Casual racists

I find this a very interesting thread. I must admit that I have probably usd the term ‘chinky’ to describe a Chinese takeaway in the past, although I wouldn’t dream of referring to a person as a chink or for that matter, a ****. I despise racism and have been known to pull up friends (and my older inlaws!) for the **** shop thing, which by the by, I don’t think was them actually ‘being’ racist per sé, but offensive nonetheless.

Whilst I strongly maintain that my use of the word chinky to describe a Chinese takeaway had absolutely no racist intent, I accept that it could be construed as offensive. I think I will quietly file it in the folder of ‘words that I’ve grown out of’. I have no interest in getting all het up and defending the indefensible.

What a complicated world we live in.

I would think life is a lot easier being a person of colour than being gay,tg, disabled or i dare say old.

What about a blind, gay, black, disabled dwarf?

What a complicated world we live in.

It’s not really that difficult is it?

My friend has recently got engaged to a lovely Chinese girl (BBC, I believe that’s the slang term…British Born Chinese?). Her mother was really frosty with him for a long time until she realised that her daughter was in love with him and that it wasn’t a passing phase.

Now he’s the apple of her eye and is regularly treated to slap-up feasts and the sort of lavish hospitality usually found in Ferrero Rocher adverts!

Is she the Chinese Ambassador’s daughter?

…and then you get those that weaken the postive argument ^^ Grum, by placing inane examples on web forums for arguments sake.

What about your dwarf? He/She’d face the same arguement as any other type of predjudice quoted in this soon-to-be-closed thread regardless of which distinction you’d care to write about.

Me a Chinese and a Indian girl was about to walk into a Scottish pub. Aman smoking at the door said ‘we dont want your sort here’.

A couple of colleuges (one Anglo-Scott, one Brit-Asian) went into a pub in Glasgow, after the paler one of the two ordered a double talisker the barman said “and for your black friend?”.
No sense of wrongdoing from the barman either. 😯

We were having this exact same conversation in work today.

Working in quite a mixed race environment, we have a lot of fun at each others expense, and i get the most of it, from being called a jock to being refered to a stight because im scottish,(which by the way is bollox having lived in england most of my life now i can always get a drink in bar in scotland try that in england with no money.)

Anyway we came to the conclusion that there are certain words that are unexceptionable, but the main thing that makes it racist is the context used in. And this is a fine line, that differs from race to race and area to area.

It’s not really that difficult is it?

this thread would stand as evidence to the contrary…

Anyway we came to the conclusion that there are certain words that are unexceptionable, but the main thing that makes it racist is the context used in. And this is a fine line, that differs from race to race and area to area.

Spot on summary, no need for any more.

*thread closed*

Pole is IME an acceptable shortening of Polish. Unfortunately it’s often incorporated into the sentence “**** Poles coming over here and taking our jobs” Oddly though I’ve not needed to shorten the word Polish, despite being from Essex where 25% of the alphabet goes unnoticed.

Call me odd but,

Words are funny. I always kinda figured intent was more important. Compare and contrast,

“There’s a Pole just started at work today, seems a sound bloke.”

“Bloody Polish, no wonder there’s a job shortage round here.”

Which statement carries the most racism?

Closer to home for me is “****.” When I was at school it was often used as a pejorative term, usually preceded by “f’kin,” but it was also used as an innocent descriptive term, a la “**** shop”. I wonder in hindsight if it was originally just that, a contraction of “Pakistani” just like we use “Brit,” but it was used so often in racist slurs that it became “racist” in and of itself. Ie, if we’d always used “Pakistani” to refer to Pakistanis, we’d now be in the mad position where calling a Pakistani a Pakistani would be deemed racist.

I would think life is a lot easier being a person of colour than being gay,tg, disabled or i dare say old.

WHY

Protection of the wider community? As a white teacher I didn’t get any protection from the wider community, nor did my white female head of department.

Should any white person on the forum want to know how it feels to be on the receiving end of racism, I suggest either teaching in a school where you are the only white in the classroom or travel independently in North Africa. There you’ll experience real racism and no longer worry about what to call a meal from a Chinese restaurant.

disabled dwarf?

It’s not big and it’s not clever.

(sorry)

There you’ll experience real racism and no longer worry about what to call a meal from a Chinese restaurant.

Are you saying its OK to give what you get, aka an eye for an eye?

Don’t be so ridiculous, you know better that than, so why did you write it?

Should any white person on the forum want to know how it feels to be on the receiving end of racism, I suggest either teaching in a school where you are the only white in the classroom

I’ve done this (well not in a classroom – but I’ve run many music workshops where I was the only white person in the room) – didn’t ever experience any racism.

…and then you get those that weaken the postive argument ^^ Grum, by placing inane examples on web forums for arguments sake.

What about your dwarf? He/She’d face the same arguement as any other type of predjudice quoted in this soon-to-be-closed thread regardless of which distinction you’d care to write about.

Yeah I know it wasn’t very hepful – it just seemed such a daft thing to say a daft response seemed appropriate.

I’ve often wondered just why it is that white guys might get a hard time in Africa. It’s almost as if they don’t trust us for some reason or another.

Racism is just plain stupid.

You never think it will happen until it does, especially as an adult white male (putting the whole gaybashing etc. etc. stuff to one side). In Germany I have been called (not politely) an ‘inbred island monkey‘ which is apparently the racist term for peoples of this isle. It makes you nervous of everyone around you thinking the same thing. Nasty.

Should any white person on the forum want to know how it feels to be on the receiving end of racism

I’m interested. What does it feel like?

I’m not racist, some of my best friends are ___________*

*fill with totally inappropriate racist term

My kind of game…

I’m not racist, some of my best friends are Ginger

I’m not racist, some of my best friends are short

I’m not racist, some of my best friends are Welsh

I’m not racist, some of my best friends are imaginary…

I’m not racist, some of my best friends are Welsh

OI!

Sticks and stones, eh, what a bunch. Get out and travel the world a bit guys.

OI!

Don’t be silly.

Who’d ever have a Welsh friend?

(-:

EDIT:Video fail

deadlydarcy – Member
exclusively
No, just mostly.(racism the preserve of white people)

I do take massive issue with this. I would say that it is the preserve of the human race. It’s just far more damaging when it’s directed at a minority by the majority, which is the experience of us westerners. I would suggest that you would experience the polar opposite if you went to live somewhere where white people were the minority, and it would be just as inherently wrong.

Lady Gresley – Member
So in amongst all the s**t, I notice this –
McHamish – Member
As the proud owner of a Chinese wife

Hmmmmm…

Interesting that a woman picked up on the ‘casual sexism’ in my post, it took longer than I expected. What does this say to the people who think that it’s not offensive to say ‘chink’ etc, because they themselves don’t think it’s racist?

Do you thin because all the men in this thread weren’t offended, that Lady Gressley is being unreasonable in being offended?

Being female she is probably more senstive to it than men [ in the same way being not english i am more sensitive to the use of english for british]- thats not a dig btw.
I took it to be a provacative term, you probably did not mean, used to get a reaction so I declined

Edukator i have experienced real racism via traveling and the worst was in Holland [oddly enough at a peace festival ]

I am not sure what point you are trying to make here
Is racism a good or bad thing?
Did you like it when you recieved it?
Sure some is worse than others like getting your arm cut off is worse than getting your finger cut off but none of it is good and both are real

v8, I didn’t say that racism was the sole preserve of the white man. I suggest you find someone who has said that so you can direct your feelings about your massive issue with oppression of the white man by other races at that poster.

Oh, and try not to quote so disingenuously. It’s not playing fairly is it?

@ McHamish, I just assumed your “owner” comment was heavily sprinkled with ground irony.

It was, but makes an interesting point I think.

No-one here is racist; racism is a crime, and crime is for blacks…

(if you’ve not understood the point, hold your breath and count to 10,000 before flaming…)

Hang on a minute, DD. I never said anything about a ‘massive issue with the oppression of the white man’??? Please don’t put words in my mouth.

If I misunderstood your post then I apologise, but my point was that its ignorance, not skin colour, that makes a racist.

Indeed, you just had a massive issue with what you understood I was saying. Touché. 😛

Hmmmm. So… What were you saying?

In case anyone’s interested, my wife says its definitely not nice to be called a chink. To be honest I think she’s pretty shocked that some people think its ok.

She also laughed about my ‘owner’ comment, so there’s at least one woman who isn’t offended by that.

As the proud owner of a Chinese wife I can categorically deny that Chinese people refer to themselves as chinks, if you know of any that do I would suggest that they’re in the minority.

If someone called my wife a chink I suspect I’d have to restrain her to stop her punching them.

My girlfriends Filipino, she finds it offensive.

When we’d been dating for a few months in my third year of uni I didn’t restrain myself at a drum n base night, said wannabe skinhead got sparked out (in self defence of course) and then the rest of his mates got sparked out by my brother when they tried to intervene.

Good times.

Apparently I can say I own her only if I pay for all her clothes/handbag/shoes shopping…

grum’s nailed it for all the slow ones out there:

Yup, but in Britain white people very rarely experience real racism – apart from the kind of bullshit imagined racism that Daily Mail readers go on about. Like how they ‘banned christmas in Birmingham’ – that kind of thing.

Racism doesn’t have half as much effect if there is no power behind it either – it’s nonsense to say ‘oh well I don’t mind being called a Brit’. Pretty obviously completely different as British people have by and large never endured any serious racism, and Brit has never been used as a term of abuse.

If you can’t see the sense and truth in that, you’re beyond hope.

Oh, and by the way, hi rudebwoy – it’s nice to be in a discussion where we can agree for once(!) 🙂

Don’t worry Edukator, I wouldn’t really chop his fingers off.

It would make me a bit sad though.

British people have by and large never endured any serious racism

Dunno we’ve not done well at Eurovision for a while…

Cookee all of your friends are imaginary and even they don’t like you. 🙂