What is an "Englishman" anymore?

[Daimo]

Luckily, im not in the older frame of mind where everyone black or indian is an immigrant unlike say my grandparents

But, what is an Englishman to you?

I.e, if someone has an Indian mum, and an Indian dad, but was brought the UK and born in the UK, is the child English?? IMO, no, they are still Indian, born of Indian parents, just the physical location born is England, that doesn't make them English?

Or does English mean being born anywhere, but being brought up in England?

In my quiet village, we never saw a black family, ever. We had 2 black kids at school, maybe 20-30 Indians, the rest where white English (GTF with your caucasion). This was only 15 years ago, now, i'd say its around 1/3 English, Black and Indian, are all these people English now?

With the amount of Muslims and other cultures invading England, will the white English eventually become the minority in the UK?

This really isn't a racial post, its ore of a "what does the rest of English folk think is really an Englishman"?

For me, as mentioned, being born in the UK, doesn't make you English. Having family roots and some history makes you English. But where is this line drawn, 2, 3, 4, 5th generation of parents? Where is the line of being English actually drawn?

Is an Englishman white? Historically, the English are white people. Now this isn't the case at all, but if historically we are white, is a Black/Indian/Muslim/Hispanic/Asian person ever going to be a real Englishman? They are from another culture, not routed to anything English, other than a parent, or grandparent bringing them here? Surely they are still of their own culture, and not actually English still?

I.E A black man is of African origin. Many have travelled, generations ago. But does this mean they are now English/American etc, or are they actually still African? The history prves they were never born in England, their human features are not that of an Englishman, so are they English just because they were born here?

Whats your thoughts?

Note i've not actually flamed any culture here before the racial hippies start off. Its a genuine question, one I only started thinking of dring a conversation the other day. It made me think, "what really is an Englishman? I have Indian/Black friend, but neither look anything like me, neither talk anything like me, neither have a natural white man frame like me (Indian is closer to me, black chaps a machine, defined etc). Are they English?

I guess you could change "English" to European as I know we never originated from the UK hundreds of years ago. But again, wheres the cut off? Am I not actually English by my own thoughts? (I am white, with a heritage of at least 10+ generations of England based family, as much as I can find atm).

Discuss?

[fatpies]

There was a discussion of this on CH4 once, where they asked what is an English person.... it might have been seven sins of England. Where one of the sins was either bigotry or Racism.

At the start of the show they had a couple of people who absolutely insisted that to be English you had to be of white stock...

He was then asked what about Ian Wright then....

And Polish people.

And he insisted that you had to be of white stock....

By the end of the show he'd changed his mind and softened his view that you didn't have to be of 'white stock' to be considered English.


Another similar show discussed it (might have been the same) where loads of people claimed ancient roots and blood rights.... they did DNA testing and a lot of what you might consider pure blood English people were not pure blood English at all. Most of them accepted it quite gracefully. Except one extremely racist woman who said non English should be exterminated. It was ironic because they DNA tested her. Turned out she had Romany DNA and had less than 1% English DNA in her

TBH putting labels on things isn't really helpful. Since it is incredibly vague.

I.e. you can say values or attributes

A sense of fairness, its not cricket
Playing fair
A sense of justice
A sense of humility
Doing ourselves down.
Family values
But defending ourselves when somebody else puts us down.

A lot of people can be considered the above, but then a lot of the native English people don't follow the above.

The 'chav' underclass for example, they don't seem to play fair, or have a sense of justice a sense of humility or family values what with 4 children to 4 different dads (generalisation). Yet they are considered to be English.

While OTOH Mr Chong, the local chippy owner. He is obviously not white, he looks like he is from China . But his great grandad came sometime in the 1870s. and his whole line was born in the UK. Yet he is considered an outsider. By many who call him all sorts of nasty names even though he has all the values above. He works hard never been in trouble with the cops and yet he's an outsider. You can go in on a quiet evening and people will ask where are you from....

"I was born here."
"What about your dad."
"He was born here."
"What about his dad."
"He was born here."

Which feels to me like sticking a label on him of him not being from around these parts.

[angryjonny]

Let me clear up a couple of things.

Historically, we're all non-white and we're all foreign. Homosapien life emerged in Africa and the first attempts at civilisation were in the Iraq/Iran area. Britain was empty of humans at the time.

If you're a "white englishman" you're probably a vague mix of Celt (indiginous brit, as far as such a thing exists) 70th generation Roman, 40th generation Viking, 30th generation Norman etc. Everyone in Britain is the result of someone travelling to Britain at some point in time.

As far as I'm concerned "born and bred" is enough to consider yourself an Englishman. And male, I suppose, otherwise you'd be an Englishwoman. In fact, living in England and considering yourself English is probably enough, regardless of where you were born.

[fatpies]

[Daimo]

[Daimo]

Fatpies, does that mean that you think to be English you need certain character/thought traits over physical features or type?

[dogbot]

Just an accident of birth.

[leonski]

there is no true english weve been invaded to many times we are a mongral race defo no pedigree
tbh i would class any one english if
they speak english !!!!!
know our history
hate of German football
love of the flag
defo not French

look at the end of the day the world is changing but im sure the collective peoples of this England will put great back into Briton

would you class amir khan English ??????
i do because he loves our flag for which he fights for its honour
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[Chalky.]

Hunts, shoots, and drinks port.

[leonski]

[Daimo]

[oldpink]

whats the case here then
my nephew is considered Scottish as his parents are both Scottish though his father was born in S Africa
to Scottish parents, my nephew was born in Sweden but from about a year old has lived in England
he's now 28 and lived almost his entire life in England apart from 2 years studying in Scotland
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[leonski]

[leonski]

tbh it really pisses me off seeing the how shit this great land is becoming but we as engish need to look at ourselves and not the rest of the world and become the nation we once was
____________________
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current beasts..lol de-restricted ludix classic 50 fastest ped ive ever ridden
yamaha ybr 125 working progress .......

[blurredman]

Anyone born here in the eyes of the law is British.

Other countries have a rules that say, you are the nationality of your father and where you are born doesn't matter.

To me, the whole issue of 'we once origionated from iraq' is a non issue.
Either way, in a couple of million years all the immigrants here will be white through all the inter-breeding.
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[angryjonny]

[hellkat]

There is a single qualifier.
Queueing: Can you do it?

If you can work out who was there before you and remember who arrived after you, and elbow (or brolly) your way firmly into your correct position on the bus dependent upon those factors...

Then you are English.
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Not nearly as interesting in real life.

[hellkat]

A free-for-all is the domain of Johnny Foreigner - and most unseemly.
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Not nearly as interesting in real life.

[Hannibal]

[fatpies]

[fatpies]

[Berk]

I'm almost of the thought that nationalism is an outmoded concept in this day and age of easy travel.

It's already been mentioned that we 'English' are a mongrel race, we've been invaded by so many cultures it's nearly untrue. Even our language is a mongrel language, grown and evolved with each nation that took over, as well as taking words from other countries that we invaded.

Would you consider me to be English? My parents were both born here, but only 3/4s of my grandparents. My paternal Grandfather was Serbian, and a lot of my Dad's cousins still identify strongly as Serbian despite being born here. Even my surname that comes down from my Maternal line is possibly Scandinavian in origin from many many generations back.

How about the royal family? Are they English?

[Rogerborg]

I'd have thought that if you've taken the time to learn to speak the lingo in a cogent, comprehensible fashion without jabbering or causing a hullabaloo, you're in.

https://30.media.tumblr.com/tumblr_laz5ammDwp1qet98po2_400.jpg


But what do I know, I'm a Jock - we're supposed to pretend that our gutteral grunting sub-dialect is actually a 'language'.

https://www.bbc.co.uk/comedy/content/images/2007/09/13/rabcnesbitt4_396x222.jpg
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[angryjonny]

[Tenko]

Its a tough one - my theory is that you are English if your father was English. If he was Russian for example and you were born in England to an English mother then you are half English, half Russian. What you are though is a holder of a UK passport which is a legal identity as opposed to a national one.

I don't think colour has anything to do with it either. After all us 'indigenous' English (silly BNP definition based upon people who lived here at an indeterminate time following the Norman conquests) are such a mixture that we are neither one thing nor another in genetic terms.

In terms of character you forgot one thing - true English folk will complain about the weather whatever it is doing.

I am English but not particularly proud of it. Sure, I'd die for my country if it came to it but it wouldn't be for chavs, 'celebrities' or Daily Mail-reading neo-nazis... It'd be for the decent, honest folk who live here irrespective of colour nationality or religion.