Casual racism in your place of work

I try to go for a swim at lunch, better than listening to people bitching and moaning

Always worked on building sites in construction and it was always just plain racism rather than "casual" racism.There was a contractor from the bogs of nowhere who had a Nigerian working for him on our site once and the racial abuse he gave him right to his face was unbelievable.

cryptocurrency wrote: »

If he was a subbie on a larger site he should have been send of site and made to jump through hoops to get what he had done up to that point signed off to be paid. He would think twice about his racism then. In fact any credible major contractor would have taken some sort of action.

It was only a small site we were working on at the time, private job.The black man taking the abuse didnt seem too fussed but i think he just put on a brave face and stayed quiet so as not to risk his job, the recession was just coming into full swing at this stage.

hfallada wrote: »

I think Irish people say stupid stuff without realising it. Like my friends friend was going on about the "puffs" and how someone was so fruity. You would think he is homophobic, but his brother is actually gay and he has zero issues with it

Irish people need to learn to get a filter. Americans are racists in private. Irish people arent

That is an odd opinion to hold

I'd rather hear what the Irish misguidedly consider "playful banter" in public than have people be privately racist.
At least everything is out in the open.

My mother once said about the street her brother lives on "It's full of foreigners."
She's Irish, her brother is Irish and he lives in England.

Suppose what you define as casual racism, and how long your working there.

I had a job where our team was extremely diverse. We had a guy from Clare, a guy from Limerick, me from Northside Dublin, guy from Southside Dublin, a girl from Nigeria, a bloke from China and an Australian boss.

If you walked in and stood there for two hours, maybe you would take offense and find it to be highly racist. But in the context of the team, it was all good spirited and a right laugh, and everyone knew where the line was. It wasn't personal or aggressive, normally jibes on stereotypes and the likes.

I think context goes along way, and it's worth remembering that different people have different humour and what others find offensive some might find hilarious.

Of course it depends on what the comments are. Obviously some things are outrageously inappropriate.

But for me personally, I find myself working mostly in diverse offices, and normally for some reason the only northside Dubliner. I'll get some stick over the stereotype, I'll give some back to southsiders or whatever. But I've never once felt seriously offended or that it impacted my reputation or work in anyway.

Then again I suppose its hard to take from the OP's post. Normally the experiences I've had is colleagues slagging each other. For example I havn't had a case where a team collectively gives it large about muslims or islam etc.