Most of it is sneaky and subtle, there is no smoking gun but there sure is a pattern which is easy for outsiders to dismiss as random noise. A lot of people wouldn’t accept even a videotaped confession of bigotry as enough, there has to be an innocent and unlikely excuse.
That gets old very fast and you essentially have to develop “bigotdar” which is based on a whole lot of things.
Lets say you work with an older woman with a bunch of religious crap on her desk, you guys get along great until one day when you reveal to her you’re an atheist. From this point forward she is determined to either get you fired or make your work experience miserable, you know like telling HR you were drinking a soda at your desk which is a no no type garbage, passive aggressive bullshit. That is what most bigotry is like, and it is like trying to convince an outsider Michigan J Frog can really dance.
Here in southern Alberta, many law firms are Mormon-run and operated. In fairness, I will say that for the most part, they take all clients, Mormon or not.
But these firms don’t seem to like hiring non-Mormon lawyers. I’ve applied to many, and all have had some reason why they don’t want me. All except one, which basically said, “You’re not Mormon, so we won’t hire you.”
So, I’m a sole practitioner. My clients like that, as many have said the equivalent of, “I can’t deal with Mormon lawyers. They make me feel uncomfortable. You, I can deal with.”
So I guess that as long as there are non-Mormon clients, I’ll have a job. But I still would like to see the local Mormon law firms brought to heel on their hiring practices.
I grew up in Dallas, Texas. Don’t start! It’s actually rather cosmopolitan compared to most of the state. And neither of my parents had a racist bone in their bodies. Which is why the following was rather surprising at the time.
40+ years ago, on a visit to my 70-year-old maternal Grandmother, she told me that the nice boy across the street cut her lawn for free, every time he cut his. I wasn’t aware of any boys living there. After some confusion, it turned out she was talking about the 60-year-old black man who lived there. :eek: Just when does adulthood finally set in for blacks?
It cuts both ways though. I used to work with a young black guy here in CA, and we got quite friendly. He knew I was from TX, but I never thought that had anything to do with who I was. One day he told me “You know…you’ve come a long way.” He assumed, you see, that I had ‘stopped’ being a bigot. (Hint: I never was.)
Same guy once, in all innocence, said to me, “You know, black people can be bigots, too.” :smack: I couldn’t help myself. I said, “Yeah. I hate bigots…especially black bigots!” I thought his eyes were going to fall out of his skull for the few seconds it took for him to realize I was yanking his chain.
I think this is an american thing, I love people stunned that a black person can be a racist! Oh and that turd of a word reverse-racism, wtf does that even mean? someone who is not racist?!
Hell sometimes I realize people live in different parts of the USA because local tensions and conflicts are so vastly different.
I went to a very liberal college, graduating in 1987, and knew of several fellow students, black and white, who insisted that blacks were incapable of racism because it was more of a “power” thing than a “race” thing. I was stunned.
When I was a teenager my mother, after a long battle with my father, got the funds together to have a swimming pool put in. We lived in central FL where everyone had a pool in their back yard. This is around 1975. The pool had an automatic pool cleaner which was this little thing on wheels that rolled around the bottom and sides of the pool and sucked up all the junk that shouldn’t be there. My mother referred to it as the “little nigger”. :rolleyes:
I work with my husband’s aunt, sister of my mother in law. She’s worked at this place for 32 years (she’s 88 and going to finally retire this year) and no one, not any of her co-workers or her boss or anyone know that she has grand children. Why? Because she refuses to acknowledge their existence because they’re half black. I am sworn to secrecy and she reminds me every year around the holidays that I’m not to mention them or show any pictures because no one knows.
Apparently, here in Northwest Indiana no one has told the natives that the expression “Jew him down” might be offensive to some. So I have many customers tell me they “jewed down [person or business]” to get a deal or even “c’mon, can’t I jew you down a little on this?”
I was completely unaware of this tendency until I entered the retail world.
At the same time, there are individuals who see a pattern of bigotry where none exists (or claim to). I’ve encountered this more than once.
Back in my call center days, I often conducted training classes for new temps coming in. It was a two week program, 40 hours a week. Day one, a few people straggle in because they couldn’t find the place, whatever, and I go through the basic spiel - the most important thing here is to be on time for your shift. We staff up at 15 minute increments together with other call centers to meet planned demand, it’s important for you to be here when you’re supposed to, and ready to start. During training, we start at whatever time, you must be here at that time. It’s okay if you got lost today, just make sure to come back from your breaks and stuff when you’re supposed to, and be here and ready to start at 8 tomorrow.
Cut to next day. Woman walks in about 20 minutes late. Now, she has a bunch of hot food from the cafeteria, so I know she didn’t rush getting here – she stopped to get hot food service, which takes around 15 minutes. I planned to address it later. She proceeds to the available seat in the front row, opens her meal, starts eating it (which we’d already discussed, no eating in class since people make a mess) and, with her mouth open, starts YELLING over me to have a conversation with someone a few rows over, so now I have to step in.
Me: “Excuse me, please be quiet, as I’m trying to teach the class.”
Her: “But I just got here and I need to tell X about <whatever>”
Me: “We’ll have a break at 10, you can tell her then.”
Her: “Pfft… why you gotta work us so hard? I ain’t even ready to start yet!”
Me: “Look, we started 20 minutes ago. If you need to socialize before we start, that’s fine, but you need to show up a bit early – but you’re late, and we’ve already started working. Please be quiet, we’re going to continue.”
Her: <rolleyes>
As procedure required, at our next break I filed a complaint with the temp agency and wrote an email to my boss. (We have to show a pattern of bad behavior to get someone removed.)
Later, I get called into my boss’s office and several people are present. Apparently, the woman complained to her temp agency that I was a racist and demanded I be fired or she was going to sue us. :rolleyes: Apparently, in her version, several people were late but I called her out specifically because she was black.
I laughed a bit, explained she was being loud and disruptive to the class, and pointed out I’d already documented what happened as per policy. A couple of other people had also been (albeit less) late, that’s true, but our policy was not to address it in front of everyone, just to document it, which I had. I had only addressed the behavior because she was being a pain in the ass and disrupting my ability to teach. But of course, I’m super racist for not letting her yell across the classroom with a mouthful of hash browns while I’m trying to talk.
Anyway, nothing much came of it, fortunately for me. The temp was let go. It helped that I had some years under my belt and our center was really diverse… and that we had a lot of other people try the same ploy to get out of even minor trouble.
It’s common in central/southern Illinois. I had heard it many times as a kid and it took years before the light bulb went on that ‘jew down’ was talking about Jewish people. I just assumed it was a verb that meant to haggle. Of course, I was constantly on my elderly relations about not using the term ‘darkie town’ to refer to the poorer sections of town.:rolleyes:
My grandmother while positing the guilt or innocence of OJ Simpson back in 1995: “You know, I look at that man, and I think he is innocent. But then again, you know how those negroes like to use knives.”
Were you trying to book at Chuck E. Cheese? I don’t get how the group name could even come up when making the booking - where the heck was this - I think I better avoid them for their dumbness.
I once exchanged several letters with a woman before meeting her for the first time – in a professional context, I should add, not personal. When we met, we went through her issues and I explained how things would proceed from there. She seemed to understand everything and was very cooperative.
At the end of the meeting, she got up to leave, and she said, “You know, I’'m really glad you’re not one of them.”
“One of who?”
“You know, when I saw your name… I thought you were one of those Hispanics.”
Wow…that’s just…bizarre. I do find it somewhat interesting that there are dedicated social groups for not having kids, which is something I never really thought of before, but it is just downright bizarre to have someone else give a crap that you have a group of people who choose not to have kids. I can’t think of a single reason why any random stranger should give a flying crap about whether someone else wants to have kids or not. That’s just nutty. (Of course, I also feel this way about people who care whether two people of the same gender are in love with each other…but still).
I mean, I understand why it can be an issue among couples…my college girlfriend never wanted kids, and I did, and it eventually led to our breakup (when we realized neither would change), but I certainly didn’t dislike her because of that. It was a reason not to get married, but not a reason for, well ANYTHING else. Wow.
I’m still frankly in shock at how stupid people can be sometimes.
I’m Italian, 100 percent for at least a couple generations. I also have what some call a “jew fro”, a head of black curly hair.
When I was in Jr high in Phoenix, AZ, in the 1980s, a group of skinhead-type punks started calling me “jewboy”. I didn’t even know what that meant. Joo-boy? WTF?
One day at lunch they start harassing me at lunch. By this time I figured out what they were saying, and I pointed that I was eating a ham sandwich. I believe the harassment stopped at that point (it wasn’t really anything beyond name-calling).
They were dumb enough to be bigots, and misidentify their target, but just smart enough to know Jews don’t eat pork. But still too dumb to know there are non-observant Jews.
