Just an observation. In order to be "proud" these days, one has to be in someway affiliated with a certified victim community. It is acceptable, for instance, to be a proud Scot, a Proud Welshman, or a Proud Irishman, because all of those nations were at some point either conquered and/or ruled from Westminster. It is far less acceptable to be a "proud Englishman" because one is still associated with the rulers/oppressors/victimizers. The implication is that one has nothing to be proud of, instead one should feel only shame and quite possibly be willing to pay reparations or make ammends for the misdeeds of one's ancestors.
There are certain limitations on this principle, however.
The oppression that you and your ancestors suffered from must be fairly recent, and if at all possible have ongoing social effects. Pointing out that the Romans conquered and enslaved the ancient inhabitants of Southern Britain does not qualify one for victim status. Additionally, the pride you may comfortably manifest is sometimes tied to the perceived economic success of your community since the time of oppression. Too much success will begin to disqualify you from being "proud" - in fact if you are perceived to be a member of the overclass such pride is assumed to be simply snobbery or exclusivism. For instance, the economic success of the Chinese and Koreans in America since their days of being oppressed coolies has effectively meant they may no longer reap many of the economic and social benefits of victim status. In fact, Koreans in particular, while they are historically an oppressed people, are often regarded to be economic victimizers themselves. As such, if they clan together, errect structures that only benefit their own community, or segregate themselves and so on, it is not pride, but racism.
The only possible exception to economic success nullifying victim status is provided by the Gay community, which is allowed to feel pride despite their being the most economically successful "minority" in most Western cultures and being overwhelmingly made up of individuals from the historic "victimizer" rather than "victimized" racial groups.
In any event, for Englishmen to be able to get away with feeling "proud", then they will need to get cracking on being conquered and either colonized or enslaved and treated as second or third class citizens in their own country. A failure to economically thrive following this period will also go a long way.
Personally, call me crazy, but I'd much rather we all dropped the who gets to fell proud and who doesn't thing, and rediscovered the lost virtue of humility.
