Place Of Birth - Deserves To Be Questioned!?

RopeDrink

Being of mixed Origin (Born in England of Irish and Greek Parents) I find that, having moved over here to live (And have lived, for six years) you become more and more aware of racism than anywhere else...

During my thirteen years of living in England, you dont encounter racial problems as much, due to the fact that many races live there, but im sad to say there is so much more over here in Ireland, that you only have to mention "England" and thats enough to send specific people into fits of rage, or to point fingers while emitting vile, nasty and upsetting comments about the place you were merely born in, or lived in...

I know there have been many indifferences between countrie, but at this day and age, why do people criticise others for being born in that Country? Why do they fail to realise that this person was not part of the fueds / wars and other conflicting events that participated between the two?

I was going to say this in the Thread by Excelsior "A Concept Of Irishness".

Despite my place of Origin, im pretty much all Irish... All my family link to this wonderful country, yet does this bear no meaning since I was born somewhere else?

Never visited Greece in my life, as much as I'd like to... I have family over there I've never met / spoke to ever...

Im sure all of us have relations all over the world, so why do people criticise / question other peoples place of birth?

Lucy_la_morte

You are what you make yourself, I am Martian.

---

J'ai dormi sous l'eau.

Lucy la morte.

adnans

happy to say that the whole racial phenomena didnt happen to me at all (born in libya with bosnian parents living in bosnia, austria and finally ireland).

but lucy is completely right, you are what you make yourself to be. and shes not martian, women are from venus as far as i know. unless youre a man and had one of those special operations

adnans

azezil

irish ppl up to very recently didn't hav to deal with different cultures cause 10 yr's ago who the hell wanted to go to ireland! but now we hav this massive influx of new ppl n some ppl feel threatened by it, we were unprepared for such an occourance.

its easy to say "well i never encountered this in england" or where-ever but they've had time to adapt to a multi-cultural environment, it didn't happen over nite, it takes time! irish ppl will change but just like any other culture it takes time!

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"just because ur not paraniod, doesn't mean they're not after u!"

Paladin

Well, lots of ppl where I live take the pi$s outta the english as a sort of joke. About 1% actually are seriously racist.

One of my best friends is english and me and my m8s take the pi$$ the whole time, and vice versa.

But to the actually racist thing.

Simple answer.

There are a$$holes everywhere, every country, every race. All they want is an excuse. In your case its you being english. Sometimes its just a look (OI! WHAT R U LOOKING AT?)

If there wasnt racism it would just be random beatings. Its a sad part of human society. Take a look at any country in the world and you will see more evidence.

RopeDrink

First off, sorry for the first post - it was a bit flimsy, due to lack of time... Was at college getting my ears chewed off by one feisty I.T teacher who just adores dishing out lectures...

Anyway, I can understand all your points, and thanks - It's just I've been victim to such racial criticism, yet it wasn't as if I ever caused these people harm... How Ironic, I was recieving stick from people about a country they had never even visited, or had any real idea about...

Clintons Cat

rascist bullies are jerks mate,
things will get better when you leave college and they all get jobs in mcdonalds or the police force.

Seriously though dont let em get you down.

Blitzkrieger

<font face="Verdana, Arial" size="2">Originally posted by Lucy_la_morte:
You are what you make yourself, I am Martian.

</font>

Then I guess I'm a large plate of chips!

Megatron

it's a funny old world.
I enjoy taking the **** out of the english, but i do so with my english friends. And i don't mean anything by it other than a joke at my mates expense.
Iknow some people who dislike the Paddy irish man jokes. me i find them funny,
then again i'm a very laid back person who could waltz through a full blown riot and not even notice ....

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No !!!!! I will crush you with my Bare hands

neuro-praxis

I must point out before I comment that this is not a generalisation of rural Ireland people at all, just my personal experience.

When I lived in Dublin, I encountered quite a bit of racism, but a huge amount of people were realsitic and open minded, too. Now, living in rural Sligo, I have yet to encounter a young person (ie, 16 - 20) who does not have a problem with at least one of the following, and in many cases, all of them:

gay people
the Indian doctors in Sligo General Hospital
black people
Chinese/Japanese people
refugees
British people, including Northern Irelanders
travellers

I realise that there are far more people living in Dublin than in Sligo, but my personal experience of rural teenagers in particular is that they are afraid of change and wary of outsiders. I even got a hard time for being from Dublin...general good humoured slagging and then genuine nastiness too. A culture is flourishing down here - it's not dying out. My friends all dislike the neighbouring surfing village, Easky, because it is full of foreign people. That is using their words. It's crazy.

Reading about the guy that was murdered in Galway for being gay, and the guy that was stabbed in Dublin for being black...it just makes me sick and sad.

But we must all take responsibility, because this is our culture, and we have a damned responsibility to fight these attitudes. If we sit back and wait for it to change, places like the one I live in, where everybody goes to school, gets a job, inherits the farm, and dies (bar a select few with ambition) will continue on in this theme of ignorance and hate.

Even one my teachers expresses her racist views openly in class. I mean, that's disgusting! She's a nice woman otherwise, and popular, so she influences people quite a bit. It just makes me mad!

I'm really sorry that you have had to put up with that crap, Ropey, I apologise on behalf of my fellow citzens.

Shinji

Discrimination does indeed suck quite a lot. That said, I'm quite happy to be able to go through neuro's list and say that with the possible exception of travellers, I don't have a problem with any of them. I'd certainly never discriminate against an individual person on the grounds of their background; I may happen to think (and I do) that travellers are in general a bunch of wasters, but on an individual level I judge people for what they are, not what grouping they belong to (except fianna fail, which I take purely as a measurement of intellect ).

Also quite pleased to note that as an Irish person living in England for the past 9 months or so, I've never had a problem stemming from my accent (which despite being quite English does sound very Irish to English folks) or nationality. I wonder if the same will apply when I come back to Dublin with my new-found English accent?

[SKT]Raven

I can relate to this post anyway im originally from Germany born in Bonn to German/Irish parents.I have been living in ireland for about 15-16 years now (am now 19) and i have to say the abuse ya can get from some narrow minded peeps is unbelievable like "oh theres the nazi" and " **** off ya german *****" and so on despite the fact i ahve an irish passport have chosen ireland as my nationality and so forth.Regardless of any of this i have to agree with some of the previous posts the Irish people who may not want to admit are a very racist bunch indeed!

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WhAt are we going to do tonight Brain?

RopeDrink

Well I had great fun when i first moved over here...

I was in the middle of my GCSE's before my father decided to move back to Ireland, despite all the moaning, complaining I done...

And because the educational systems are very different, I had to begin my education all the way back in First Year...

Irish classes where great... I didn't have to do anything because It was too late to begin learning Irish for me, so I had to sit in the back, drawing on the tables or doing various other class work while our teacher boldly told tales of how the Irish fought the English (Which he would tell in very biased and nasty ways) while knowing I was actualy from there...

It wasn't nice, and do you think that made it any better when my classmates had t "Listen" to this?

Heads would turn, and funny looks and sneer's would ensue...

Kegser

I do like a good Northsider however...

Venom

There is no such thing as a good Northsider

WhiteWashMan

on a serious note, the irish hatred of all things english is beyond a joke.
and its not just joking about either.
too many small minds to fit on this tiny island

Paladin

Course there are!
Where did you think you were? Never never land?

My best friend is english. Lad gets an awful mocking from his friends in good humour.
The people that actually hate him for being english arent as open as that. They merely bad mouth him and spread bull**** rumours behind his back.

Ignorant a$sholes basically. And ye, small minded.

Coyote

after 700 years of being in ireland.
doing things that are too long to list
what way you do think people would feel
about the Country England.
now haveing said that i do not disslike english
people, i have meet loads and have liked 99%
of the people i have meet.
and it's a bace fear of people to be afraid
of diff things (ie: changes), and people
from other places are diff,
thats not a resion for people to let racism
happen, I have never had a problem with people
from diff places and countrys.
but i do some times have problems with the
goverments in the country, i have never let
that stop be beening frineds with people
from there.

Coyote

Shiminay

We do tend to be an 'orrible bunch for racism - it's rampant in the west and being a spud muncher myself, I was brought up without knowing any different. Thankfully, I'm now at a stage where I won't not like someone as a result of their colour or sexuality etc (with the exception of travellers who I think should all be executed in slow painfull ways - but that's another story).

Rope - you're in Galway, aren't you? It's always been a multicultural city (City of the Tribes!), but I guess some things never change

It's certainly a shame to see it's such a problem - especially in schools. My apologies

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All the best,

Dav
@B^)

<font face="Verdana, Arial" size="2">Prepare yourself - The Beefy King stirs from his slumber...</font>

[honey i] violated [the kids]

TwoShedsJackson

<font face="Verdana, Arial" size="2">Originally posted by Kharn:
Thankfully, I'm now at a stage where I won't not like someone as a result of their colour or sexuality etc (with the exception of travellers who I think should all be executed in slow painfull ways - but that's another story).
</font>

Do tell.

Kegser

I'm an awful ignorant ******* I am.

I hate everyone equally, Irish people, English people, German people, American people... I just hate you all.

Therefore I feel I'm not racist, I merely hate people.

YOU SUCK.

TacT

There you have it Irish people are even racist towards themselves..........the whole dublin northsider/southsider BS that constantly goes on......you say you are joking, but people can't help but feel undertones..........even if it is only a joke.

Unless as pointed out the people are friends of yours and you take the mickey out of each other.....fine.

I have a french mother, but was born in Ireland and going through school my best friend had a spanish mother and the rest of the kids would call me a french frog and tell me I ate snails.......which I have yet to taste The half spanish guy was nicknamed the spanish peanut and I was the french frog.

Anyway we teamed up and took all the abuse the kids gave us and to this day we still slag each other off about our old nicknames

It mainly comes down to people being afraid of anything new or change.

I was sitting on the 46a from Dun laoire to town yesterday and I was right up the front of the bus upstairs..........there were 3 japanese people sitting beside me.

We came up behind a bus in front of us and I saw about 10 classic nike air max, adidas, flecky tracksuited 10-16 yr olds.

They all looked back to the bus behind them and they noticed 3 people were different.
So how do they react......The kids all start pulling slanty eyes with their fingers etc.

They pointed and laughed at the poor folk just tryin to get from a to b. I was not amused..........and neither were the other poor folk being abused, I turned to the 3 japanese and said........pity they don't like education....they laughed and then pointed back at the young lads, pulling scumbag faces wide and ugly while laughing at their ignorance.

I joined in and they young lads got embarrassed and turned away.

Just thought I'd let ya know

logic1

<font face="Verdana, Arial" size="2">Kegser I'm an awful ignorant ******* I am.
I hate everyone equally, Irish people, English people, German people, American people... I just hate you all.

Therefore I feel I'm not racist, I merely hate people.

YOU SUCK.
</font>

Here kegs you like me too. Still in the good book aint I?

.logic.

Chief

Well for the folks who know me heres a funny wee story...

Most of u guys who know me, know the very first impression i give across, this all stems from looks (and ive been told that that impression crumbles away as soon as I open my mouth).. anyway i still look the same.. big, skinheaded, army jacket, black boots wearing geezer, as many have described i look Nazi as Fúck .. but like, im not!

anyway heres the story..

I was trundling around waterloo place in Derry with a few m8's laughing and messing, wearing the above mentioned attire but id added a new thingy to my hairstyle a sorta Z or lightning bolt shaven in, when this small asian lady comes straight up to me out of nowhere and blocks my path, basically she singled me out of the group of lads I was with and she was giving me the most vile look imaginable.. so friendly Chiefy said said "hello".. i recieved no courteous hello back as youd expect but a "What is THAT on your head!?!" in a very strong and posh english accent. Now for a few seconds i hadnt a clue what she was on about, then i realised that it was the Z shaved into my head, so i told her the story of white men cant jump the basketball flick and how i was a basketball nut and one of the wee characters named willie had a "big Z in his fro".. she was actually quite taken a back i think that i didnt yell racial slurs back at her or ask who the Fúck she thought she was coming up to me in the middle of the street and acting in the way she did (again as some of ye know, that aint me). Anyway, she went on (almost grudgingly) to explain that she worked for Marks & Spencers (who were just about to open in the foyleside centre nearby) and was researching possible racism in the area (it was something to that account anyway, but for what reason she was researching, I cant remember).
Anyway she popped off after that saying she was sorry to bother me etc, etc, (though she seemed incredibly annoyed not to get a fight, hehe ) and i told her no problems, see ya later etc..

now im not sure if this totally relates to what we're on about, i do not consider myself a rascist, but i spose often people do judge books by their covers and not whats inside hehe.

thoughts and opinions on a SAE with 4 part harmonies to the usual address..

Ohh and on the subject of boggerism rascism, ive actually see sort a the opposite in the younger gen around here, its seems to be the older gen who go "ooh look at that big black man on the telly" or " so and so is seeing some big black man" and shít like that, in fact in my experience, nobody gives a bollóx except the older ones, well thats around here in bogger Donegal, though exceptions to come through in the ruff almost red sector of youth, but there isnt too many of them left in my area..

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"LOSE me.. Hate me.. SMASH me..
ERASE me.. KILL me.."

nine inch nails - eraser

|Chief|...

[This message has been edited by Chief (edited 31-03-2001).]

Clintons Cat

chief reading your story i think the woman probally misread the "Z" as a neo nazi waffen SS style "s" might explain her behaviour,but if thats what she thought you had that in you hair and deceided to confront you she was one brave lady.

Braver than me...id have crossed the road to avoid you mate...no offence or anything

Chief

None taken m8

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"LOSE me.. Hate me.. SMASH me..
ERASE me.. KILL me.."

nine inch nails - eraser

|Chief|...

Canaboid

Chiefy, maybe if you added a "HUG me" to your sig ppl wouldn't be so scared