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racism
Jul 5, 2019 8:34:42 GMT
Post by Reasonable good Nick on Jul 5, 2019 8:34:42 GMT
I'd agree with that. We all have prejudices, and preferences. It seems to me that it's how we act on them, allow them to direct our thinking, and speak about them that matters. is that the royal 'we' or are you speaking on behalf of the board? A generalised use of it. I should have specified that you were exempt, as you're on a higher moral plane than the rest of us plebs.
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racism
Jul 5, 2019 8:43:51 GMT
Post by Reasonable good Nick on Jul 5, 2019 8:43:51 GMT
'bloody Poles EVERYWHERE you look' racist? Cue tumbleweeds.
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racism
Jul 5, 2019 8:47:52 GMT
via mobile
Post by tory on Jul 5, 2019 8:47:52 GMT
'bloody Poles EVERYWHERE you look' racist? I don't know. It's not making an observation about superiority or saying something attributable to all Poles. It is a derogatory comment but to me it's not racist. Some might say it is though.
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racism
Jul 5, 2019 8:59:55 GMT
Post by Crunchy Col on Jul 5, 2019 8:59:55 GMT
I was sitting opposite an old couple on the train yesterday. They struck me as a little bit strange. The fella had a shaved head, seemed a bit scowly, must have been around 70. She was in a bad way, also frowning and sort of collapsed and groaning when she wasn't leaning forward and holding the top of her nose or rubbing her temples. When they spoke to each other I had absolutely no idea what language they were speaking. Ever get that? It became an obsession with me. I could hear enough, and they weren't whispering, but still...I really couldn't place the language. It was just sounds. I guessed they were Polish. Turns out they were from AYRSHIRE the old fella struck up a conversation with me after a while, turned out (of course!) that they were really nice, really friendly. But I could hardly understand a fucking word either of them was saying (this has only happened to me a couple of times before with English-speaking people). It was a bit of a struggle, sometimes I just had to pretend to follow and just grunt agreement, hoping that was enough. Anyway, the old fella asked me where I was off to, and I told him 'Berlin', and he said he liked Germany, and he was telling me he was a brickie and he'd had great jobs in Dusseldorf and Hannover and the likes. Good workers, good pay. So we talked a bit more about Germany, and what we like about it, and I told him about when I was an Erasmus student in Reutlingen and the Germans knocked on my door to tell me to move something in the shared fridge to 'my shelf', and then they came over to England and started sticking CLEANING ROTAS up all over the student halls, and we tore them down saying 'none of that here!', and we were laughing and saying 'aye, they're a funny lot'. He told me he'd worked with Poles and they spent two full days just watching other people working and then they fucked off the site - he didn't know if they'd been paid. 'never again - lazy bastards didn't do a bit of work'. His wife chimed in 'aye, lazy buggers'. Laughter again. There was a young American girl sitting across the aisle and I got a strong smell of disapproval from her, she wasn't happy with our conversation at all. Sighs now and again, twisting in her seat, clocking our faces from time to time. I mean, maybe she was just interested, I don't know. So it got me thinking. Were we being racist?
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racism
Jul 5, 2019 9:06:30 GMT
Post by Crunchy Col on Jul 5, 2019 9:06:30 GMT
That was rhetorical. But share your thoughts anyway.
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racism
Jul 5, 2019 9:19:44 GMT
via mobile
Post by tory on Jul 5, 2019 9:19:44 GMT
You are making assumptions about people based on your own observations. I think as long as you can say "in my experience..." because we all know that cultures can produce specific traits or behaviours, but whether they can be attributable to all of them is where the slippery slope begins. There is no doubt that cultural traits and characteristics can clash with others. I'm sure that most of the Mediterranean harbour some sort of ill will towards the British because of our general bad dress sense and dreadful behaviour on holiday, but they know that not all British people are like that.
All people do it, that's for sure.
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Post by Reasonable good Nick on Jul 5, 2019 9:26:40 GMT
There was a young American girl sitting across the aisle and I got a strong smell of disapproval from her, she wasn't happy with our conversation at all. Sighs now and again, twisting in her seat, clocking our faces from time to time. I mean, maybe she was just interested, I don't know. So it got me thinking. Were we being racist? I'm sure you were the subject of an outraged social media post from her later on. Probably with surreptitiously taken photos, and the hashtag #gammon. There's probably a Twitter storm about it this very moment.
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racism
Jul 5, 2019 9:33:49 GMT
Post by Crunchy Col on Jul 5, 2019 9:33:49 GMT
I was waiting for her to say 'do you realise that what you're saying is offensive?'
Later when I was in the airport queue there was a Californian girl behind me who was utterly obnoxious and loud, judging every single thing with 'like' every third word. So that was, like, karma
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racism
Jul 5, 2019 9:40:58 GMT
Post by Reasonable good Nick on Jul 5, 2019 9:40:58 GMT
All people do it, that's for sure. I guess a lot of people might label it as ignorance, or stereotyping. The teenage me, extemely sensitive to anything that might be construed as being even remotely racist, would have recoiled from admitting to even thinking anything like that. But as I've grown older, I've found that often, the more people know about a country or people, the more likely they are to be relaxed about making generalisations about them.
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racism
Jul 5, 2019 9:43:54 GMT
Post by Crunchy Col on Jul 5, 2019 9:43:54 GMT
But as I've grown older, I've found that often, the more people know about a country or people, the more likely they are to be relaxed about making generalisations about them. Absolutely my experience.
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racism
Jul 5, 2019 13:16:51 GMT
via mobile
Post by daveythefatboy on Jul 5, 2019 13:16:51 GMT
The older I get, the more I understand racism as being about what and whom we think of as ‘normal.’ As a white person, it is easy to think of other white people as just people. Not any particular race. Just a kind of default position for humans. Meanwhile, everyone else is a race.
I may hold no active animus towards people of other races, and may even project positive traits on many of them. But the fact that I view them as something other than the normative human being is still racist.
I find that I still have to fight myself on this ground all of the time. It is hard to untangle all of one’s own assumptions. A fish doesn’t even recognize the water all around them.
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racism
Jul 5, 2019 13:23:42 GMT
via mobile
Post by Crunchy Col on Jul 5, 2019 13:23:42 GMT
aaaaaarrrrrrrgggghhhhhhhhhhhhhh
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racism
Jul 5, 2019 13:35:05 GMT
Post by Reasonable good Nick on Jul 5, 2019 13:35:05 GMT
The older I get, the more I understand racism as being about what and whom we think of as ‘normal.’ As a white person, it is easy to think of other white people as just people. Not any particular race. Just a kind of default position for humans. Meanwhile, everyone else is a race. I may hold no active animus towards people of other races, and may even project positive traits on many of them. But the fact that I view them as something other than the normative human being is still racist. This must apply to everyone - hence Toby's comment that everyone is 'racist' to some degree, and my reply to him. A Chinese person will feel the same way, etc etc. I tend to agree with what I think John's getting at on this thread, which is that if you view this as being 'racist', then the term becomes meaningless.
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racism
Jul 5, 2019 13:44:07 GMT
via mobile
Post by daveythefatboy on Jul 5, 2019 13:44:07 GMT
The older I get, the more I understand racism as being about what and whom we think of as ‘normal.’ As a white person, it is easy to think of other white people as just people. Not any particular race. Just a kind of default position for humans. Meanwhile, everyone else is a race. I may hold no active animus towards people of other races, and may even project positive traits on many of them. But the fact that I view them as something other than the normative human being is still racist. This must apply to everyone - hence Toby's comment that everyone is 'racist' to some degree, and my reply to him. A Chinese person will feel the same way, etc etc. I tend to agree with what I think John's getting at on this thread, which is that if you view this as being 'racist', then the term becomes meaningless. How so? Is it endemic to the term that it must be understood as something rare and atypical?
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racism
Jul 5, 2019 13:46:18 GMT
via mobile
Post by Crunchy Col on Jul 5, 2019 13:46:18 GMT
It's an emotive word and it's used to label ideas and attitudes that are seen by the user as evil, whereas in fact often it's nothing of the sort
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