Category talk:English Muslims

Do non-white people living in England actually see themselves as English (as opposed to British)? May be this category should only for for indigenous converts to Islam and their descendents, with the others moved to Category:British Muslims? --GCarty (talk) 18:34, 30 August 2008 (UTC)

I put a lot of articles in this category in the past. My understanding was that if they were born in England, they should be considered English, but if they were naturalized citizens of the UK living in England, we should class them as British. I'm open to being corrected on this point, though. Good Ol’factory ^(talk) 04:22, 31 August 2008 (UTC)

I see a problem as mentioned above. I am 100% sure most might say they are British but would not say they are English (ethnic group). British is better as that is what the passport says. There is also a conflicting British Muslims cat. --Inayity (talk) 21:36, 29 August 2014 (UTC)

English is a language, an ethnicity and a national identity. As per Good Olfactory, I have always understood that according to Wikipedia, English as a prefix is not defined as an ethnicity but people born in England (same goes for Scottish or Welsh for that matter), whereas British can refers to people born in the UK or naturalised British citizens (i.e people born in a foreign country who have obtained British nationality through immigration). Categories refer to ethnicity when they have the suffix of English descent such as Category:American people of English descent.

It is clearly more constructive and precise to separate English, Welsh and Scottish categories in such a way rather than redefining it based on a WP:IDONTLIKEIT argument and subsequently rendering the main category exhaustive. 1000s of British categories exist alongside the English, Scottish and Welsh ones, it is not conflicting, you just need to remove the duplicate British category if one of the other ones is also being used. A similar dispute could be made about Jewish categories such as Category:English Jews about whether it is referring to Torah Jewry (religious group) or ethnic Jews (ethnicity), however, either definition is acceptable for inclusion.

Also for further clarity, WP:OPENPARA defines a person's context as: "In most modern-day cases this will mean the country of which the person is a citizen, national or permanent resident, or if notable mainly for past events, the country where the person was a citizen, national or permanent resident when the person became notable." Tanbircdq (talk) 00:00, 30 August 2014 (UTC)

No I dont like argument was ever made if a BLP is called English and the person does not identify as English, then British is the term we use esp if that is what RS say. Makes no sense to define people by such rigid terms when 9/10 RS and reality seriously conflict. No White person, regardless of if they are born in Ethiopia is called Ethiopian. Identity is very dynamic and greater care is needed. People in UK of non-white ethnicity do not run around saying I am an Englishman (. each country is different.--Inayity (talk) 06:06, 30 August 2014 (UTC)

If a subject self-identifies as British rather than English, then yes British is the term used within the article. However, if no such source exists then they can be referred to as English or British (regardless of their skin colour as per WP:IAR).

We cannot make the narrow assumption that everyone who is not white should be British but everyone who is white (regardless of if they are originally Slavic, Romani, Jewish, Arab, Hispanic etc) can be either British or English. English as a national identity which is not exclusive to white people, such as Nathan Ellington is a black footballer based in England and uncapped by the England national team but is within Category:English footballers, and in fact if you go to Category:British footballers you will find the category almost empty.

Like I said before, Wikipedia makes a distinction between English nationality and English ethnicity, it is not one of the same. Your subjective opinion would only apply if there was a category Category:Muslim people of English descent NOT Category:English Muslims, if such a category existed then you could populate articles of ethnically English subjects who are Muslim. However, skin colour does not define a person's national identity for example there are categories such Category:Black English people as well Category:English people of Nigerian descent and Category:English people of Bangladeshi descent. Should these categories then not exist because by your definition being English (national not ethnic) and being non-white is contradictory and mutually exclusive?

If you have a problem with this then I suggest you raise an RfC so consensus can be reached on the issue as a few editor's opinions on one talk page is not appropriate nor sufficient to suggest change on something which if consistent would potentially affect thousands of articles which have followed a formula over the course of the last 10 years. Tanbircdq (talk) 23:30, 6 September 2014 (UTC)