So much deep-seated ignorance ... the figures in the article linked to below are only the reported incidents. I'm sure there were many more that went unreported. Given that London's a huge place, these are, of course, not that many incidents, but it never ceases to be depressing that people are 'racists' ('race' as they construe it being a phantom concept, as there's only one human race).
What I always find very sad is the lack of language knowledge and -teaching in the UK.
In one instance, in October last year, a woman was punched in the face on the Overground, claiming it was because she was speaking Spanish. Her attacker reportedly said: "You shouldn’t speak other languages."
Speaking other languages opened a large swathe of the world for me, and linguistic diversity is one of my greatest delights, so I find this particularly sad. Lots of linguistically-talented people in the UK are denied the fulfilment of their potential through this lack of teaching.
People don't realise that there's always been a lot of movement and a lot of things that we consider 'English' today are of fairly recent immigration. People, names, words, food, etc.
So much deep-seated ignorance ... the figures in the article linked to below are only the reported incidents. I'm sure there were many more that went unreported. Given that London's a huge place, these are, of course, not that many incidents, but it never ceases to be depressing that people are 'racists' ('race' as they construe it being a phantom concept, as there's only one human race).
https://www.standard.co.uk/news/crime/brexit-tensions-partly-to-blame-charity-claims-as-racist-offences-double-on-tfl-rail-network-in-a4131256.html
What I always find very sad is the lack of language knowledge and -teaching in the UK.
Speaking other languages opened a large swathe of the world for me, and linguistic diversity is one of my greatest delights, so I find this particularly sad. Lots of linguistically-talented people in the UK are denied the fulfilment of their potential through this lack of teaching.