Are British stereotypes offensive?

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This is part of the problem. The British way it to joke around to show affection, but many incomers see it as offense, and instead of intergrating into the British society by becoming a part of it, they choose to segrigate themselves and try to change the British culture instead which is what causes racism within our culture.

It is a sheer lack of understanding betwen the different races which causss rhis. Many of the cases which are portrayed as racism are not racism at all but it is the lack of the ability for those from other countries to understand the British sense of humour and the British ways of showing effection.

The British do not joke about their enemies so much in a directed way but they do to those they try to befriend.

This is something I agree with. Many people use humour as a way of breaking the ice, breaking down barriers and building relationships. The way we do it is to poke fun at both others and ourselves.

I think being self deprecating has been part of our culture for some time, though sadly that is being slowly eroded away

That's not a good thing though, as that makes us British people look like racists.

I don't feel that very many British people are "racist," per se. The character of the racism in the UK is really quite a departure than that found in the US.

It's more like the xenophobic contingent (the vast minority of Britons) don't like people from other countries or other cultures, and they don't like how other cultures are supposedly "infiltrating" the British culture.

Q: What's the difference between a Jewish joke and an antisemitic joke?
A:

In my culture, self-deprecating is okay if it is self-deprecating - but it's offensive when done by others. It might have something to do with power struggles in the region - Germans or Russians historically deprecated Poles for political gains - Poles did the same to Jews and Ukrainians - etc. Nations with such experiences don't feel the comfort of Brits who didn't have to fight against Kulturkampf (actually they may have been on the other side of it a few times...)

That's why people of some ethnicities are very sensitive to putting them down - they associate it with malicious intent, not with friendly barter.

nah mate....it's How ya goin mate

I've never had a BBQ in my life but that does work with my parent's generation right up to the 1980s. I blame Paul Hogan for giving away our secrets

Guinness was Irish, now its international. There is kind of an English version called stouts like Boddingtons which to my unrefined palate reminds me of Guinness.

I think the English prefer local ales/stouts, but the Belgians and Czechs are the kings of boutique beers

I think the brits are much more refined in their humour than Australians. You guys are lucky in having a longer history/older culture to draw humor from

Even if this were true its 100 percent irrelevant.

There is no "northwest germanic language family"

There is..."North Germanic" (basically all Scandanavian languages.).

There is "west Germanic" (German, Dutch, Frisian, English, Scots, Afrikaans, Yiddish).

And there was "east Germanic" (Gothic) which is now extinct.

Around 600 AD the Anglo Saxons came from the north sea shores of Jutland, Germany, and the Netherlands, and kicked the Celts out of the south eastern parts of Britain and became the English. And their West Germanic language became old english.


Then the Normans conquered in 1066 and imposed French upon the nation.

The Normans were descended from Vikings from Scandanavia but by the time they invaded the province of northern france that became their home they had assimilated to speaking French (though it was an odd Norse influenced kind of French). ''

The Normans were reason the purely Germanic early English became this modern hybrid of Germanic and Romance that English is today.

While the Normans ruled England the language of the court was not... any Scandanavian language, nor was it Anglo Saxon English. It was French. If you dont grasp that then you dont grasp British history, nor the basics about the evolution of the English language.

Racists?! For being self deprecating and poking fun?

Yes, and it is not racist to be patriotic.

The bad teeth stereotype is the one I’m most familiar with.
People think that about my state and in the rural areas you do see people with bad teeth.Bad dental hygiene, lack of dentists and meth all contribute.

It is not true that we don't like people from other countries. Britain is a country made from immigrant people for many generations.

Britain has made it too easy for foreign people to come over. Also skin colour is focused too much on. Someone told me that a school in Essex somewhere had an Ofsted inspection and they weren't happy with the lack of coloured children this particular school had. But the way I see it, scoring points on the number of coloured children is quite racist, because if I was an inspector the colour of skin wouldn't enter my head; all I'd see are children, and as long as the children are happy and learning well and the environment is healthy and safe, I would pass the inspection.

You have hit the nail on the head of the real issue facing the UK today is that their "Equality" policies themselves are the complete opposite of being equal.

Our government does not seem to know what the term "Equality" actually means and we are causing more harm for the future of Britain then we are trying to correct.

Our governments policies are just too far removed from the real world in which we live in and the sooner our laws are changed to reflect a common sense approach to the issue the better.


With regards to equality, we are not saying that we don't want things to be equal. What we are saying is that the equality policies are foundationally completely daulty and whoever dreamed up the ideas is clearly not up to the task of making equal laws that create a scinario where every person has an equal chance in life as everyone else.

What our government has done is to state that being black is classed as a "Dissability" and this in itself is a very racist thing to do, because being black has no difference to ones abilities as being any other skin colour.

To really address skin colour one must start by dealing with everyone in the exact same way. To promote one group over another is racism, so if one says "You are black. You get the job" is a very racist and discriminatory act in itself.

What they have done is to identify the problems but turn it upsidown which it is still discrimination, except that one is not discriminating against another group of people instead which does not solve the issues at all because what one now has is instead of a small number of people being discriminated against, you now have most of the people in the country being discriminated against and this is supposed to be a democracy which is supposed to have its laws based on behalf of the majority rather then a minority (Which happens to be acting like a dictatorship).

We need real equality back again so we can heal the deep wounds of segrgation ans so I can once more be allowed to speak freely with people from a minority group without having to watch every word I say where I am more of a "Mechanized being" rather then someone who wants to be a true friend, because the laws have made us soo uneasy about speaking to anyone from a minority group that we ignore them when we see them in our streets, incase we accidently say something which could offend them... Which is what has happened in the area where I live and is surely the opposite to what the minority groups wanted. They wanted to be included, not segrigated, left out and ignored.