Insidious racism in Britain

[bernie14]

Now that I think about it, I actually get this a lot (ie people shouting at me making "ching-chong" or kungfu noises or shouting "neehaaw" in a condescending tone). I used to be quite upset by it, particularly when it seem to have peaked around the time when I was in Years 7-8; I remember becoming really aggressive towards people who do this to me which just makes me look stupid most of the time. Nowadays, I care less and less about it, accepting it as something that "just happens", though as Lone Wolf said I still find it disturbing that this sort of thing is accepted in society. I said I care more about discrimination in employment and the like, but really they are part of a larger phenomenon: an often subconscious belief that people of a different race is somehow a different type of human, and that different treatment of them is acceptable..

...so when you were 7-8, did you fantasize about getting really good at kung fu and beating these people up?

I'd like to think that most people who jeers at Asians, etc in the streets are not actually racists in the full sense of the word; some people don't appreciate the difficulty for many immigrants in adjusting to a new country, especially when you are so clearly marked out as a foreigner by your skin colour or your facial features. And for second- or third- generation Asians, Africans, etc, it put the spotlight on their "otherness" and disencourages assimilation.

i dont think the "appreciation" angle enters into the mind of the racist jeering at others whom are differnt....it seems to me this angle is a projected victimization defense..."poor me, i have it so hard cuz people dont know how hard it is to be me...so i''ll just stick to my kind".....this is one of the problems with "group think", IMO, groups are more likely to be racist to groups that an individual is to another individual

 

[Tee Kay]

...so when you were 7-8, did you fantasize about getting really good at kung fu and beating these people up?

FYI, Years 7 - 8 is middle school. So I was 13 - 14.

And yeah, I'm not sure what you're trying to say in the second part.

 

[bernie14]

I fail to see your point. It may be a generalisation, but it's not stereotyping people. The statement makes no claim about Britishness being necessarily (or even generally) associated with stupidity when dealing with East Asians, so it's a completely different thing. Sorry, try again.

not a stereotype? especially when limited to this link, citing several anecdotes from a couple of people.....so how then are you measuring the low collective intelligence in the UK (only in the specific instance in dealing with east asians of course)?

 

[aelf]

I don't think you understand how stereotyping works. Stereotyping is when you look at a group, make a generalisation about its characteristics and then make a rule based on the generalisation that is then applied to individuals from the group. For example, many Chinese people know kung fu, so kung fu must be something that Chinese people typically know; ergo this Chinese person probably knows kung fu.

That's not what I was doing, obviously.

 

[Winston Hughes]

The real racism in Britain is directed at white people, who are subject to the real kind of racism - which is systemic discrimination because of their ethnicity. There are sections of British society - motivated by racism against white people and hatred of Western culture - who are desperate to relentlessly portray Britain as a racist country to drive home the multicultural agenda and dismantle this country and reduce its white population to a minority. There is no real discrimination or racism shown to Asians in this country, on the contrary we bend over backwards to accomodate and subsidise immigrants but no matter how much we do, it is never enough for the extremists.

If this is parody, well done. If not, seek help.

 

[Mise]

To people saying that this isn't racism, do find it acceptable? Do you think it's acceptable to make fun of people for their ethnicity or nationality? Do you think it's acceptable to single people out based on their ethnicity? Even if you don't think that those people are racist (and I don't think they are either), do you think they're wankers? (And I do think they are wankers.)

 

[classical_hero]

I think the world could use less 'isms' in general.

No more environmentalism for you.


Skin colour is just a matter of pigment, therefore race is just a pigment of the imagination.

 

[Winner]

Hey, I think winner has a point on this one. It seems to me that those complains were more about prejudices regarding (apparent) nationals of a country than racism. Which people from countries all over the world experience without it being called "racism". Or should the "polish plumbers" in the UK also complain of "racism"?

Exactly. Poles may occasionally be victims of stupid stereotyping and ignorant prejudices, but that's not racism, period. Racism is a belief in the biological inferiority of some group of people (Jews, blacks, whites, gypsies, whatever).

To people saying that this isn't racism, do find it acceptable?

Depends. If I were of East Asian descent and people made these idiotic jokes, I'd tell them to fuzz off. I wouldn't go crying about how I am a victim of racial discrimination by the evil hwites.

Do you think it's acceptable to make fun of people for their ethnicity or nationality?

So long as you stay within acceptable limits, yes. I trust that you're not multiculturalized enough to not see a difference between a friendly jape and a deliberate insult.

 

[Traitorfish]

I like to call things by their names, and dislike confusions over names. I guess that comes from seeing ideologies in every cranny of political argumentation... anyway, there are perfectly fine words for describing this problem of prejudices based on cultural stereotypes, and racism is not one of them. Because racism came into use to describe a particular kind of prejudice, and should remain is use in that function, to avoid confusions. Now it's being used as some people use "nazism" to attack everything that pisses them off.

Perhaps you can succeed in redefining the meaning of "racism" that way. But I bet that if you try you'll simply devalue the "disgust value" of the word before you can actually milk it all the way for its rhetorical power.

Why does it have to be about rhetoric? Why can't it be about trying to construct a vaguely coherent model of race and racism, rather than just leaving the decision to, of all people, a bunch of dead racists?

The real racism in Britain is directed at white people, who are subject to the real kind of racism - which is systemic discrimination because of their ethnicity. There are sections of British society - motivated by racism against white people and hatred of Western culture - who are desperate to relentlessly portray Britain as a racist country to drive home the multicultural agenda and dismantle this country and reduce its white population to a minority. There is no real discrimination or racism shown to Asians in this country, on the contrary we bend over backwards to accomodate and subsidise immigrants but no matter how much we do, it is never enough for the extremists.

I didn't used to hate white people and Western culture, but I think I do now.

Exactly. Poles may occasionally be victims of stupid stereotyping and ignorant prejudices, but that's not racism, period. Racism is a belief in the biological inferiority of some group of people (Jews, blacks, whites, gypsies, whatever).

You're confusing the rationalisation of racism with racism itself. It didn't begin with somebody saying "I say, I've somehow come up with the self-evidently spurious belief that people of African descent are less intelligent than people of European descent!" "Oh, good show!" That only happens when people try to call them on an existing bigotry. Or, as I asked Innonimatu to no avail, do you have an alternate model for the development of race and racism?

 

[Mise]

Depends. If I were of East Asian descent and people made these idiotic jokes, I'd tell them to fuzz off. I wouldn't go crying about how I am a victim of racial discrimination by the evil hwites.

If you found it acceptable you wouldn't tell them to fuzz off, obviously. I don't see why you have to say "depends", when the answer is quite clearly "No."

So long as you stay within acceptable limits, yes. I trust that you're not multiculturalized enough to not see a difference between a friendly jape and a deliberate insult.

Great, so, it's acceptable when it's within acceptable limits. Brilliant.

....so.... What is the acceptable limit, then?

For myself, I find it acceptable when it's mocking racial stereotypes or mocking people who are prejudiced, but not when it is mocking the race or the individual themselves. For example, I think these cartoons are fine, because they are mocking a stereotype:

http://memegenerator.net/High-Expectations-Asian-Father

However, if someone said to me, personally, "Of course you got an A, you're Asian," or "why don't you be more like Mise, he always scores well in tests" -- "yeah, cos he's Asian", then that's not acceptable. (I'm of South Asian ethnicity, but the stereotype is the same.) That's kind of offensive, and it's the kind of insidious racism (oh noes! there's that word again!!! ) that the article is discussing. I do well because I'm smart, not because of my ethnicity, and even as a joke, it's pretty offensive that someone could write off my achievements as a product of my race and not my own personal ability. We're supposed to be living in a world where we're judged by the content of our character, not the colour of our skin, and statements like that -- even as a dumb joke -- are a constant reminder that people will judge me for the colour of my skin; that the content of my character is a secondary by-product of my skin-colour.

Some people, not me but some of the "PC brigade" that you so virulently despise, have a problem with cartoons like the one above, because they perpetuate a stereotype and make the latter kind more acceptable. Blurring the line between "mocking a stereotype" and "mocking a person" by saying "depends" instead of "no", and telling people that they just need to "man up" (or something less omgsexist) and take it on the chin, really doesn't help. I want to be able to mock stereotypes in the way that is done in that internet meme above, without having to worry that I, personally, or my race in general, will have to put up with being mocked directly in the future. You and your narrow, one-sided statements are making it difficult for me to do that.

You, personally, never have to worry about any of this, because you're not an ethnic minority, and you've clearly never encountered this yourself. You might think that something you've experienced in your life is analogous to what you're reading about here. But you haven't. There is a whole world of difference between hearing "he must be good at basketball because he's tall" vs "he must be good at basketball because he's black", regardless of how well height or race correlate with basketballing ability. I don't expect you to understand the difference, but I do expect you to understand that there is a difference.

 

[Yeekim]

To people saying that this isn't racism, do find it acceptable? Do you think it's acceptable to make fun of people for their ethnicity or nationality? Do you think it's acceptable to single people out based on their ethnicity? Even if you don't think that those people are racist (and I don't think they are either), do you think they're wankers? (And I do think they are wankers.)

It is acceptable when it is funny (and done without malicious intent). The intent is, of course, difficult to gauge and therefore such jokes should be reserved for people who won't run the risk of misunderstanding them, i.e. good friends.

Making kung-fu noises at random Asian on street is decidedly not funny. Frankly, is it ********. But adopting some sort of victim mentality based on it and writing an article that seemingly invites your ethnic group to somehow unite and raise against such "oppression" is almost equally ********.

 

[Mise]

"It's acceptable if it's funny" or "it's acceptable if it's done without malicious intent" is a useless way of determining what's acceptable, as you seem to admit. Not only is it impossible to gauge whether something is done maliciously, but whether something is funny is in many cases dependent on whether the person on the other end finds it offensive. If somebody makes a joke (any joke, not just a racist one) at a friend's expense, then their reaction to it is important in determining whether other people should also find it funny. It's not the whole story (because the friend might be overreacting) but it's a huge component in the joke's ability to make people laugh. That is, in whether the joke is funny.

"It's acceptable as long as you're friends" is useless too. Part of how I filter out idiots from my life is whether or not they make racist jokes. If they make unacceptably racist jokes, then they are idiots and I don't befriend them.

Basing what's "acceptable" on such nebulous, impossible to determine, and subjective criteria as "is it funny" or "is it malicious" is simply useless for every day life. Moreover, it completely ignores how it feels for the person on the receiving end to be judged by the colour of his skin. It entirely misses the point of why those jokes are so offensive -- and therefore not funny -- in the first place. It's merely a circular, post-hoc rationalisation of behaviour, the modern day version of what Traitorfish has been trying in vain to explain.

But thanks for at least making an honest attempt at an answer; I genuinely appreciate the effort, even if the answer itself was entirely useless. I don't blame you for not having a particularly well thought out opinion on this topic, because I sincerely doubt that you have ever had to deal with anything like this yourself. At least you are giving it an honest go.

 

[luiz]

"It's acceptable if it's funny" or "it's acceptable if it's done without malicious intent" is a useless way of determining what's acceptable, as you seem to admit. Not only is it impossible to gauge whether something is done maliciously, but whether something is funny is in many cases dependent on whether the person on the other end finds it offensive. If somebody makes a joke (any joke, not just a racist one) at a friend's expense, then their reaction to it is important in determining whether other people should also find it funny. It's not the whole story (because the friend might be overreacting) but it's a huge component in the joke's ability to make people laugh. That is, in whether the joke is funny.

"It's acceptable as long as you're friends" is useless too. Part of how I filter out idiots from my life is whether or not they make racist jokes. If they make unacceptably racist jokes, then they are idiots and I don't befriend them.

Basing what's "acceptable" on such nebulous, impossible to determine, and subjective criteria as "is it funny" or "is it malicious" is simply useless for every day life. Moreover, it completely ignores how it feels for the person on the receiving end to be judged by the colour of his skin. It entirely misses the point of why those jokes are so offensive -- and therefore not funny -- in the first place. It's merely a circular, post-hoc rationalisation of behaviour, the modern day version of what Traitorfish has been trying in vain to explain.

But thanks for at least making an honest attempt at an answer; I genuinely appreciate the effort, even if the answer itself was entirely useless.

While I agree with your general sentiment, I think what Yeekim was saying (and I agree with him) is that among friends there's hardly any harm in making jokes that won't judge you by the content of your character, but rather by superficial traits. So while someone you don't know making king fu noises or otherwise mocking you on the street because of your skin color is highly offensive (quite frankly it merits a kung fu punch in the face, I too am appaled to hear that random people do that on the streets), a lighthearted joke between friends is hardly offensive or a sign of insidious racism. And I disagree with you that friends wouldn't do it; it's entirely possible on the right contexts to make racial jokes and remarks without meaning any malice. And we do know when our friends mean or don't malice.

 

[Traitorfish]

I'd say that a lot of how "banter" works rests on the ability to return in kind. My girlfriend's a proddy dog, I'm a pape; all is well. That doesn't translate as well when the interaction is between a white guy and an Asian guy. White guy and different kind of white guy (Englishman and a Scot, say), sure. Asian guy and black guy, maybe, that's a bit more complicated. But when a white guy makes a joke about the ethnicity of an Asian guy, what is the retort? What can he actually say to make the "banter" genuinely mutual? And, as Mise has been at pains to point out, that's not something that white people, the sociological majority, can assume an answer to, however god their intentions are, because they simply do not know what it is like to be on the other side of that line.

 

[Mise]

Oh, please don't get me wrong, I agree that friends can and do make jokes that strangers simply can't make. Friends can, indeed, go further than strangers, because you know them better. I agree entirely with that, that's not really my issue. The issue is that friends aren't allowed to make certain jokes too. There is a level of unacceptability that friends can't cross, no matter how light-hearted, well-intentioned or hilarious the joke is. And in any case, it doesn't really help strangers in determining what kind of racism is acceptable or not. There are loads and loads of jokes about stereotypes that I find hilarious; I don't find them offensive, I find them perfectly acceptable. The reason I find them acceptable is not because I'm friends with the person who made them, but because of what I was describing in my response to Winner.

The fact that two people are close friends is an important distinction, but that doesn't tell us anything about whether a joke is actually acceptable or not.

P.S. I'm not saying that my criteria for acceptability is the correct one, or that it's right for everybody in every situation. It's worked for me, and it seems to explain why I feel offended by some jokes but not others. Not everyone will be offended by the same thing, but the key is to understand that and not label them as "adopting a victim mentality", just because they feel differently to you.

 

[Oruc]

To people saying that this isn't racism, do find it acceptable? Do you think it's acceptable to make fun of people for their ethnicity or nationality? Do you think it's acceptable to single people out based on their ethnicity? Even if you don't think that those people are racist (and I don't think they are either), do you think they're wankers? (And I do think they are wankers.)

I don't see anything wrong with it, maybe it's just because i'm working class but Irish jokes, black jokes and muslim jokes still do the rounds at work.

 

[Murky]

No more environmentalism for you.


Skin colour is just a matter of pigment, therefore race is just a pigment of the imagination.

We'll have to keep the good 'isms' like environmentalism.

Race is more than skin color but it shouldn't matter. We're all essentially the same species of modern human. If we weren't, it would be difficult to crossbreed.

 

[luiz]

Oh, please don't get me wrong, I agree that friends can and do make jokes that strangers simply can't make. Friends can, indeed, go further than strangers, because you know them better. I agree entirely with that, that's not really my issue. The issue is that friends aren't allowed to make certain jokes too. There is a level of unacceptability that friends can't cross, no matter how light-hearted, well-intentioned or hilarious the joke is. And in any case, it doesn't really help strangers in determining what kind of racism is acceptable or not. There are loads and loads of jokes about stereotypes that I find hilarious; I don't find them offensive, I find them perfectly acceptable. The reason I find them acceptable is not because I'm friends with the person who made them, but because of what I was describing in my response to Winner.

The fact that two people are close friends is an important distinction, but that doesn't tell us anything about whether a joke is actually acceptable or not.

P.S. I'm not saying that my criteria for acceptability is the correct one, or that it's right for everybody in every situation. It's worked for me, and it seems to explain why I feel offended by some jokes but not others. Not everyone will be offended by the same thing, but the key is to understand that and not label them as "adopting a victim mentality", just because they feel differently to you.

I agree, different people will have different criteria. One of my best friends is Jewish, and I make the most outrageous jew jokes and there's absolutely no problem, because we know each other for 20 years and understand each other's humor and intents. I'd never tell that sort of joke to some of my other jewish friends, because I know they'd be offended. I suppose it's the same with Asians, blacks, etc., how far one can go depends on the person and the context, there's no pre-defined rule.

 

[bernie14]

FYI, Years 7 - 8 is middle school. So I was 13 - 14..

ahhh....early adolescence, makes even more sense

And yeah, I'm not sure what you're trying to say in the second part.

ok here's the breakdown....."I'd like to think that most people who jeers at Asians, etc in the streets are not actually racists in the full sense of the word;[you seem to be excusing their poor behaviour, but why?.....some people don't appreciate the difficulty for many immigrants in adjusting to a new country,[are you excusing them because they don’t appreciate how tough it is on you?.....there is a cognitive disconnect here...you are the one having a tough time, but you are giving them a break...seems to be you are projecting your inability to cope, to the racists not being able to cope with/"appreciate" your difficulty...but you are the victim and you have now used the projected victimization defense to make your aggressors look "less bad"...similar to “identifying with the aggressor", but sorta upside down.....I guess in the long run this is more mature than kung fu kicks to the groin] especially when you are so clearly marked out as a foreigner by your skin colour or your facial features..[and this means what? you are weird different mocked victimized....what are you going to do? excel and show the best of your qualities to any around you despite whom they may be?.....OR] And for second- or third- generation Asians, Africans, etc, it put the spotlight on their "otherness" and disencourages assimilation. ,[limit yourself to your "people" and try to give back that racist attitude you were confronted with, because after all, it’s "not actually racists in the full sense of the word".....]

I don't think you understand how stereotyping works. Stereotyping is when you look at a group, make a generalisation about its characteristics and then make a rule based on the generalisation that is then applied to individuals from the group. For example, many Chinese people know kung fu, so kung fu must be something that Chinese people typically know; ergo this Chinese person probably knows kung fu.

That's not what I was doing, obviously.

obviously not

so could you please help me comprehend the nuanced difference in your two statements .....

it's no wonder that the collective intelligence in the UK is so low when it comes to dealing with East Asians.

The statement makes no claim about Britishness being necessarily (or even generally) associated with stupidity when dealing with East Asians

 

[Traitorfish]

The obvious explanation is that you're reading "collective intelligence" in an absurdly literal fashion.