Thread by @Helenreflects

Dear Remainers, please spare a moment to think about your fellow EU citizens of colour. They’re often left out of the discussion. 1/

Not all EU27 citizens living in the UK are white. And yet, the media pretend that they are. There's a discourse I dislike and want to discuss with you frankly. 2/

The discourse is this:
Remain voter: “Look this news article says that India/Turkey/etc. will want easier immigration to secure a trade deal!”
This was shared among my Remainer friends with delight just a few weeks ago (note: article is quite old)
express.co.uk/news/politics/…
3/

Implication: Instead of white migrants, you’ll get coloured people! The very though!
I get that this is aimed at racist brexiters and does not express Remainers’ own attitudes to people of colour 4/

But, I can tell you, as an EU citizen of colour, this discourse hurts and makes me feel erased. 5/

Note that most EU citizens who are now spending their time in indefinite detention are either Eastern Europeans, who are radicalized, as I explain here:
medium.com/@helenldecruz/… 6/

And if they are from the older EU countries (Belgium, Italy etc) they are disproportionately likely to be people of colour.
As @LukeEdeNoronha says about western European citizens: 7/

"Tom, a legal manager at BiD, explained to me that all the Western Europeans he had met in detention were either black or brown and had been detained after interacting with the criminal justice system."
versobooks.com/blogs/3675-rac… 8/

(I doubt this is going to be one of my more-retweeted threads. This is not comfortable stuff. But I thought it was important to think about how our discourse might affect others) /ends

PS: The glee about Turkey not joining the EU expressed by Remainers exemplifies the same problem. Yes, I know, Erdogan etc. But still ask yourseves: are you bothered by a mostly brown, Muslim country joining the EU and coming here? Honest questions.

Final PS on this thread. To those who say "We just use that argument that if not EU citizens, then brown immigrants" to Leavers, to appeal to them. Audre Lorde said "the master's tools will never dismantle the master's house" PS 1/2

"They may allow us temporarily to beat him at his own game, but they will never enable us to bring about genuine change."
You cannot beat racism by pandering to racist sensibilities.
You need to challenge the racism. PS 2/2