Welsh isn't an ethnic identity: it never has been. You're Welsh if you identify as Welsh. The legions of fascist trolls telling Seren Jones she can't be Welsh points to not only a resurgence of the far right, but a deeply embedded ethnonationalism about #Wales 1/ https://twitter.com/BBCWales/status/1289481997358960641

It's not as simple as a demarcation of "they are fascists, report the accounts, that's not how I think" because that's a cop out. As the right becomes more right+the left become more centre, the comments on this video are a culmination of decades of race not being on the agenda 2

Wales is home to the oldest continuous Black community in Britain. We need to move beyond knee jerk reactions of flippant rejections of fascism to see that a lack of BAME women+an assertion Seren isn't Welsh are two sides of the same coin. 3/

Welsh senedd saw affirmative action schemes in the form of e.g. all-women shortlists as devolution and the prison industrial complex disproportionately imprisoned Black Welsh people: look at that difference 4/

Just yesterday, Cymdeithas yr Iaith and Undod cancelled a panel on racism and covid19 because they chose to host this event at the Eisteddfod without any Black, Asian or Minority Ethnic people: the far right and a lack of regard to people of colour are two very linked issues 5/

Cardiff is 20% BAME. BAME groups have grown 50% from 2011-2020 according to stats Wales data. More Welsh language speakers now more than ever. But a LACK of Black Welsh people in media, in schools, in policy, in elected positions. This is all linked. 6/

The notion that Seren is not Welsh is linked to the racism scandals of political parties in Wales, to the lack of a shortlisting of a Black, Asian and Minority Ethnic candidate in Wales by the Labour party, to anti-semitism rows and a normalisation of anti-semitism in Wales 7/

The articulation of such pointed anti-Blackness racism, xenophobia and policing of identity around conceptions of Welsh identity held by others is a culmination of an erasure of Black issues because of the idea that BAME people make up less than 4% of Wales 8/

So, it's not as easy as "Everybody has a duty to report these accounts, Wales is a tolerant country". Yes, report the accounts, but the emergence of fascism as a boogeyman give e.g. rise of hate crime in Wales, death of asylum seekers, lack of BAME representation 9/

Is it a case of "Better the anti-Black racist you know than you don't?" in #Wales? What Seren has received is filth: but the obfuscation of these comments as held by a fringe minority in #Wales isn't true, and this is why these comments have emerged [REPORT THEM STILL]