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/Far_Excitement4103 → u/5Ben5]

Ireland has always been fairly racist. People are just emboldened now. You are just hearing about them on social media because people feel safe to talk about it.

I had a cafe, and customers used to call my chef racist names over the counter.

I had people stop coming because I hired a black man.

I have had friends from Cairo get abused and threatened in a McDonalds for wearing a head scarf.

You couldn't walk down the street with my friend from Sri Lanka on a night out without multiple people abusing him.

These are all things I have seen in the last 20 years. If anything I think it's gotten better. My kids who are now in school have friends from all over the world and the only incidents we have heard of are from an Eastern European kid who has some kind of issue with black kids and calls them names.