It's not necessarily racist to be patriotic. It might be racist to be bothered by the fact that St George was from Turkey.
I just find it ironic that our patron saint has nothing to do with the country we live in, and was in fact, a bit dusky and from the middle east. And if he turned up here on a small boat tomorrow it wouldn’t matter that he was seeking asylum from a dragon, we’d send the bugger back. We’ve got plenty of proper English born saints. Don’t see why we can’t have one of them. St Alban for example.
St. George, England's patron saint, was NOT Turkish, but he was born in Cappadocia, which is now part of Turkey. He lived in the Roman province of Palestine and died in Lydda (modern-day Israel) in AD 303. Just a quick search on Google hope that helps.
The finest example of hair-splitting of the day Personally, I see no reason why we should have such a thing as a Patron Saint anyway. I'd rather honour somebody like Nicholas Winton who saved Jewish children from the gas chambers than a man who made his name by slaughtering muslims a millennium ago.
St Alban was from Brittania, but also was the patron saint of refugees, torture victims and converts. Sounds pretty nice for a Catholic.
Not too up on saints, but had some good piss ups on paddy's day. I read this thread and just thought I'd Google st George to see if he was Turkish. Not that it matters.