to day constituency work, leaving him to concentrate on being the posh buffoon figurehead for the serfs to admire. He’s a bit like the monarchy.

Likely. I have read he's likely to get moved to Nadine Dorries' seat if she gets her seat in the lords.
I like the observation about the monarchy, very apt, he probably has posher wallpaper than the King, however.

[Will Hunt]

I wonder how the Matt Hancock jungle thing will play out. There's obviously a lot of people who aren't happy that he's there, but these are people who were already anti-Tory and weren't going to be convinced otherwise. A lot of social media chat I see about him is now sympathetic and I note that he isn't doing the trial tonight for the first time. One possible effect is that some people will soften on the Tories as they realise that they are in fact human beings.

Incredible to see Boy George slate Hancock as a rule breaker. Boy George has done actual jail time after he tied a male escort to a radiator and beat him with a metal chain.


Disclaimer. Of course I do not watch Sleb Jungle. However, I am present in the room when it is on, normally playing my Switch.

[dunnyg]

My sources told me it's you wrestling the control away from your other half and forcing them to watch it. You are among friends here Will, you don't have to hide your true self 

[Will Hunt]

I won't pretend I don't enjoy it a little bit.

[teestub]

One possible effect is that some people will soften on the Tories as they realise that they are in fact human beings.

Let’s just continue to judge their humanity by their actions as government rather than whatever emotional pleas may be going on your reality tv shows. On that basis the evidence of humanity is sparse.

[Andy B]

Incredible to see Boy George slate Hancock as a rule breaker. Boy George has done actual jail time after he tied a male escort to a radiator and beat him with a metal chain.

Ah, but Boy George wasn’t telling other people not to tie male escorts to radiators and beat them with metal chains, while he did it.

[TobyD]

One possible effect is that some people will soften on the Tories as they realise that they are in fact human beings.

Let’s just continue to judge their humanity by their actions as government rather than whatever emotional pleas may be going on your reality tv shows. On that basis the evidence of humanity is sparse.

Perhaps, however Hancock hasn't been a part of the government for more than a year.

Incredible to see Boy George slate Hancock as a rule breaker. Boy George has done actual jail time after he tied a male escort to a radiator and beat him with a metal chain.

Ah, but Boy George wasn’t telling other people not to tie male escorts to radiators and beat them with metal chains, while he did it.

True.

[petejh]

Disclaimer. Of course I do not watch Sleb Jungle. However, I am present in the room when it is on, normally playing my Switch.

I believe you, I have the same experience with Judge Judy.

[Oldmanmatt]

Well, this sucks.
I was having a good day, until I got on the Amsterdam Metro an hour ago and pulled out my phone to discover that, technically, WW3 started two hours ago.
A lot of people will be losing sleep tonight trying to persuade Poland not to pull an article 5.
One assumes the diplomats will iron it out by dawn, but the world just got a little worse…

[battery]

Incredible to see Boy George slate Hancock as a rule breaker. Boy George has done actual jail time after he tied a male escort to a radiator and beat him with a metal chain.

Ah, but Boy George wasn’t telling other people not to tie male escorts to radiators and beat them with metal chains, while he did it.

Also, Boy George was tried and punished for his behaviour, he served his time. Hancock.... has not.

[battery]

Well, this sucks.
I was having a good day, until I got on the Amsterdam Metro an hour ago and pulled out my phone to discover that, technically, WW3 started two hours ago.
A lot of people will be losing sleep tonight trying to persuade Poland not to pull an article 5.
One assumes the diplomats will iron it out by dawn, but the world just got a little worse…

The BBC are reporting this evening that it might have been some of the bombs headed for Kiev having been knocked off course by the Ukrainian defences. A good / convenient outcome ...?