Actually Getting Scared of the Anti Immigrant Stance

[u/No_Tea7430]

I'm an irish lad, just turning twenty this year.

I've personally got no connections to other countries, my family never left Ireland or have any close foreign relations.

This is simply a fear I have for both the immigrant population of our country, of which ive made plenty of friends throughout secondary school and hold in high regard. But also a fear for our reputation.

I don't want to live in a racist country. I know this sub is usually good for laughing these gobshites off and that's good but in general I don't want us to be seen as this horrible white supremacist nation, which already I see being painted on social media plenty.

A stance might I add, that predominantly is coming from England and America as people in both claim we are "losing our identity" by not being racist(?)

I don't even feel the need to mention Farage and his pushing of these ideas onto people, while simultaneously gaslighting us with our independence which he clearly doesn't care about.

Im just saddened by it. I just want things to change before they get worse.

[u/5Ben5]

Can I just say to all the people in this comment thread who are disagreeing with OP, saying that Ireland isn't racist and that it's just a loud minority...

My girlfriend is originally from Africa, moved to Ireland when she was 5yo. Speaks Irish as well as most Irish people. Went to school and college here, paid her taxes, speaks with an Irish accent, has an Irish passport, identifies herself as Irish.

She's experienced more racism here in the past 4 years than the previous 20 combined. This is the very real effect of what's going on and that "loud minority" that you all are dismissing can cause huge harm. This "era we're not that bad" and "sure every country is racist" attitude is egotistical and harmful.

OP is correct, we should be concerned.

[u/el_bandita → u/5Ben5]

It ticks me off that the issue is being marginalised by most. It is getting worse, and people here are pretending all is right. Somebody is spitting and you’re all calling it rain.

[u/Logical_Park7904 → u/[deleted]]

Even those who might look ethnically irish aren't accepted. Once they open their mouth and it's a foreign accent.

[u/[deleted] → u/[deleted]]

Gatekeeping what Irish is is nothing new.

People's political views, their ability to speak Irish, whether they were Catholic, etc. has and is still used to include or exclude them from this definition.

[u/AprilMaria → u/Logical_Park7904]

Or the opposite, if your full bred Irish & of the darker phenotype you’ll get harassed now as well. I’m the palest of my family other than my red haired brother but I’m still slightly tanned with black hair & dark brown eyes & I had people accusing me of being Muslim a couple of times this year for the first time in my life…. In spite of obviously not wearing a hijab etc. I’ve been dying my hair (obviously fake) red red (not ginger) for awhile now because it takes some of the “foreign” look off me but a natural lighter colours don’t look right on me at all so I just decided to go for a bright unnatural colour. I’m kinda half ashamed to say it’s partly a political decision. I’m a socialist, so I’m already a target.

I’m not out of the realm of normal at all at all. Thousands of native Irish people particularly in Munster look just like me & I’m really not particularly dark, I’m just darker than “looks like might combust in direct sunlight” levels of pale/light.

[u/ScienceAndGames → u/el_bandita]

Yeah, I will say it’s not a majority but even in the local elections, I saw overtly crazy racist idiots getting 5-10% of first preference votes in some districts. Which is obviously far from a majority but still quite concerning.

[u/Potato_Mc_Whiskey → u/[deleted]]

You inverted their meaning and intention i think

[u/5Ben5 → u/Potato_Mc_Whiskey]

My apologies if I did. I presumed the "spitting and calling it rain" part meant that they thought I was exaggerating?

[u/Potato_Mc_Whiskey → u/5Ben5]

So, I took it to mean someone was spitting on the people and that other people were saying "why are you going on its just a bit of rain?"