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Have you ever been treated differently because of your 'race'?

  • 18-04-2015 1:22pm
    #1
    Registered Users, Registered Users 2 Posts: 3,098 ✭✭✭MonkeyTennis


    It really feels bad. Once in England and once in The Czech Rep.. ( that was just weird)


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Comments

  • Registered Users, Registered Users 2 Posts: 252 ✭✭Chickentown


    It really feels bad. Once in England and once in The Czech Rep.. ( that was just weird)

    Don't spit on peoples fruit and you should be ok


  • Registered Users, Registered Users 2 Posts: 3,098 ✭✭✭MonkeyTennis


    Thats just a hobby


  • Registered Users, Registered Users 2 Posts: 16,760 ✭✭✭✭osarusan


    Yes, was turned down for an apartment when they found out I was not Japanese.


  • Registered Users, Registered Users 2 Posts: 3,098 ✭✭✭MonkeyTennis


    Feels pretty bad doesnt it?


  • Closed Accounts Posts: 3,174 ✭✭✭RhubarbCrumble


    Yes, just last week in London when I was overcharged in a shop and questioned it. The sales assistant (white, English) muttered under her breath about "f**king Irish". I asked her if she could repeat what she'd just said. She denied it straight away, but another customer in the shop (also white English) had overheard and backed me up. I saw red and asked to speak to a manager. The Asian manager I met could not have been nicer. Apparently it wasn't the first time they'd had a problem with Little Miss Racist and by the sound of things she wasn't going to have a job for much longer anyway.


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  • Registered Users, Registered Users 2 Posts: 12,564 ✭✭✭✭whiskeyman


    I had to start with the medium paced runners once.


  • Registered Users, Registered Users 2 Posts: 37,316 ✭✭✭✭the_syco


    Over in France, in Nantes, and couldn't find a hotel or B&B to stay two nights, as no-one spoke "english".

    Curiously, when I asked if they spoke "Irelande", BIG attitude difference. Got a room easily (after showing Irish passport) for the gang of 6 or so people. Found if asked people spoke Irelande in pubs, got a friendlier response.


  • Registered Users, Registered Users 2 Posts: 2,798 ✭✭✭Sir Osis of Liver.


    Yes,had racist comments directed at me by an Asian fellow when I worked in London as a youngster.

    The usual thick Paddy sh1te which was seemingly acceptable at the time over there.

    I just said don't even go there little brown man.


  • Closed Accounts Posts: 20,944 ✭✭✭✭Links234


    A group of us got yelled at to **** off and that we were Irish c*nts in some pub in England, wasn't nice.


  • Registered Users, Registered Users 2 Posts: 981 ✭✭✭Stojkovic


    Only once in London by a Pakistani bloke I worked with. Id known him years and he's a lovely fella. Slagged off the 'Paddy' builders outside our building.
    I called him a Paki so and so and told him to report me to the boss.

    He apologised !!!


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  • Registered Users, Registered Users 2 Posts: 9,322 ✭✭✭volchitsa


    the_syco wrote: »
    Over in France, in Nantes, and couldn't find a hotel or B&B to stay two nights, as no-one spoke "english".

    Curiously, when I asked if they spoke "Irelande", BIG attitude difference. Got a room easily (after showing Irish passport) for the gang of 6 or so people. Found if asked people spoke Irelande in pubs, got a friendlier response.

    I don't really understand this post. What do y mean by "speak Irelande"? Do you mean they thought they were speaking Irish to you, using the same words and all? I've been to France a good bit, when people hear you speaking French with an accent they usually know you're English-speaking, but not many are capable of identifying an Irish accent from an English or an American one.

    ”I enjoy cigars, whisky and facing down totalitarians, so am I really Winston Churchill?”



  • Registered Users, Registered Users 2 Posts: 24,518 ✭✭✭✭One eyed Jack


    I once had a drunk girl call me a "chink bastard" because I didn't have a lighter...

    I'm not even Chinese :confused::(


    Another time I'd a group of girls think I was Italian because "look at the fookin' body on him, fookin' tellin' ya he's Italian or something!" :rolleyes:


    The funniest one though was when I was at a barbecue party after being invited by one of my mates who is black herself, and all the guests bar myself were black, about 100 of 'em, so feeling a little out of place I figured I'd mix and mingle anyway. I went over to the barbecue area where one lad was turning the lamb chunks with his fingers, and I suggested he use a tongs so he wouldn't burn his fingers...

    "Tongs are for white people", came the reply :pac:


  • Registered Users, Registered Users 2 Posts: 3,098 ✭✭✭MonkeyTennis


    I once had a drunk girl call me a "chink bastard" because I didn't have a lighter...

    I'm not even Chinese :confused::(


    Another time I'd a group of girls think I was Italian because "look at the fookin' body on him, fookin' tellin' ya he's Italian or something!" :rolleyes:


    The funniest one though was when I was at a barbecue party after being invited by one of my mates who is black herself, and all the guests bar myself were black, about 100 of 'em, so feeling a little out of place I figured I'd mix and mingle anyway. I went over to the barbecue area where one lad was turning the lamb chunks with his fingers, and I suggested he use a tongs so he wouldn't burn his fingers...

    "Tongs are for white people", came the reply :pac:

    Thats kin awful man.


  • Registered Users, Registered Users 2 Posts: 1,215 ✭✭✭Pedro K


    I was accused of being racist by a man from the west Indies in a betting shop I worked in in London. I caught him out trying to cheat money (via slow count and forged slips) and told him his custom wasn't welcome in my shop any more. At which point I was accused of being racist and it was said of me that "white boy thinks he knows everything" etc.


  • Registered Users, Registered Users 2 Posts: 893 ✭✭✭PLL


    At school in England I was bullied about my freckles. It is fairly common to have freckles are your arms but I have lots of dark ones on my legs, which when asked about I explained they were part of my Irish heritage. The girls would say I look like I had a disease, and thus made self conscious about myself. Every time we had PE they would make the same 'ewww' sounds and various comments. I suppose they weren't intentionally bulling me about my race but IMO, it was the same as been bullied for the colour of your skin.


  • Registered Users, Registered Users 2 Posts: 16,500 ✭✭✭✭DEFTLEFTHAND


    Never really treated differently but have been called a few names, for eg in New York when I was there on the J1, it was mostly a bit of banter though like being called a drunken mick bastard or a mick 'Cat-lick' paedo etc.

    In Holyhead Wales I was leaving a bar and a Welsh fella snarled at me and said the ferry is that way paddy.:D

    Go home dirty Irish boys shouted by a woman from the balcony of her apartment in Dusseldorf.

    I got a nice bit of abuse in Milan also on a trip but it was hard to make out the slurs.


  • Closed Accounts Posts: 1,812 ✭✭✭Precious flower


    Guys Irish isn't a race. Ye are confusing ethnicity with race.


  • Registered Users, Registered Users 2 Posts: 10,501 ✭✭✭✭Slydice


    Was at a concert in London a couple of years ago and some English (I'm guessing) lads started calling me Paddy and trying to get out a few remarks along those lines when I was in the bar area getting a bottle of beer. I think it was my first (probably only) direct experience of English being racist to Irish.

    I kinda laughed a lot because it felt like they were being the cliche sterotypes of racists that you see on TV. They also seemed to be struggling with coming up with specifically Irish jokes and handling why I might have been laughing.

    They stopped after a bit but I moved along back to the stage area swift enough just in case anything more came out of it.


  • Registered Users, Registered Users 2 Posts: 9,252 ✭✭✭FTA69


    Guys Irish isn't a race. Ye are confusing ethnicity with race.

    Racism also covers discrimination based on ethnicity.


  • Registered Users, Registered Users 2 Posts: 17,798 ✭✭✭✭hatrickpatrick


    I'm regularly accused of not being a real Irishman due to my incredibly low alcohol tolerance and my general tendency to fall peacefully but ridiculously asleep after more than about four beers during a session.

    I've had so many willies drawn on my face at this point that I'm starting to worry they'll kill the hair follicles one of these days and I'll end up with willy-shaped bald patches in my beard. :o


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  • Closed Accounts Posts: 262 ✭✭Bench Press


    I was thrown off a bus on London 20 years ago by a horrible bus driver for staying on one stop too long by mistake, I was only a young fella and had no idea where I was, I was racially abused by him, middle aged bloke, tattoos all over his arms, some class of football hooligan in his spare time no doubt


  • Closed Accounts Posts: 1,812 ✭✭✭Precious flower


    FTA69 wrote: »
    Racism also covers discrimination based on ethnicity.
    Not according to the definition of racism: "prejudice, discrimination, or antagonism directed against someone of a different race based on the belief that one's own race is superior."

    "hatred or intolerance of another race or other races."
    I'm not trying to be smart or anything, just pointing out that it is more like xenaphobia or discrimination, than racism.


  • Closed Accounts Posts: 3,553 ✭✭✭Tarzana2


    Yes, just last week in London when I was overcharged in a shop and questioned it. The sales assistant (white, English) muttered under her breath about "f**king Irish". I asked her if she could repeat what she'd just said. She denied it straight away, but another customer in the shop (also white English) had overheard and backed me up. I saw red and asked to speak to a manager. The Asian manager I met could not have been nicer. Apparently it wasn't the first time they'd had a problem with Little Miss Racist and by the sound of things she wasn't going to have a job for much longer anyway.

    Glad you stuck up for yourself.


  • Moderators, Category Moderators, Arts Moderators, Entertainment Moderators, Social & Fun Moderators Posts: 16,664 CMod ✭✭✭✭faceman


    When I lived in Kenya as a teenager I got off the bus from school to walk up the road home. A local mini bus called a Matatu, was passing me full to the brim with local people. A couple of lads start shouting at the window at me, in English, "Hello George Bush, hey George Bush!" There was also a couple of Swahili words in for white people thrown in too for good measure.

    I didn't know whether to laugh or file a complaint with the Irish embassy!


  • Closed Accounts Posts: 2,740 ✭✭✭the evasion_kid


    On a streetcar in Toronto I jumped off at a stop to go into a shop,the way the ticket works is you can use it again on that route as long as your going forward on the route,got into a bit of a dispute with the next streetcar driver about this when he stops and asks if I'm irish when I said yeah he tells me to take a seat sir, I was the only one left on the streetcar he stopped it right outside my front door to let me hop off never found out his reasons why


  • Closed Accounts Posts: 12,395 ✭✭✭✭mikemac1


    Folder goes missing in work and that's so Irish. Labels wrong on the pallet and that's also Irish

    Irish = disorganised and all wrong

    I listened to all this when I worked in a Yorkshire factory after my leaving cert

    But it wasn't aimed at me, well I don't think so. As it's a phrase I see on boards.ie every few weeks too by posters here!!


  • Closed Accounts Posts: 3,553 ✭✭✭Tarzana2


    The usual thick Paddy sh1te which was seemingly acceptable at the time over there.

    A very strong, entrenched form of bigotry in the UK for a long time. It wouldn't surprise me if many 60-somethings and up in the UK still hold those views.

    Of course portraying a nation's people as stupid/unclean/lazy is not reserved for the UK and Ireland, it was a trope seen the world and I'm sure still persists in some countries today.


  • Moderators, Regional East Moderators Posts: 23,239 Mod ✭✭✭✭GLaDOS


    Not according to the definition of racism: "prejudice, discrimination, or antagonism directed against someone of a different race based on the belief that one's own race is superior."

    "hatred or intolerance of another race or other races."
    I'm not trying to be smart or anything, just pointing out that it is more like xenaphobia or discrimination, than racism.
    The OP put race in quotation marks so I think it was understood to mean more than racism as a strict definition.

    Cake, and grief counseling, will be available at the conclusion of the test



  • Closed Accounts Posts: 3,553 ✭✭✭Tarzana2


    Guys Irish isn't a race. Ye are confusing ethnicity with race.

    Bigotry then, not racism. It's just as bad.


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  • Registered Users, Registered Users 2 Posts: 279 ✭✭Angry_Mammarys


    faceman wrote: »
    When I lived in Kenya as a teenager I got off the bus from school to walk up the road home. A local mini bus called a Matatu, was passing me full to the brim with local people. A couple of lads start shouting at the window at me, in English, "Hello George Bush, hey George Bush!" There was also a couple of Swahili words in for white people thrown in too for good measure.

    I didn't know whether to laugh or file a complaint with the Irish embassy!

    Hahahaha oh my god that made me laugh!! 'Hello George Bush!!!! Hey George Bush!!!!'

    what the hell like!!:eek:


  • Registered Users, Registered Users 2 Posts: 9,252 ✭✭✭FTA69


    Not according to the definition of racism: "prejudice, discrimination, or antagonism directed against someone of a different race based on the belief that one's own race is superior."

    "hatred or intolerance of another race or other races."
    I'm not trying to be smart or anything, just pointing out that it is more like xenaphobia or discrimination, than racism.

    According to the UN:

    Article 1 of the Convention defines "racial discrimination" as
    ...any distinction, exclusion, restriction or preference based on race, colour, descent, or national or ethnic origin which has the purpose or effect of nullifying or impairing the recognition, enjoyment or exercise, on an equal footing, of human rights and fundamental freedoms in the political, economic, social, cultural or any other field of public life.[23]

    By your logic calling someone a "Paki" isn't racist as they're Causcasian as well.


  • Closed Accounts Posts: 3,553 ✭✭✭Tarzana2


    Hahahaha oh my god that made me laugh!! 'Hello George Bush!!!! Hey George Bush!!!!'

    what the hell like!!:eek:

    All those white guys look the same. :pac:


  • Registered Users, Registered Users 2 Posts: 1,832 ✭✭✭heldel00


    Guys Irish isn't a race. Ye are confusing ethnicity with race.

    Why let facts get in the way of a good story!!!


  • Registered Users, Registered Users 2 Posts: 1,992 ✭✭✭Mongfinder General


    Guys Irish isn't a race. Ye are confusing ethnicity with race.
    Careful now, you're educating people with that last comment...although is nationality and ethnicity the same thing?


  • Moderators, Category Moderators, Arts Moderators, Entertainment Moderators, Social & Fun Moderators Posts: 16,664 CMod ✭✭✭✭faceman


    mikemac1 wrote: »
    Folder goes missing in work and that's so Irish. Labels wrong on the pallet and that's also Irish

    Irish = disorganised and all wrong

    I listened to all this when I worked in a Yorkshire factory after my leaving cert

    But it wasn't aimed at me, well I don't think so. As it's a phrase I see on boards.ie every few weeks too by posters here!!

    Oh yes I had forgotten about those comments. This Israeli girl I knew in Kenya showed us a book in Hebrew and how how it's written from right left rather left to right that we use in most languages. One of the other lads in the group who was born in Kenya but his Ma is Indian and his Da English says

    "Ha! That's crazy. It's so Irish"

    FFS


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  • Closed Accounts Posts: 262 ✭✭Bench Press


    faceman wrote: »
    Oh yes I had forgotten about those comments. This Israeli girl I knew in Kenya showed us a book in Hebrew and how how it's written from right left rather left to right that we use in most languages. One of the other lads in the group who was born in Kenya but his Ma is Indian and his Da English says

    "Ha! That's crazy. It's so Irish"

    FFS
    ah that's only a bit of banter ffs, being called an "Irish ****" is being racially abused


  • Posts: 0 CMod ✭✭✭✭ Hadleigh Raspy Jacket


    volchitsa wrote: »
    I don't really understand this post. What do y mean by "speak Irelande"? Do you mean they thought they were speaking Irish to you, using the same words and all? I've been to France a good bit, when people hear you speaking French with an accent they usually know you're English-speaking, but not many are capable of identifying an Irish accent from an English or an American one.

    He means once he made it clear he was irish and speaking english they were friendlier ...
    sounds like they assumed anyone looking to parlez vous anglais WAS anglais

    We've had a few changes of heart once people found out we were irish and not english on the continent also


  • Registered Users, Registered Users 2 Posts: 3,098 ✭✭✭MonkeyTennis


    Guys you must know why I asked it .. can we all be a bit nicer ? just askin


  • Registered Users, Registered Users 2 Posts: 7,342 ✭✭✭Bobby Baccala


    People always call me paddy :(


  • Registered Users, Registered Users 2 Posts: 9,252 ✭✭✭FTA69


    Guys you must know why I asked it .. can we all be a bit nicer ? just askin

    Fack off you Paddy cant.


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  • Closed Accounts Posts: 3,553 ✭✭✭Tarzana2


    heldel00 wrote: »
    Why let facts get in the way of a good story!!!

    Even if it's not strictly racism, it's just as bad.


  • Moderators, Category Moderators, Arts Moderators, Entertainment Moderators, Social & Fun Moderators Posts: 16,664 CMod ✭✭✭✭faceman


    ah that's only a bit of banter ffs, being called an "Irish ****" is being racially abused

    Now you're being Irish


  • Registered Users, Registered Users 2 Posts: 37,316 ✭✭✭✭the_syco


    volchitsa wrote: »
    What do y mean by "speak Irelande"?
    It combines "do you speak english" and "I'm Irish" into one sentence. It is possible that part of Nantes I was in just associated "people who spoke english", with "trouble"?


  • Registered Users, Registered Users 2 Posts: 2,448 ✭✭✭crockholm


    Yeah,I Think treated differently rather than ethnic slurs (though I have recieved those too), at the Swedish eqivalent of FAS when I was out of work,even from the get go the people from the middle east were getting a helluva lot more help than me.I asked themabout re-training or reskilling and they said their budget wouldn't allow it,though it seemed to allow for African lads to get bus driving licences and training as broadband fiber installation Courses etc.


  • Closed Accounts Posts: 3,553 ✭✭✭Tarzana2


    I've been treated differently because of my assumed race.

    Had an old bat in Tesco yelling at me "DO YOU EVEN SPEAK ENGLISH?"

    No idea where she thought pale ol' me was from. I've got dark hair and eyes and I suppose my underlying skin tone veers towards olive, but I'm still very pale. But it was unpleasant and an insight into what others probably experience on a regular basis.

    I'm not racist or bigoted myself, but I am old battist! :cool:


  • Closed Accounts Posts: 892 ✭✭✭Just a little Samba


    It really feels bad. Once in England and once in The Czech Rep.. ( that was just weird)

    I live in South Asia for 3-4 months a year, so every time I step outside my door while there pretty much I get treated differently because of my race.

    People randomly asking to take pictures with you, restaurants giving you extra special treatment, supermarkets opening a till just so you don't have to queue, taxi's pulling over all the time (instead of ignoring everyone trying to wave them down).

    Takes a bit of getting used to.


  • Registered Users, Registered Users 2 Posts: 13,091 ✭✭✭✭bnt


    I was a white person in South Africa for several years, so ... yeah. That was well over 20 years ago: to be a white person over there these days is to have a target painted on your back, basically.

    You are the type of what the age is searching for, and what it is afraid it has found. I am so glad that you have never done anything, never carved a statue, or painted a picture, or produced anything outside of yourself! Life has been your art. You have set yourself to music. Your days are your sonnets.

    ―Oscar Wilde predicting Social Media, in The Picture of Dorian Gray



  • Registered Users, Registered Users 2 Posts: 24,518 ✭✭✭✭One eyed Jack


    Thats kin awful man.


    Ahh no, jaysus I wouldn't take those kinds of comments seriously. I was more confused by the comments than upset by them. Even now thinking of them makes me laugh tbh :)

    I think that's maybe the thing though - if I had been Chinese or Italian, I dunno would I have taken them more to heart? I think insults like that only work if the person who is the subject of the insults understands what they meant before really or is already consciously thinking it of themselves that they are somehow inferior to the insultee already.


  • Posts: 0 [Deleted User]


    Yes,had racist comments directed at me by an Asian fellow when I worked in London as a youngster.

    The usual thick Paddy sh1te which was seemingly acceptable at the time over there.

    I just said don't even go there little brown man.

    This made me laugh!


  • Closed Accounts Posts: 7,752 ✭✭✭pablomakaveli


    Only 2 occasions i can think of. Had a Scottish guy ask me where i was from and when i told him he said "So you're a fenian then?". I just replied "I take it youre a hun then?" and he just said "Fair enough".

    The other was when i was on a night out in Warrington with my cousin. Was chatting to her girl on the street and her male friend kept butting in calling insulting me because i was Irish. Since i was a bit drunk i lost my temper and started bollocking him loudly and telling him if he said one more thing i'd smash his face in. Had to calm down as i was suddenly surrounded by 3 bouncers and turned around to see my cousin pissing himself laughing because the lad i had been shouting at looked like he was going to piss his pants. I found it funny as well afterwards.


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