.vinnyeh – Member
Had a Sikh work colleague lovely bloke, Guardian reading liberal etc etc but…..

However, my friend was a bit pissed one night while the daughter was still running wild, and he confessed that, in his eyes there was a definite hierarchy of suitable partners for his daughter, with Blacks and Untouchables being at the bottom-marriage to either would sadly mean the end of contact with his daughter.

He had no prejudices that I saw with regard to working with people of any race, or drinking with them, just didn’t want his kids getting married to someone outside his own race and caste. Unsure whether this is racial discrimination or not.
Nothing to be unsure of racism end of.

Unsure whether this is racial discrimination or not.

What?
The?
****?

Insert Fry from Futurama meme here.

vinnyeh – Member
Had a Sikh work colleague lovely bloke, Guardian reading liberal etc etc but…

Was quite worried one of his daughters was possibly going off the rails (in his eyes) at uni, dating English boys, and hoping that nothing would come of it. All came good in the end though, she ended up being ‘introduced’ to a nice Sikh lad from a good family, with good prospects, they married, ended up emigrating to Seattle. Taxi driver line above reminded me of this.

However, my friend was a bit pissed one night while the daughter was still running wild, and he confessed that, in his eyes there was a definite hierarchy of suitable partners for his daughter, with Blacks and Untouchables being at the bottom-marriage to either would sadly mean the end of contact with his daughter.

He had no prejudices that I saw with regard to working with people of any race, or drinking with them, just didn’t want his kids getting married to someone outside his own race and caste. Unsure whether this is racial discrimination or not.

Not at all uncommon, I believe. Back at uni I had a Sikh girlfriend for over a year. We were both living overseas at the time, away from our respective families, so she got away with it. She was honest about long term prospects the minute it looked like it was getting serious, said that there was no way we could be a couple back in the UK as her family would disown her. To be fair, it was just her dad. She actually told her sister about me, and reckons her mum suspected something but never asked. But she said her dad would basically disown her and the rest of her family would have gone along with it out of respect, or tradition, or whatever you’d call it.

Apparently I was about mid-way down the pecking order of offensiveness, as far as suitors for his daughter were concerned – Muslims were top of the list, then black guys, then ol’ whitey here, then I think it was Hindus. It was a strange mix of religions and ethnicities, anyway!

I have a black mate who was brought up in an orphanage in Dublin and has a strong Irish accent. Anyway he was captain of the boxing team at uni, auditor of the L and H, got a 1st and ended up for a while writing a PhD at Cambridge. Nobody could work him out as no stereotype fitted.

I guess it down to racial groups you are used to seeing. So a Glaswegian Sikh is probably nothing unusual. Here in Liverpool we have a decent Chinese and Black population, but hardly any Asians and next to no Sikhs.

I remember travelling away to watch Liverpool play Coventry. One of the police on duty was a Sikh lad, but instead of a helmet he had a turban with a west mids police badge on the front. I guess it wasn’t something that we see in liverpool, but the stick he got from the liverpool fans was disgusting and embarrassing. I remember apologising on behalf of the large section ‘our’ fans. Tbf he seemed great, had heard it all before and eventually put some of them in their place.

Ok ok, I lead a sheltered life. Looks like Sikhs also fix stuff. Not sure on his Glaswegianess though.

It’s one of those odd genetic/racial things, but I’ve read in a number of places that Scots and Sikh are natural-born engineers; certainly the number of great engineers that Scotland has produced seems to bear this out, and Sikhs were highly regarded as engineer/mechanics during the war, so a Glaswegian Sikh is a pretty much unbeatable combination with a toolkit. 😀
One of my ex’s is half-Chinese, her mum Singapore ethnic Chinese, her late dad a short, hairy Brummie. Kim was brought up in Wiltshire, and had no significant accent, normally; she could, however, drop straight into broad Brummie, which was a bit disconcerting from a beautiful Chinese lass.

Mate of mine, of Pakistani decent, served in the RAF for several years – including the Falklands War.
One of his colleagues at one point was a big black lad of Glaswegian extraction.
They both did a stint as Red Arrows ground crew & got to serve all over the place. Apparently Sweden was good fun because of the low levels (at that time) of non-white Swedes, combine their ‘exotic’ looks with a Red Arrows badge & those two guys were up to their eyeballs in Swedish blondes (barstards..)