\n<\/p>\n
W<\/span>hen Mus unfurled the leaflet lying on her driveway, she was left shocked, angry and upset. \u201cWhite Britons are already a minority in London \u2026 it is clear that if these trends continue white people will become a minority in Britain,\u201d it read.<\/p>\n The leaflet, written by a far-right group, was distributed along her street three years ago in Moseley, a leafy suburb of Birmingham. It went on to blame NHS waiting lists, a shortage of social housing and even traffic on \u201cthe rising population\u201d.<\/p>\n \u201cThere we go again, blaming us for everything and causing division,\u201d she thought at the time. But instead of ignoring it, her neighbours came together to figure out a response. \u201cThat\u2019s what gave me hope, that people stood together and said \u2018not in our names\u2019.\u201d<\/p>\n They decided to fight back with their own words by creating a poster with the message: \u201cBrummies united against racism and hate crime\u201d. They were placed in the windows of homes all along the street. \u201cNot long after, a neighbouring street said: \u2018Oh, we had those leaflets. Can we have your posters?\u2019\u201d Mus said.<\/p>\n <\/span>Mus was horrified to find far-right propaganda on her doorstep.<\/span> Photograph: Andrew Fox<\/p>\n The campaign continued to grow and last year was endorsed by Birmingham city council. Now it has found renewed salience after a number of alleged hate crimes carried out in the city. Last month a Sikh woman was allegedly raped in a park in Oldbury, in what police are treating as a hate crime. A few weeks later in another park, a 12-year-old boy was allegedly beaten up in what his father described as a racist attack. A man in his 40s was arrested on suspicion of assault.<\/p>\n \u201cOperation raise the colours\u201d in which St George\u2019s and union jack flags have been erected across the UK has also caused fear and anxiety. Hope Not Hate and Stand Up to Racism said it had been organised by well-known far-right figures.<\/p>\n The Birmingham campaign has been inundated with people who want to show solidarity with people of colour and religious minorities under increasing threat. \u201cPeople are literally begging us on WhatsApp, can we have a poster?\u201d said Anthony, who lives on the same street as Mus. To meet the demand, a fundraiser has been launched to print out 10,000 posters and distribute them across the city.<\/p>\n \u201cBirmingham is a multicultural city and I think it\u2019s important to stand in solidarity with our neighbours, regardless of race, culture or religion,\u201d he said. \u201cRecent events such as flagging and rise of Reform UK are not things I feel comfortable with.\u201d<\/p>\n The campaign also hopes to spread beyond the city. According to Mus, activists in Worcester want to mobilise a similar, poster-led initiative. Like Birmingham, the city has recently had a number of racist incidents. Last month, swastikas and the words \u201cno Jew\u201d were painted on garages and on Friday a man and child were sprayed with an unknown substance in an attack described by police as \u201cracially aggravated\u201d.<\/p>\n Mus said since the attacks she had avoided visiting parks for fear of being attacked. She is not alone. As a Muslim woman, Raiza* said she felt like a \u201cwalking target\u201d in the city. She said her area was full of lamp-posts adorned with the St George\u2019s flag. \u201cI felt quite intimidated by it. I thought, how am I going explain this to my young kids?\u201d<\/p>\n <\/span>One woman felt that Robert Jenrick\u2019s attitude was \u2018irresponsible and indicative of someone who doesn\u2019t take part in the day-to-day life of the community he is commenting on\u2019.<\/span> Photograph: Ian Forsyth\/Getty<\/p>\n She has also stopped taking her children to the park after the alleged assault on the 12-year-old boy. \u201cYou don\u2019t know who\u2019s hostile towards you or who\u2019s completely fine. My kids are fourth-generation British, so we\u2019re pretty established here, but I haven\u2019t felt like this in the past.\u201d<\/p>\n She feels that politicians have \u201cdone nothing to stop this\u201d, adding \u201cif anything, it\u2019s been encouraged\u201d. Earlier this week, comments by the shadow justice secretary, Robert Jenrick, complaining about visiting an area of Birmingham where he \u201cdidn\u2019t see another white face\u201d were revealed by the Guardian.<\/p>\n Razia called the comments by Jenrick, who is seen as still harbouring ambitions to become the next leader of the Conservative party, \u201cunhelpful, irresponsible and indicative of someone who doesn\u2019t take part in the day-to-day life of the community that he is commenting on\u201d.<\/p>\n She has a poster, but she is hesitant to display it in her window for fear of being marked as a target. \u201cWe don\u2019t know if we have any allies where we are living,\u201d she said.<\/p>\n \u201cI think it\u2019s important for white people to actually stand up and say, \u2018no, I\u2019m not having it\u2019, now more than ever,\u201d said Anthony. \u201cIf people want to wave flags and be patriotic, I have no problem with that, but the way that it\u2019s being used now is to stir up resentment. It intimidates people, which I don\u2019t think some seem to understand.\u201d<\/p>\n It is hoped that the posters will draw lines in the sand to fend off the far right and show solidarity to those feeling under threat. \u201cPeople are really behind the idea. It doesn\u2019t take a lot of effort to put up a poster in your window,\u201d he said.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":" When Mus unfurled the leaflet lying on her driveway, she was left shocked, angry and upset. \u201cWhite Britons are already a minority in London \u2026 it is clear that if these trends continue white people will become a minority in Britain,\u201d it read. The leaflet, written by a far-right group, was distributed along her street<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":27534,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[48],"tags":[3748,16433,1972,15865,2962,1167,3677],"class_list":{"0":"post-27533","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-politics","8":"tag-birmingham","9":"tag-brummies","10":"tag-campaign","11":"tag-poster","12":"tag-racism","13":"tag-takes","14":"tag-united"},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/naijaglobalnews.org\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/27533","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/naijaglobalnews.org\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/naijaglobalnews.org\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/naijaglobalnews.org\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/naijaglobalnews.org\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=27533"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/naijaglobalnews.org\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/27533\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/naijaglobalnews.org\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/media\/27534"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/naijaglobalnews.org\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=27533"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/naijaglobalnews.org\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=27533"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/naijaglobalnews.org\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=27533"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}