This just landed in my inbox:
HAPPY ST GEORGE’S DAY, ENGLAND!
No one calls it racist
When the daffodil’s worn in Wales
Or is offended by their dragon
With its forked tail and scales
When St Patrick’s day comes round
And the shamrock’s being worn
The Irish are not treated
With insult or with scorn
If a Scotsman on St Andrew’s day
Hoists his flag aloft
He’s not proclaimed a fascist
Or ridiculed or scoffed
So when St George’s Day arrives
We English men won’t hide
For Queen, Country & St George
We’ll wear our Rose with pride
=====
*eyes roll*
St. George’s Day is still an awkward day because traditionally and historically, it was celebrated as a white Englishman’s day. Last few years, the celebration wasn’t that well publicised because it carries so much negative history.
So each time this day comes, there is usually a small army of Daily Mail readers English people (coincidentally or not, usually all are white) moaning about how oppressed they are by “them immigrants, blacks, foreign doctors, and foreigners” (translation: Eastern European immigrants, black people, Asian people, and the rest who isn’t ‘white’).
The fact that they still view non-white people not English is the reason why many English-born non-white people refuse to label themselves as ‘English’. It’s British, end of*. Until that kind of ‘we’re proud to be British (and white)!’ mentality ends, St. George’s Day still won’t be seen or celebrated in positive sense. Not for a while.
*When I’m in this country, I refer myself as Scottish but when I’m overseas, I refer myself as British. I think almost everyone else in this country does the same. However, if I were born in England, I’d probably refer myself as British because there’s no way I’d feel comfortable referring myself as English. Right or wrong, ‘English’ is very much a white person’s identity.
Of course, there are some who see no problem in referring themselves as English. It’s their right. However, it’s never a good idea to refer a person as English until when the person refers himself as whatever or when it’s clear the person is fine with it. Scottish, Welsh and Irish are entirely a different ball altogether, though. Probably because these groups were historically treated as minorities, therefore it’s not so bad.
Having said that, it’s rarely a good idea to refer a person as ‘Brit’. I’m not sure why, but some truly detest being referred as ‘Brits’ by non-British people. I have heard some snapping “I am Welsh/English/Irish/Scottish, thank you very much!” to whoever commits this social faux. Basically, take time to get know to the person before you refer the person as whatever. It’s pretty easy to figure out, really.
Anyroad.
St. George's Flag
I grew to learn to detest the St. George’s flag because it’s so heavily associated with football hooliganism, the British National Front and other (white) nationalist groups. It was always seems that they were the sort that shouted bigoted and racist crap whenever I walked past them. Or when a person was about to say something moronic about immigrant issues, they would look pointedly at me and say, “I’m not racist or anything like that, but…”
Union Jack
Same with the Union flag. When I was growing up, the only times I saw anyone wearing it as a jacket patch or badge outside traditional celebratory days were right-wingers. Such as skinheads.
In fact, I was conditioned to view: Skinhead + Union flag = a potentially violent racist who’ll beat me up. 
These are the reasons why I feel uncomfortable with the Romance genre’s heavy worship of historical romances set in this country and revolve around heroes and heroines as members of the nobility.
Bearing it in mind that it was the nobility who heavily upheld the ‘patriotic spirit’ of the Union flag (the working class was usually much more multicultural than the nobility). It was also the nobility and the upper class that traditionally cold-shouldered non-white nobles because they didn’t have the right by-birth qualifications. It was very much a class issue, a lot more than a racial issue, IMO.
Sure, they hosted parties and balls for foreigners and they were fine with them – as long as they didn’t marry into their world. Ironically or not, it was the end of the British Raj that basically and eventually destroyed this kind of thinking. Anglo-Indians, anyone?
Yeah, I still don’t get why the American Romance genre is so in love with the nobility. It can be so repulsive at times. Anyroad, I still think it’s not Romance when it’s mostly only the rich and the titled white characters who have the HEA.
And by the way, to those who say “who would want to be in a fantasy where one has to worry about bills and all that?”, did you even think that when a broke titled hero decides to marry a wealthy heroine to save his ancestral home?
(I’m cranky because the youngest mite is having one of his insomnia nights. He’s on floor next to this chair, playing with his toys at the moment. Sleep, mite! Sleeeep!)
Fantastic post. I understand why “England” exerts such a powerful emotional pull in romance novels, but I wish readers understood what all is enmeshed in that symbolism. I’m definitely not one of those “all consequences of empire were horrible” people, but the willingness of authors and readers to romanticize 18th and 19th and 20th century Imperial Britain at this point in the 21st Century gets to be a bit much. And it is so ingrained that even bringing up the issue generally makes people surprised, defensive, or annoyed. We can’t talk about it.
I’m sure I’ll be in a better mood come April 30. Or will we then have the breathless coverage of the honeymoon? Grrrrr.
Which reminds me, I have a post on “social distance” to write, a.k.a. Servants Did Not Want To Be Your Friends.
I agree! I don’t see the British Empire entirely as an evil entity. It has its good and bad moments, along with (accidental or downright bigoted) cock-ups.
And it is so ingrained that even bringing up the issue generally makes people surprised, defensive, or annoyed. We can’t talk about it.
Exactly. Not being able to get this through can be so frustrating. Especially those who condemn the British in terms of U.S. history and yet happily read British-set historical romances. So bizarre.
During a similar conversation, someone dressed me down for being “anti-English” and that I was being a typical Scot. I was annoyed enough to ask if she would enjoy a contemporary romance novel where the hero has a Confederate flag hanging on his living room wall or a new historical romance set in the antebellum South. Of course, her response was “It’s not the same!” It may be a poor analogy but honestly, it carries similar baggages. Like I said before, the historical romance sub-genre is pretty much a history revisionist’s wet dream.
Oooh!
I look forward to your post on social distance (what a great term!).
Actually, the Confederate Flag is exactly what I thought of when I read your post but decided not to go there. Not because it’s so different; it *is* slightly different, but the analogy holds. I chickened out because it I was afraid would derail any conversation in a Godwin’s Law-ish way.
Excellent post! And especially, since I am one of the nobility-Regency-Georgian-novel-loving subset. It is inexplicable and historically all sorts of incorrect. But boy does this historical Presents work. Having said that, I do prefer books where the principals are concerned with the day-to-day business of living, as opposed to dashing about, hanging around, and boffing each other in between changing clothes.
Sunita, looking forward to your social distance post. As FancyReader and I have talked about before, social classes are really all-pervasive. Les domestiques could not possibly ever come close to being “friends” on par with the nobility. Neither class would condone this. “Remains of the Day” gives a perfect example of this.
I’ve got one drafted. I’ll post it in the next couple of days. It will make a nice change from the cranky posts!
I’m not racist but… A great piece of art titled austracism at the National Art Gallery of Australia in the new Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander galleries has as its background many statements that begin with those words.
I think there are many others like me who shudder at being called an Aussie. This is because so often the racists are proud to be Aussie. To them Aussie is white from a British background. Not European let alone Asian or, God forbid, Aboriginal or Torres Strait Islander.