Do you think that the only racists are people who go around badmouthing people of other ethnicities when they're happy?
Do you think I've never encountered racism directed at myself or my family members before? Mixed race has only been a recognised ethnic origin in the UK since 2001 (http://society.guardian.co.uk/societyguardian/story/0,,1865214,00.html) (link to a newspaper article from today). Nowadays in London, I see lots of children that have differently coloured skin from the parent or grandparent they're with, but when I was a kid in smalltown suburban Surrey, I was the only one.
I loved the house I lived in when I was a teenager, but the neighbours on one side were racist. My dad was a "wog" and my mum was a "white wog" or a "wog lover". Those were the politest terms. It got worse - bleach poured on plants, noxious substances splashed over the fence when she knew there was someone on the other side, nails in car tyres. Nowadays, in multicultural London, after Stephen Lawrence (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Stephen_Lawrence), if something like that happened, I'd go to the police right away - but 15 years ago in suburban Surrey, it wasn't really an option. Even if you could find a police officer with enough experience of racial assault to understand, getting a restraining order out against a neighbour would make life more hell than just putting up with it.
I know what racism is. I don't have daily experience of it, nor have I been physically attacked because of it (I do have daily experience of bullying, including physical attacks - and, like I said, it was pure luck that my family members were not injured by bleach flying over the fence). What I'm unsure about is what degree of racism this is, and whether race hatred was the real motive for what he said. Bearing in mind his position as an upper middle class privileged individual, it could just as easily be classism, something that almost all of us in the UK are guilty of at some point, often even unashamedly. (It would take a much longer post than this to go into the class system in the UK and I'm not really qualified to do so - suffice to say, it's much more complicated than the US, and when John Major said we were living in a classless society he was being shamelessly naive). It could also be scapegoating, an intelligent person caught out trying to hide his own incompetence behind another individual. (He, after all, even admitted that he walked the wrong way despite my instructions.)
And there is the issue of what I, a 5' 0" 9 stone female, should be saying to a 5' 10" 15 stone rugby-playing male who is angry enough to have lost control of himself to that extent. I believe in calming the situation down and tackling it with a clear head, rather than escalating things to possible violence.
![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png)
timeasmymeasure
no subject
Date: 2006-09-06 09:11 pm (UTC)Do you think I've never encountered racism directed at myself or my family members before? Mixed race has only been a recognised ethnic origin in the UK since 2001 (http://society.guardian.co.uk/societyguardian/story/0,,1865214,00.html) (link to a newspaper article from today). Nowadays in London, I see lots of children that have differently coloured skin from the parent or grandparent they're with, but when I was a kid in smalltown suburban Surrey, I was the only one.
I loved the house I lived in when I was a teenager, but the neighbours on one side were racist. My dad was a "wog" and my mum was a "white wog" or a "wog lover". Those were the politest terms. It got worse - bleach poured on plants, noxious substances splashed over the fence when she knew there was someone on the other side, nails in car tyres. Nowadays, in multicultural London, after Stephen Lawrence (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Stephen_Lawrence), if something like that happened, I'd go to the police right away - but 15 years ago in suburban Surrey, it wasn't really an option. Even if you could find a police officer with enough experience of racial assault to understand, getting a restraining order out against a neighbour would make life more hell than just putting up with it.
I know what racism is. I don't have daily experience of it, nor have I been physically attacked because of it (I do have daily experience of bullying, including physical attacks - and, like I said, it was pure luck that my family members were not injured by bleach flying over the fence). What I'm unsure about is what degree of racism this is, and whether race hatred was the real motive for what he said. Bearing in mind his position as an upper middle class privileged individual, it could just as easily be classism, something that almost all of us in the UK are guilty of at some point, often even unashamedly. (It would take a much longer post than this to go into the class system in the UK and I'm not really qualified to do so - suffice to say, it's much more complicated than the US, and when John Major said we were living in a classless society he was being shamelessly naive). It could also be scapegoating, an intelligent person caught out trying to hide his own incompetence behind another individual. (He, after all, even admitted that he walked the wrong way despite my instructions.)
And there is the issue of what I, a 5' 0" 9 stone female, should be saying to a 5' 10" 15 stone rugby-playing male who is angry enough to have lost control of himself to that extent. I believe in calming the situation down and tackling it with a clear head, rather than escalating things to possible violence.