Listening to a thinly veiled racist conversation right now.

[JanMichael]

Basically discussing the lack of basic English skills in professional sports, specifically basketball.

A couple of choice accents being mocked.

All done in the nicest way possible by nice professional people.


<sigh>

I'm not up for conflict right now.

Anyone else get tired of the nifty covert/mildly overt racism that soaks our national fabric?

[bif]

1. Hey, my brother's a racist

Blatently. He loves to egg me on by peppering his conversations with racist remerks. I usually tell him to knock it off. It makes for pretty tense family gatherings.

[phillybri]

10. My brother is the same way.....

He hates Jews, Muslims, homosexuals, and just about anyone that isn't EXACTLY like him.

Creepy...

[Lydia Leftcoast]

19. Interestingly enough,

the sermon in church a few weeks ago described all forms of bigotry as "me-ism," the notion that "everyone should be like me."

[DuctapeFatwa]

2. Most of them sincerely do not see themselves as racists

Look at some of the posts on this site, some of the "compliments" about Al Sharpton, yesterday there was one about "should we put a Hispanic on the ticket."

All made by people who in all probability have no idea how they sound to non-whites.

[JanMichael]

4. True. This was pretty over the top though.

So even a "white" guy like myself got squeemish.

[Lydia Leftcoast]

20. Their typical defense is

"I'm not a racist. I'm just telling the politically incorrect truth."

[Loyal]

3. I get so tired of it.

But I don't bother trying to change people that are unchangeable.

[sangh0]

5. My response is to complain

about the lack of basic English skills demonstrated by those who complain about "furreners" and "Mericans", etc

[Tandalayo_Scheisskopf]

6. Conversations like these...

Are usually engaged in by people with their own issues regarding proper use of the english language. Indeed, any other language as well, including their native Idiot-Martian. ;-)

Intellectual midgets. That's all they are. Intellectual midgets.

[Kusala]

7. I'm not sure i'd consider that racist

I mean, it's possible that the mocking has racist undertones to it, but it's also possible it doesn't. I can't think of many people that would have a problem, when mocking the average..say..Toby Keith fan, with taking on a redneck accent with "President Bush is mah herro!!"

Of course, I'm not there to hear the conversation.

But if you really want to have some fun, I'd say that you could subtlety mock them with inane business/managerial talk, but I don't think they'd get the joke or the irony for that matter.

"You want me to de-prioritize my current reports until you advise of a
status upgrade?"

Of course, mocking, regardless of intent, just causes problems anyways and so is generally a bad idea. I try to avoid it.

Even when i'm playfully mocking the SO, i've been known to accidently touch a sore spot. So it's better to be safe than sorry.

[Karenina]

25. Please work with me here, Kusala

There is NO CHANCE in white supremacist America that such a comment has no "racial" overtones. It does not work in the other direction. I should very much like to take your arm and show you the replay from the corner upon which I stand, if you would allow it. This is my second reply to your post as the first one magically "disappeared." When Jan Micheal speaks of "veiled racist" comments, they are "veiled" only to those who are not required to eat the poison EVERY DAY. To me they are blatant, but I dare not say so. The "denial" is the worst aspect.

[salin]

8. You will appreciate this story

friend owns a shop that prints uniforms.

dude comes in to order of a team.

jokes about the price (she takes little margin/its for youth sports) and says "are you trying to Jew me?"

she says excuse me.

he jokes again... "you know, Jew me about the price.. hehe".

she says, while looking at his business card which states he is in car sales at a local dealership, "I bet you sell a lot of cars that way" (heavy with sarcasm).

he says, "its just an expression, I was just kidding".

she says, "I wonder what the dealership would think about how you represent them."

he shrugs it off.

she calls the dealership... "I thought you should know..."

Never heard how it turned out after that.

[AnnabelLee]

22. My mother's family is like that

Before my late grandmother's house was sold, some of us were just walking through to take a last look. In faded writing on the wall in the upstairs hallway, I saw the words: Proprietor is a Jew. I asked my mother about it, & after she had thought about it for a while, she said she remembered writing it there when she was young, & was playing "store" with her sisters. <still wishing for a "shakes head in disgust" emoticon>

[democracyindanger]

9. Reminds me

of my Economics final in college. Held in a hall that could seat 500, but there were only about 50 in my test group. Plenty of room to spread out. Oddly enough, a couple people sat directly behind me, and one a chair away to the left as well as the right.

Why they sat so close had less to do with my magnetic personality than the fact that I'm asian. You know, good at math and science and stuff?

Funny thing is, I'm horrible at math. Hated Econ. Barely studied for the final. I think I eked out a C-.

Boy, I bet my fanclub was surprised when they got their grades.

So, yeah, sometimes I get tired of thinly veiled racism, and sometimes it just makes me laugh at the stupidity of others.

[Bozita]

11. LOL, that's a great story!

thanks

[Lydia Leftcoast]

21. And better yet...

as a former college professor, I can assure you that the bozo who copied off your paper flunked after the professor noticed that he made exactly the same mistakes that you did with the same wording--and was sitting behind you.

Cheaters are so transparent.

[WoodrowFan]

18. was it your aftershave maybe?

maybe it smelled nice?? :silly:

[Kusala]

12. Speaking of racist overtones,

check out the Dallas Cowboys quarterback controversy. There's still a number of good ole boys steamed that Quincy Carter is the QB. Even when he has a decently good game, they call in downplaying his contribution(like yesterday).

After the preseason, I had a coworker saying Chad Hutchinson got robbed. I'm not sure we watched the same preseason.

I mean, these are both a couple of young QB's, and i havent been impressed with Quincy the past two years(but he's looked good the last two games!), but my god Chad was pathetic in the preseason.

Ok sorry for the sports-related rambling. It's football season.

[The Backlash Cometh]

13. What floors me more is how white people say

that integration failed because minorities won't mix with whites even when they have the opportunity. Well, duh. We've heard enough of these kinds of conversations to know we're not welcome, so why should you be surprised that we don't want to congregate with you after hours?

[Kusala]

14. generalizations vs. generalizations

and everyone is still running in circles.

[The Backlash Cometh]

17. Believe me, Kusala,

I can spot an open minded person a mile away and where I live, they just don't exist, or have learned quicker than I have to hide their opinions.

[Solomon]

15. You know what I think about it.

Just read my signature line. B-)

[lapislzi]

16. Constantly...

I have otherwise intelligent colleagues who don't even realize what they're doing. And if I'm impolitic enough to point it out (I'm not), I get an astonished look and comments about how "I make everything political." Hell, from where I stand, everything IS political.

Am I wrong?

[Gringo]

23. That kind of attention to accents/appearances, etc

is a convenient way to avoid listeing to what someone is actually saying. Like when you give a right-winger a bunch of well-thought out rational reasons for your opinion on something and they come back with: "Why don't you go smoke some grass with your birkenstock-wearing friends?"

Whatever.

[rucky]

24. I have nothing against racists...

I have friends who are racist. But, I just don't want them goin' around in our schools, churches and country clubs pushing their lifestyle on me and my children.

:eyes: