Is Ireland Racist?

Just about yeah. Thanks

That really doesn't mean much though. I've traveled extensively, and I could probably assign many of my bad or lukewarm experiences to racism if I wanted to. In some cases, they definitely were related to racism, but others could been simply that I was in the wrong place at the wrong time. Or some people have really stupid mindsets when it comes to insults and agro.

The point being that experiencing racism in a country, doesn't make that nation (and everyone who lives there) racist. Individuals are racist. Some groups are intentionally racist.. but the idea that you can call an entire country racist is nuts...

The simple truth is that everyone can and will experience some racism firsthand... even in their own country. There's plenty of Black people who are racist towards other Black people (Africa is extremely tribal after all). Plenty of white people who project guilt over being white. TBH every time I hear a White person going on about white privilege, I know that they're being racist towards their own ethnic group. But it still comes down to individual or mob behavior.

I can only speak for my own experiences and what I've observed. I have Asian family and friends of various ethnic backgrounds.

Structurally, no. I think contemporary Ireland makes a strong effort to ensure racism doesn't happen and by and large in officialdom, employment and education it seems to be fairly good.

In day to day life, my Asian family members haven't encountered any issues and have had very good and open career opportunities and have been quite well embraced.

Where things start to have issues here is where many of us have issues - thuggush abuse by what I can only describe "roaming street bullies". I've heard of and seen several incidents of really nasty racial abuse from these "characters" but, it also has to be said that they seem to also be willing to throw any other kind of abuse too and are often just vicious to absolutely everyone.

I've encountered occasional and really quite shocking racism from some older folks (in Dublin). Most of it is just sheer ignorance but some of it really couldn't be explained away by that and it was as downright nasty in reference to "mixed marriages" and expression of faux concern for mixed race children, who happen to be my neices and nephews.

I am not sure where those attitudes came from, but they were no different to what you'd see in Britain from a certain type either.

I don't think we have anything like the race relations issues the US has and we don't share its history. I think it's also something we need to avoid importing.

I also think you have to be a little careful not to assume aspects of online social media racism is reflected in the real world. It can be extremely vicious, all about pile ons and bubbles and it often isn't defined by geography. I know I've encountered abuse myself from weirdos online.

Irishness is very much a state of mind and I think for most of us it's also something that is capable of embracing and bringing people into the fold and into the big, broad Irish family. I think that's something we should feel proud of and confident about.

We have a hugely positive and outward looking national identity that isn't about the fragile ego of ethnic nationalism and anyone who tries to push it into being about bloodlines needs to be told where to go.

The other area we fall down badly on is definitely around our relationship with our own traveling community. There are social problems and, like in most ethnic groups that have suffered from social and economic exclusion, you'll find that is both the root cause and the driver of a vicious cycle of exclusion, feeding into lack of opportunity and into social problems which, reinforce prejudice, which causes more exclusion and the cycle goes on and on and on ...

It takes a big effort to break that cycle and I think we are only barely beginning to do so. It will take bridges to be built, trust to be built and community to connect, but I would say that at least we are recognising it is a problem and we are tackling it.

Overall I think ireland has racists and racism issues. They're not American problems nor are they a byproduct of imperialism superiority complexes and we need to identify and solve our own unique issues.

However, by and large I don't think Ireland is particularly racist. It's also self aware enough as a society to identify and tackle these issues and not so arrogant as to think it's perfect. We do genuinely strive to be a decent society. That's probably the main thing that will ensure that we have a good outcome.

The other area we fall down badly on is definitely around our relationship with our own traveling community. There are social problems and, like in most ethnic groups that have suffered from social and economic exclusion, you'll find that is both the root cause and the driver of a vicious cycle of exclusion, feeding into lack of opportunity and into social problems which, reinforce prejudice, which causes more exclusion and the cycle goes on and on and on ...

The "cycle" with the Travellers exists because their culture is completely incompatible with a modern society. It's a primitive culture that encourages abuse of all kinds, and invariably leads to them becoming outsiders. Stop protecting that culture, and the cycle will end with Travellers becoming part of mainstream society, because there would be no more excuses for behaviors that are unacceptable to us. ie, the abuse and the focus on violence.

The cycle goes on and on, because they're encouraged through government supports to maintain that culture. The racism directed towards Travellers exists because their behavior is offensive to many Irish people. It's not complicated, and it's not hard to understand.

Covert racism... lolz.

'The racism directed towards Travellers exists because their behavior is offensive to many Irish people. '

this line alone is one of the more racist things I've seen posted. But people will ignore that and thank this post because that is how we think. It's acceptable to be racist towards travellers. Although we look at disgust at other countries who discriminate against their own indigenous peoples.

As I said, it's entirely acceptable when we talk about our own.

Indeed I could argue the same about Islam... it still wouldn't make the argument, or opinion racist. I'd need to express a lot more than that to be racist.