Racism, xenophobia and the politics of exclusion

I want to put something short in plain English, so that every time some troll with “the genocide of the whites” in their biog or a St George’s flag over-laced with some islamophobic logo as an avi rants at me, I can simply say: “here you go” before I block the bejeezus out of them.

While I don’t have time for giant idiocy, I do not for one moment doubt your democratic right to support gigantically idiotic parties or pursue gigantically idiotic policies. Trying to talk to you, to convince you otherwise, has proved largely unfruitful because your fears are irrational and your allegiances emotional. Therefore a presentation of calm facts does nothing. It is, as someone said recently, like trying to play chess with a pigeon. The pigeon will shit all over the chess board and still strut around as if it won the game.

What I do, however, expect of you is this: To not behave as if you express the feelings of the majority – you do not. To not behave as if, somehow, your glorious leader has already won the election, got into power and enacted the bigoted policies you espouse – he has not. If and when he does, you may live out your fantasies of “sending me home/to prison/to Syria/to a gay cure place” while wanking into your special sock. But no sooner.

I have exercised the very same reciprocal right that your uncle did when he retired to the Spanish coast and, while I understand that you think he is an expat and I am an immigrant, that distinction exists only in your head. You may fantasise about and pursue parties and policies which could make me an interloper, but that doesn’t make me one. I am in this country quite lawfully, just like you.

I hope you can find a space in your heart and mind that is clean and kind and at least file this information until you are ready to consider it.