Racism, share your thoughts/experiences.

[aohige]

It's an easy answer to a complex question.
It's much more comfortable to simply delusionally convince one's self.

[Paranoid Android]

So there's this person I know who claims they have no tolerance from racism, yet they make criticisms upon seeing a photograph of someone they don't know:

"lol, she's white. White people are so boring."

Isn't that being plain racist? To criticize and judge people's personality by the skin color?

And then they say that's not racism and refuses to give any argument to defend why it's not a racist comment. I have no respect for this person anymore. Posting this just in case I am judging too fast.

[Vexx]

Originally Posted by Paranoid Android

So there's this person I know who claims they have no tolerance from racism, yet they make criticisms upon seeing a photograph of someone they don't know:

"lol, she's white. White people are so boring."

Isn't that being plain racist? To criticize and judge people's personality by the skin color?

And then they say that's not racism and refuses to give any argument to defend why it's not a racist comment. I have no respect for this person anymore. Posting this just in case I am judging too fast.

No, that's racism - or at least cultural ignorance. Not *all* white people are boring, therefore the assertion is false.

I, as a "white person" (largely Irish with splashes of German, French, a bit of Native American, and who knows what else) would love to run circles around such nonsense.

On the other hand, I'm pretty hard on the racial group I'm tagged with because its infuriating to be tagged with the "poster children" of my skin pigment some days (at least the ones in my country).

[Paranoid Android]

Originally Posted by Vexx

On the other hand, I'm pretty hard on the racial group I'm tagged with because its infuriating to be tagged with the "poster children" of my skin pigment some days (at least the ones in my country).

Haha same for me. I'm especially annoyed by people I'm grouped with as many negative aspects drag me down as well.

[willx]

Almost a decade ago, when I was a college student working part-time at a crappy job .. I was wearing a plain white dress shirt and black pants and riding on a bus. I sat down beside an old Caucasian lady and as I tried to get comfortable she looked at me and said: "Why don't you go back to China, China Man!"

I was absolutely shocked. I was in Vancouver, one of the most cosmopolitan cities in the entire world. I had never faced anything like this before in my life previously. The other riders on the bus started heckling her and harassing her for what she said and I, uncomfortable, moved to further away seats. I still remember that incident to this day.

[Vexx]

Originally Posted by willx

Almost a decade ago, when I was a college student working part-time at a crappy job .. I was wearing a plain white dress shirt and black pants and riding on a bus. I sat down beside an old Caucasian lady and as I tried to get comfortable she looked at me and said: "Why don't you go back to China, China Man!"

I was absolutely shocked. I was in Vancouver, one of the most cosmopolitan cities in the entire world. I had never faced anything like this before in my life previously. The other riders on the bus started heckling her and harassing her for what she said and I, uncomfortable, moved to further away seats. I still remember that incident to this day.

It amazes me she was so self-privileged she thought she could get away with it. That's one of those times where I'd (as a white guy) would say to her, "Why don't YOU shut the fuck up and go back to Europe?"

[Paranoid Android]

Originally Posted by Vexx

It amazes me she was so self-privileged she thought she could get away with it. That's one of those times where I'd (as a white guy) would say to her, "Why don't YOU shut the fuck up and go back to Europe?"

Can you imagine someone like her saying that to a Native American thinking they're asian? Since they have a lot of similar features to asians. (or whatever the correct term is for those ethnicities of old).

[Haak]

I actually had a rather strange one just last week.

So when I was going to work, I was waiting on the platform at the train station and there was this somewhat elderly couple waiting at the same platform. When the train arrives they walk past me to get on the train and as they do the lady stops in front of me and says "Can I just say, my father died in the war for people like you"


...


...


^ That was my reaction. In other words, totally blank. The lady was walking away anyway and I didn't know how to react so the opportunity kinda flew by and I just got on the train like normal. (Luckily we ended up in different carriages though I guess they might have done that on purpose).

So I'm sitting on the train thinking about it the whole time and what she meant. The funny thing is, since this type of thing has never happened to me before I was more inclined to suspect it was an age thing rather than a race thing (since I've heard that kind of comment levelled against teens before, though not at myself) but then I realised that wouldn't make any sense because I looked just like any other regular guy going to work with a suit and tie. I mean if I was dressed like a chav and being a prick then I could understand a comment like that but I wasn't and i didn't even look young anyway. But then the elderly couple got off at an earlier station and as they walked past me again (I was sitting next to the window) they saw me too and lady gave me the middle finger at which point I just thought "Well I guess that settles it then..."

Honestly I just couldn't help but find the whole thing a little too comical so I wasn't all that upset. In fact I was half glad it happened since I've been feeling like I'm at a turning period of my life as I finally started working full time, so I couldn't help but feel it was kinda fitting: My first racist experience.

I guess it's a little hard for me to feel anything about the whole thing. Although I'm obviously from Pakistani descent and grew up in it's culture, I'm not that big on Pakistani/South Asian culture and I've never really considered myself anything else other than British, so it's a little hard for me to understand how other people can see me so differently.

[aohige]

Originally Posted by Vexx

Not *all* white people are boring, therefore the assertion is false.

Sure, sure... just most of them.



j/k, that was an opening just waiting to be hit.
His friend may not have been serious, I take and make jabs all the time too.

tbh, I have harder time cracking a smile or a laugh out of my own kinds, eastern asians (Japanese, Korean, Chinese, etc).
Way easier for me to get a crowd of white, black, and hispanics laughing with my jokes than east asians.

[SoldierOfDarkness]

Originally Posted by willx

Almost a decade ago, when I was a college student working part-time at a crappy job .. I was wearing a plain white dress shirt and black pants and riding on a bus. I sat down beside an old Caucasian lady and as I tried to get comfortable she looked at me and said: "Why don't you go back to China, China Man!"

Then you should've said "why don't you go back to Europe,"

I mean North America's original inhabitants were aboriginal. In all fairness she's as much as an immigrant as anybody else.

So when I was going to work, I was waiting on the platform at the train station and there was this somewhat elderly couple waiting at the same platform. When the train arrives they walk past me to get on the train and as they do the lady stops in front of me and says "Can I just say, my father died in the war for people like you"

You think that's bad one time driving on the highway a car full of caucasian guys came up to my side started screaming at me telling me to go back to China. It was pretty dangerous because they tried matching my speed as I tried to get away.

I was absolutely shocked. I was in Vancouver, one of the most cosmopolitan cities in the entire world. I had never faced anything like this before in my life previously. The other riders on the bus started heckling her and harassing her for what she said and I, uncomfortable, moved to further away seats. I still remember that incident to this day.

Welcome to the real world. Canadians are just as racist as the next. Not as bad as some other areas but they do exist.

I thought similar to you but growing up in Western Canada I was picked and made fun of because I was Chinese (Born Canadian) by my classmates, teachers, and random strangers.

In England a few years back I remember sitting at the airport on a trip and these two young caucasian servers were serving free drinks to patrons. When they came to me they passed over and served drinks to the people beside me. I didn't cared much (actually I wasn't surprised) but it really ticked me off.

By this point I realized that pretty much everybody is a hypocrite and all that talk about "The west is a land of freedom and democracy" is complete BS. So long as they're in the top it's all alright but because nations like China and India are rising a lot of caucasians are fearing that they won't be the top dog much longer. So what do they do? They start spreading fear around.

Best example right now in Western Canada is that Nexen deal going on. People are freaking out left and right saying that the Chinese are taking over despite the fact that such projects have always been done through foreign capital (The government simply cannot do it themselves). Despite the fact that the company's assets or most of them are located elsewhere and are privately owned it's silly to state that the public has a right to what it can do. That and most of these oil companies are foreign owned to begin with.

Again, racists just have no common logic. They fear what they don't understand and I find that people who barely travel abroad are the worst as they never get the chance to see another persons' culture.

[Vexx]

Originally Posted by aohige

Sure, sure... just most of them.



j/k, that was an opening just waiting to be hit.
His friend may not have been serious, I take and make jabs all the time too.

tbh, I have harder time cracking a smile or a laugh out of my own kinds, eastern asians (Japanese, Korean, Chinese, etc).
Way easier for me to get a crowd of white, black, and hispanics laughing with my jokes than east asians.

My wife and I have ongoing running gags about "asian wives" and "white honkies". Our dinners are usually themed (japanese, indian, mexican, etc) and there's a "honky night" (southern fried everything and if there's a green vegetable its been boiled to death).

But... wandering the mall or Costco, I can't restrain myself from an occasional "O gods ... my... people." deliverd in an Animaniac Yakko voice when I watch the herds of pasty blimps in spandex run by to the next sample station. It isn't helped by the level of conversation heard ...

[Ithekro]

Originally Posted by Haak

I actually had a rather strange one just last week.

So when I was going to work, I was waiting on the platform at the train station and there was this somewhat elderly couple waiting at the same platform. When the train arrives they walk past me to get on the train and as they do the lady stops in front of me and says "Can I just say, my father died in the war for people like you"


...


...


^ That was my reaction. In other words, totally blank. The lady was walking away anyway and I didn't know how to react so the opportunity kinda flew by and I just got on the train like normal. (Luckily we ended up in different carriages though I guess they might have done that on purpose).

So I'm sitting on the train thinking about it the whole time and what she meant. The funny thing is, since this type of thing has never happened to me before I was more inclined to suspect it was an age thing rather than a race thing (since I've heard that kind of comment levelled against teens before, though not at myself) but then I realised that wouldn't make any sense because I looked just like any other regular guy going to work with a suit and tie. I mean if I was dressed like a chav and being a prick then I could understand a comment like that but I wasn't and i didn't even look young anyway. But then the elderly couple got off at an earlier station and as they walked past me again (I was sitting next to the window) they saw me too and lady gave me the middle finger at which point I just thought "Well I guess that settles it then..."

Honestly I just couldn't help but find the whole thing a little too comical so I wasn't all that upset. In fact I was half glad it happened since I've been feeling like I'm at a turning period of my life as I finally started working full time, so I couldn't help but feel it was kinda fitting: My first racist experience.

I guess it's a little hard for me to feel anything about the whole thing. Although I'm obviously from Pakistani descent and grew up in it's culture, I'm not that big on Pakistani/South Asian culture and I've never really considered myself anything else other than British, so it's a little hard for me to understand how other people can see me so differently.

Well I can think of a proper responce to that, but that depending entirely on your various family history. What did you ancestors that would be her father's age do in the war? Did they fight for the Commonwealth as well, because I lot of colonial/commonwealth troops did serve back then. If one of them did, the correct responce would be, "Oh good, my (relative) fought for you too in the war."

If you have details of unit your relative served in you can throw that at them too. "He was in the (name of unit). What service was your father in?"

[DonQuigleone]

Haters are going to hate. I've had people moon me on two occasions, a car swerve to splash me with water, and a guy pull me from behind into muck and my only crime is having longer then average hair, otherwise I'm just as pasty as those scangers are.

When there's racial minorities around, they just have more of an excuse. But you can be sure that if there wasn't some convenient skin tone minority at hand, they'd just choose something else, say hair colour (Gingers are the eternally persecuted minority of Ireland. It's good to be brown haired).

Or how big your nose is.

[Vexx]

Guh, I remember the long hair BS I got (especially in the 70s) but it never entirely seems to go away. The need to act out on someone who made different personal choices because one is insecure about their own choices just spans across all cultural lines.

[risingstar3110]

I don't know if it's racism or not through, but it was a pretty memorable experience.

It was during high school and my best friend was a black guy. And i means we seriously were close. So there was one time, when we were joking around, and he was joking on how "You think you are smart so you look down on me yeah?". So i get back by (stupidly) saying "Nah, because you are black"..... The jokes actually continued back and forward after that.

But have to say until now, i still remember that few minutes of awkwardness after that line leaving my mouth. Still my best mate till now through, so no harm done. But pretty memorable

[aohige]

^I was in a cafe a few years back with couple of my friends, and I had a decently strong coffee.
I used some generic sweetner packet at the table, and apparently it wasn't anywhere sweet enough.

Since we were chatting in Japanese, I exclamated "uwa, niga!!" 「うわっ、苦ッ！」 without even thinking.


*moment of awkward silence as I looked around the cafe*


"um... that didn't come out right"
"but it's not what you said"
"not like they know that"

I swear, I need to sell this story to a movie studio.

[winterbaby]

Racism is a very confusing topic. It is also a very serious topic.

[Sumeragi]

Originally Posted by aohige

^I was in a cafe a few years back with couple of my friends, and I had a decently strong coffee.
I used some generic sweetner packet at the table, and apparently it wasn't anywhere sweet enough.

Since we were chatting in Japanese, I exclamated "uwa, niga!!" 「うわっ、苦ッ！」 without even thinking.


*moment of awkward silence as I looked around the cafe*


"um... that didn't come out right"
"but it's not what you said"
"not like they know that"

I swear, I need to sell this story to a movie studio.

Well, there's this from my Korean second cousins:

Once they were buying groceries while travelling in the US, and apparently both of them did not want to take out their wallets. So, they told each other to be the one to pay, saying "늬가 해" (Neuiga hae), which is a slang-like way of saying "You do it". The cashier, who was black, slapped them on the head. Eventually the situation turned into where all sides were apologizing and the cousins each got a free candy bar.

[Terrestrial Dream]

Originally Posted by Sumeragi

Well, there's this from my Korean second cousins:

Once they were buying groceries while travelling in the US, and apparently both of them did not want to take out their wallets. So, they told each other to be the one to pay, saying "늬가 해" (Neuiga hae), which is a slang-like way of saying "You do it". The cashier, who was black, slapped them on the head. Eventually the situation turned into where all sides were apologizing and the cousins each got a free candy bar.

Hmm... I always wondered if what would happen if I said that in public. Well I guess it would be less awkward than playing this song.

YouTube

https://youtu.be/Rhsi7Pu_kPg

Sorry; dynamic content not loaded. Reload?

[Sumeragi]

Perfect example there.