Your Experiences of Racism

I would say "nigger" is more offensive (though I am pretty used to it being used with other black people). But I'm not gay so maybe I'm a little biased.

Well, I used to hear 'faggot' or 'fag' a lot. Squeaky-voiced 8th-graders yelling it across the highschool library after they get killed in Counterstrike, and that sort of thing. It's just a general insult to them.

But the n-word? I have never, ever heard it used outside of newsprograms and civil rights units in class.

I heard of one that borders on Epic Fail: guy posted racist comment on a social network. When people checked his page, one of the things he liked was My Wife And Kids... (as one of my classmates pointed out: "that's the blackest thing on TV!")

@slashedtire He said that ALOUD? What a racist dickweed.

All the racist Little Englanders are out and posting on the BBC etc. after our stunning election win last night.

They can bump their gums all they want, but we will one day be offski with the oil and the whisky (that's not a joke; it brings in a lot more money than even the oil) and the remnants of the UK will flounder in poverty.

I say we get together with the Norwegians and form a loose alliance of oil-rich, non-EU North Sea nations. Come on Noggies; look at all this lovely, flat farm land...you know you want access to it....

Bump on account of my dad's seemingly nice landlord calling Muslims "Sand Dune Niggers". 0_0

Bump.

This is more Fantastic Racism, but my Grade 8 science teacher thinks aliens don't exist because Jesus didn't die for them.

Yes, he actually said that. Completely seriously.

edited 17th Jun '11 10:09:49 PM by sirnoob

Emily: Well, we do get annoyed when Sand Dunes attack us.

I think they might be conspiring with the moose.

EDIT: And the slur is SAND nigger! God, if you're going to be bigoted, at least have your terms right! >:/

sirnoob: Who knows if there's an alien Jesus, right?

edited 17th Jun '11 10:10:43 PM by Zersk

Someone in the grocery store pointed in my direction and yelled "white bread".

Turns out I was standing in front of the Wonderbread shelf and they were pointing it out to a relative to get a loaf.

Lol.

Could be worse, you could be standing in the seafood department.

edited 17th Jun '11 10:15:36 PM by Zersk

sirnoob: I believe the Catholic Church has an official position on aliens and Christ's salvation of them in the event that intelligent life is discovered outside Earth.

Ok...so I've seen a lot of white people here talking about experiencing racism for being white.

I...I think it's a bit more complicated than that.

So first, one of my experiences of racism *

One day, a few days after I'd met girl#1's mum when we were playing Magic: The Gathering at her house (>_> nerds), I got an email saying essentially that we couldn't be friends anymore because I was white and I'd never have anything in common with her or understand her properly.

I was pretty shaken - this was my best friend! And angry.

I immediately called the other girl, and basically said "OMG RACISMS!". This did not end well, as girl#2 sided with girl#1 and all-out hell broke loose. It was pretty unpleasant, and essentially I was bullied for two years incessantly by a team lead by girl#2 (who was horrible). I think pretty quickly this stopped being anything to do with race and was just bitchy pre-teen girls being bitchy.

To her credit, while she was too scared to stand up for me at the time, girl#1 never wanted the bullying and didn't think it would end up so badly. We're friends now.

So: was this racism? Well...yes. Certainly. But I don't think it was as simple as a Pakistani girl "hating" white people or not liking me because I was white. I think it stems from the racist world that we were all living in, and that I was lucky enough to be oblivious to. This girl lived in a world where she would get racial slurs thrown at her every day, where people could make insane generalisations about her and where it was completely acceptable for people elected to political office to talk about "her kind" and "sending her back to where she came from". On that level we really were different and I really was never going to understand.

There was a lot of pressure on her not to completely give into that crap and "pretend to be a white girl" and, whether directly or indirectly, her family seeing her being friends with a white girl made them worry that that was going to happen. And so she freaked out and sent that email.

Yes, it was racist. Yes, it was also pretty dumb (but hey, she was 11). But it came entirely out of a culture that made her race an issue in the first place. I wasn't a "victim" because I was white, I was a victim and she was a victim because we lived in a society that valued whiteness inherently.

So I guess what I'm trying to long-windedly say is that white people experiencing racism can happen, but it is still almost entirely due to a culture in which they are privileged.

Also, experiencing that racism was never as bad for me because I had an entire culture telling me that being white was not only fine but actually good and desirable. Imagine hearing something racist from a friend that is only reinforced by the society that you live in and the history of your country.

edited 18th Jun '11 2:54:44 AM by robintherose

Exactly, hate breeds hate.

Well, I nearly got fucked up bad because of my race. I'm Asian see. Not Oriental Asian, like South Asian Asian. I'm brown.

I have not been the subject of much racial abuse, but there was several times.

A few years back, I was simply minding my own business, walking down the road, when these two guys, in their 30s, driving a blue Peugeot 206 - obviously chavs - roared down the road and threw something orange at me. It wasn't an orange. It was a fricking piece of plastic. If I'd had been two steps quicker. I would've been maimed. Then, they shouted "Oi, Paki! Go back to your slum!"

I was offended. My parents aren't from Pakistan! They're from Bangladesh!. Slum? Slum? I live in a terraced house which my parents paid a mortgage for. I bet they lived in a government-subsidised council flat.

Another time in my life was on the goddamn bus. I got beaten up. ON a crowded bus. CROWDED. No-one bothered to help. I got beaten up, in front of a bus load of people, and no-one helped. I got punches everywhere. That was the day I lost faith in the goodwill of my fellow man. If a bus full of people couldn't help a single, vulnerable guy, then what hope is there in any other case?

It was made worse by them, yet again, calling me Paki. Some people just never learn to distinguish ethnicities.

This is awful. Really, truly awful. I'd like to say I'd have helped on the bus (by calling the police, I guess), but I've never been in that situation and I'm also ashamed to say that I've not acted when I've seen verbal racial harassment going on. :/

@starspawn 17: Exactly. What do we do about it? So far, when I try to talk about this with friends I just get brushed off for being "too PC" or people just explain that they're not racist so it's OK...

Strikes me as more than a little prejudiced against English people.

"Middle England" is a scary world. You shouldn't generalise and whatnot, but I always seem to encounter something depressing when I leave the M25 (not that it's all peaches and cream inside it either).

Inhopelessguy: Wow. Broad daylight, on a bus, full of people? Bystander effect in action, I suppose. I'd hope I'd try and help in that kind of situation, but probably wouldn't be that useful physically.

Hopeless: Well, if it was back in the fifties, the dude might be right. But this isn't the fifties, so...

But that, second story is stupid, but as Air said, it's probably the bystander effect (which is stupid).

You get a lot of nuts around here who really don't like anything Irish (or, well, the "wrong kind" of Irish). I've seen men, woman and children celebrate the idea of being knee-deep in "Fenian blood", gleefully sing about the Great Famine and all manner of charming things.

Not to mention the regular marches of the Orange Order, where about 50,000 thousand maniacs get to remind us all about how British and hateful they all are. And that's before we get to the thousands of drunken morons who come crawling out of the woodwork at these things.

It is kinda stupid to see it though. Birmingham was the home of the Civil Rights Movement, and we're not exactly the most Conservative city on the block nonetheless. I would've thought over twenty years of equality laws and reforming of education would work wonders, but ya can't save everyone. I guess there's always enough bigots to pass around anyways.

I hate that goddamn bystander effect though. Here's a tip though: Instead of saying "call the police" in a general way, point at someone and say "you. Call the police". That way, responsibility gets shifted onto them, and they gotta make that 999 (or 112) call in order to save face. However, it is kinda hard to say "you. Get this douche off me" when fists are being sailed into your body. Oh, and guess what? No-one on the bus felt sympathy for me. They both got off at the next stop, and no-one cared that I just got battered. I almost felt it was my fault I got punched.

Anti-Irish sentiment parades? This was back in the mid-20th century, right? The injustices of the modern would are stupid.

edited 18th Jun '11 6:20:23 PM by Inhopelessguy

I live in a mostly post-racist city, so haven't had to many experiences.

@ihg: That really is so awful. And yeah, the bystander effect is a really upsetting bit of psychology.

@Erock: Where on Earth is that?

This beautiful city called Toronto.

My cousin lives in Montreal without a speck of racial abuse. I think we can safely say that at least major cities in Canada are race equality havens.