Your Experiences of Racism

If included in racism is things like that, it happens a lot of times.

People think I am Chinese. A lot. It's almost become a Running Gag for the rest of the class to say "He's Korean!" in response to someone saying I'm Chinese.

Another time when some girl said "Hi Asians!" for no reason at all. I've never met the people I happened to be near at the time. At least try to be more specific when referring to people by race.

I've never been offended by those, but I figured those may be stories some may find interesting.

edited 21st Aug '13 10:41:33 PM by Mikurufan

Encountered a dog-walking couple in Norfolk this summer who apparently named their (black) dog Sambo.

A lot of people don't know just how horrible that name is. Though I bet they at least know it wasn't too cute.

I went off on my former mother in law for reading my son the Little Black Sambo stories. She complained that they "were just stories"...

I remember those stories! God I didn't even know it was a slur TBH. I thought it like dave-oh lol

edited 30th Aug '13 2:40:49 PM by joeyjojo

I work with a couple of people who are really racist and homophobic. They do not know I am gaaay there. And they all really like me too so it is a struggle for me personally dealing with them, but I just got an excellent review which included a raise and bonus and one of the things my boss was so pleased with was how well I got along with all my co-workers :( So I am in a bit of a sticky situation there where I have to keep my .. lifestyle a secret or things would be a bit tougher for me.

That does sound like it sucks. What exact about them is so Homophobic/rascist?

Well, like with news stories or politics they make their opinions known shall we say, quite clearly and openly. Fortunately I work 3rd shift and am alone in my Dept, but they all come in in the morning starting anywhere from 6am up to the time I leave at 7 and sometimes are in on my shift doing various projects and such. My boss really likes me though, so that is good. And outwardly I get along with them all, but some of them I really do not like much >.>

I just smile and nod my head and then go punch out and go home lol when the day shifters start filtering in and stay out of the political discussions and such. Nod my head and things like that.

edited 30th Aug '13 2:53:48 PM by RainbowMatt

Sometimes that's all you can do.

I feel like I could have been playing Offensive Words Bingo with my kitchenmates this year. So far we've had 'fag' and 'gay' used as light insults, 'retarded', 'OCD' to mean 'I like things to be put back in the cupboard', 'nip' and 'nigger'. Hooray. -_-

Isn't Sambo just a name?

Less racism and more nationalism/culturalism in my case, and not even so much coming from fellow Germans, but from immigrant people against each other. We do (unsurprisingly) have a thriving neo-Nazi culture though. Being a skinhead myself, it's of course not exactly easy to stay out of the fray; often get chafed from both sides, either for not being a Nazi and for not wearing my hair like a good citizen . Some of my friends are being attacked by local fascists occasionally. Thankfully that doesn't happen too often in my area. Other parts of Germany are not as lucky; especially in Eastern Germany, racism and associated attitudes are much more prevalent.

edited 30th Aug '13 5:45:33 PM by TAPETRVE

Little Black Sambo became more than a name when the image of a small African boy was used to basically be the young Jim Crowe of it's time. Sambo's stories hold up Kipling era racism.

Oh, so it's like someone not wanting to name a child something with negative connotations.

Naming your black dog Sambo is like naming a chimp at the zoo Uncle Tom. No, it normally wouldn't be racist to name an animal Tom, but sometimes it's uncomfortably questionable at the least in this case.

(I bring up the chimp because when my local zoo had a chimp born, Uncle Tom was nominated as a real possibility for the name...yeah...)

Maybe it's supposed to be Sambo as in the Russian MMA style .

That's also what first came to mind for me. Sambo is a fighting style.

edited 2nd Sep '13 8:57:09 PM by IraTheSquire

although more about nationalism than racism, i grew up in Haringey London, went to a very multicultural school (another thing to note is that the school was on the on the border between a rough poorer area and a richer more middle class area) - it really didn't matter where you were from or what you looked like - it could have been because we were all just kids or because there was no racism (possibly a mixture of the two - parents certainly didn't have a problem with kids of different races being friends - hell i went to a friends Diwali party that his family had at around the same time of year as we would have had bonfire night).

anyhow age 7 i moved to Wales where i encountered for the first time any sort of prejudice, because i was English and not Welsh.

also in wales where i was it was not uncommon for people to have a general distrust of people with the traveling carnival (referring to them as thieving carnies and the like)

I've dealt with indirect racism. I'm black with a lot of "white" interests so I get a lot ignorant comments from people, but I don't take it so personally like I used to because most of them aren't really trying to be mean about it. Let's be real, a black person who acts "proper" with nerd and goth interests is going to attract SOME attention because it's so uncommon to the point of being obscure. At least, where I'm from.

Plenty during the brief time I lived in Japan, as well as my dad's life. I'd rather not go into details because I don't know much myself. ._.

Less frequently happens where I live now as well. I am obviously an immigrant. Poor English, foreign name, language, etc. Certain people think this is funny. -_-

A good friend of mine was the most racist guy I've ever met in real life, but he still went out to eat with me and we went on trips together and it was weird because if you couldn't tell I'm black. So he would occasionally talk about the fall of civilization that's coming being the fault of black people while we would eat at IHOP together and... it's what I imagine Robert Freeman went through when hanging with Uncle Ruckus. He moved away and no one else missed him, but I kinda did. That idiot was hilarious.

edited 21st Sep '13 12:12:20 AM by SilentlyHonest