#and not like work friends like we meet up ourside of work to do stuff

[satsuki-yumizuka]

anything on your mind this weekend?

ive been getting along rlly well with my coworkers. to the point where we're friends now. which i only feel confident in saying because they used that word first

[ghosti-bee]

It’s actually not white privileged in england, it’s british privilege. I’m a white person who happens to be both british and and french and you should see some of the looks i get when i speak french. I’ve even been told to “go back to your country you filthy immigrant”.

If you go to barnsley, which is the most pro-brexit area in england, most of the immigration is from eastern europe and most of it happened after 2004. They’ve had a massive influx of eastern european immigrants since then that happen to be more willing to less skilled jobs that aren’t paid as well. But when you to barnsley talk to the locals. When you talk to the locals who happen to work at the hospital you realise that there also seems to be some immigrant privilege. These people sometimes need an interpreter which is fine, but it’s not a set interpreter. Often you will find out that the interpreter will be a family member, and that they are being paid £20 an hour by the hospital. Then, these people get moved up on waiting lists because it would be bad to make them wait. But my grandparents have to wait literal months before getting any sort of medical help. My grandfather nearly died because doctors wouldn’t see him. On top of that, immigrants have taxis to take them to and from the hospital, paid by the hospital. My 80 year old grandparents have to either take the car or get a bus and if they get a taxi they have to pay for it themselves. All of these things that are left unresolved build up resentment. We’re talking about an underfunded system working at capacity paying for trivial stuff and privileging immigrants.

I’m not anti-immigration, i can’t be. I think it’s great. I think it beings new cultures and new views of the world. The diversity is also great. But it has to be equal. My dad, who’s an immigrant, doesn’t get the privileges the immigrants in barnsley do. I live in london where immigration is a massive part of our culture. Nearly no one you meet in london is actually a white british person. We all get on fine. Life is equal. Immigrants get the same treatment as locals do because there’s zero distinction. We have oursider interpreters for when someone need one. And i don’t get shouted at or receive nasty looks for speaking french.

We need to start having conversations about immigration that aren’t just “oh you hate immigrants” or “you want them to take all our jobs” because these arguments lead to resentment. Why do people feel this way? What can be done? How can everyone reap the benefits of immigration? These are the questions we need answers to. Because without these questions answered, the problem will never be solved, and the anti-immigrant feeling will continue to fester.

Side note: as someone who’s born and bred in london. If i can manage to sit on the tube, yes that thing that has been blown up several times, next to a muslim person and have no problems with it, not fear for my safety. If i can be friends with them. If i can walk down the street alondside them, so can you. There have been numerous terrorist attacks since my birth, some where i was scared i knew people invvolved, yet i’m capable of letting people live. If you live in the west and anywhere but london, you have zero reason to fear muslims given that none of us do. (And if you try to use 9/11, i hear you, it was tragic, but it also happened close to two decades ago with nothing since. I would also like to point out that london attacks don’t have conspiracy theories surrounding them and that 40% of the population doesn’t think it was somehow a conspiracy. And maybe you should focus on mass shootings because you are the kind of racist pro-gun person who would make this kind of comment)