That’s unfortunate. But to be fair, you probably shouldn’t have dressed like this.
Heh, good one. To be fair, it might have been homophobia and not racism but who can tell.
:eek: Such language!
If we turn the thread into a screenplay, then it’ll be ok.
You got it easy, girl. In my neck of the woods, I have 4 delis.
One is owned by an avowed crypto-homophobe, the second one is owned by a concealed misogynist, the third one employs secret tea-baggers and the fourth one has a clear fascist slant.
Imagine what I have to go through just to do my daily shopping…
Ha ha, well said!
I’m with you, I can’t abide seeing someone spoken to that way. If the circumstances permit, I occasionally even get the opportunity to intervene. Like the time I saw two 8 or 9 year old male black kids following a grown Asian woman down the street, making insulting gibberish sounds at her, meant to ridicule an Asian language. So I slowed my bike way down, and yelled at them that I knew their mothers, and boy were they gonna be in trouble. It’s an evil but effective tactic – because when you’re a kid, there’s just no way to know – heck, she might know my mother! Bwa-ha-ha-haaa.
Perhaps the next time you see a group of Moroccan folks out for a bike ride, you could ask them if they know a good bike shop?
Are you saying Bigfoot owns a deli near you and he’s afraid of gays?
Vinyl Turnip, no one should dress like that.
Gracer, as they’ve given you good service above and beyond before, give them a greater courtesy once by going in and telling them what your BIL heard. You may well be walking into a confrontation; you wouldn’t have guessed them to be xenophobic so don’t rely on what you think you know of them. If their response is anything but contrition, off you go to the shop that repairs Moroccans.
Anaamika’s absolutely right ya’ll. Look around and pay attention and you’ll see/hear folks trying desperately to pretend an ugly thing didn’t just come out and show itself to be an ugly thing.
I’m wondering why your BIL didn’t speak up right then?“I don’t like the way you just spoke to that customer and I’ll be taking my business elsewhere from now on” would have solved your problem immediately.
Call me racist, but talk about white people problems…
He did speak up for her. First he told them not to overreact to a simple misunderstanding and then he told them they were out of line with the racist slurs. He’s not a big scene maker, but he did speak up.
It doesn’t solve my problem of not going there and letting them know why. It would’ve been a little weird had he said “and my SIL, you know, the one with the blond hair and the old bottle-green Batavus? - well she’s not coming back either, so there!”
Can someone remind me why misogyny is completely acceptable?
I ask myself this every single day of my life. Every.single.day.
Perhaps you can do your small part to help bring about the end of misogyny by refusing to do business with bicycle repair shops that are run by misogynists.
That would be considerably more difficult, because that particular level of misogyny they exhibit is far more socially acceptable and all bike shops exhibit it. I would certainly not go back if I heard they were shouting at women that “bitches need to stay in the kitchen”, which would be the equivalent.
As it stands, there is no point even trying to explain to them why raising their eyebrows when I say that it’s the dynamo that’s the problem is misogynist. There isn’t the remotest chance they would understand. They think of themselves as nice to women, and that is all there is to it. To explain what the problem is would require a series of 20 lectures with a written paper at the end.
They certainly do have some level of awareness of their racism not being socially acceptable. Or at least they will, if someone points it out to them. If their misogyny reached the same levels I would be better equipped to confront them. As is, I think feminism is working on changing the discourse and I do what I can. It’s taking longer than we thought. 
Gracer, if you aren’t happy with the service you get at your LBS, why not do the repairs yourself? There are plenty of resources available through forums online and if you’re lucky, adult education classes to give you the practical experience. Mtn biking made me self sufficient respecting doing repairs on the fly, and really it’s not that hard.
I can do the simple stuff and even then it’s worth paying someone to do it. It’s not a hobby for me, so it’s just not worth my time. I also have nowhere to do it, and in these temperatures my fingers get too cold outside.
Finding a new place is annoying, but not insurmountable. With more than one bicycle per person, the Netherlands has the most bicycles per person in the world. The bike shops match that: they are literally everywhere. They just tend to be run by the kind of men who don’t know that their behaviour is sexist. Mechanics and plumbers are the same, I live over a plumber and they’re still shocked every time I ask to borrow a tool that I would know the name of the tool. The racism, I dunno. I guess you get racist and non-racist bike repairs men. The guy in my street is Moroccan, so presumably not racist, but he won’t do half the things I want done and then takes days for the things he will do.
I need to ask some friends where to go, but half of them went to my guy and are now also looking.
I agree with the others. If they apologize and act embarrassed about the incident, then I’d consider continuing to shop there. If they laugh it off or treat it like it wasn’t a big deal or that she deserved it, then I’d definitely not go there again.
Seriously? I’d say that the incidents of “boy cries wolf” racism are so much fewer than times where there is genuine racism. It’s naive to think that racism doesn’t exist today.