Shodan, would it make any difference (and why) if the calling was done by a white person or a black one ? ?
FWIW, I am wondering when the pendulum of racial perception will swing to an entirely new set of metrics – I had an old set of encyclopedia in which a black was described as “having a skull thicker than that of a human” . . .
Not sure of the date of the set (incomplete), but it described a submarine as an “untried, undersea naval vessel first used in the current Soviet-Sino conflict”. . . .
In answer to the OP: I’m of Chinese descent and IME a very small percentage of people I’ve met are actually racist (except for a woman behind me on a shopping centre escalator a few years back who muttered “Damn Asians”). I think I’m really lucky that nothing worse has happened to me in terms of overt racism. Of course Australia does have a racism problem, so it’s likely I’ll experience more racism in the future.
geezer, it is really hard to parse out our intention with that post. Are you trying to state how far we’ve come that such hurtful racist things were in encyclopedias before and now we have less disgusting “metrics”? Or longing for those days when that crap had the sanction of society as being something okay to say? Or what?
Personally I am not reading a pity party in the least. The problem is real. It’s just that variable perceptions and different life experiences make communication about this subject a bit … difficult; conversational landmines abound.