Joey-I assume the politician was Tammy Baldwin?
Yes (for some reason I always blank on it in a pinch), But I’ll leave the restaurant name out until I can independently verify the story, which I’ve never been able to do. She ended up moving her party that a friend owns and he told us about it. Until I see the letter the restaurant wrote or hear it from her directly (or the restaurant), I don’t want to wrongly trash them. That kind of stuff can get out of hand very quickly.
The only thing that really comes to mind is racist but hilarious. Right after Obama was elected the first time, a white stranger on the street yelled at my black ex (who looks nothing like Obama), something about, “Oh look! It’s our new president!” just because he ignored the guy and kept walking when the guy was trying to start shit with him after they accidentally kind of bumped into each other. I *guess *the implication was that he was being uppity.
This may be a reverse of some of the stories here, but I’ll offer it for what it’s worth. Note that I’m white.
I stepped outside the sports bar for a quick smoke.
A native (Indian/First Nations/Native Canadian/whatever) who was passing by with a skateboard said, “Hey man, give me a smoke.”
I replied, “No.” Note that cigarettes are extremely expensive here, and you don’t give a cigarette away unless it’s to a close friend who will pay you back. Plus, Natives can buy cigarettes super-cheap, as they do not pay any taxes on cigarettes. I’m not a Native, so I pay full price; and thus, a cigarette is an expensive treat.
For denying him a cigarette, I got called a “fucking racist bastard,” and he wound up with his skateboard as if to hit me with it. Then he saw the taxi driver waiting for a fare and who had been watching and reporting the incident to his dispatch on his radio.
He left, calling me a “fucking racist bastard” once again. No harm done, however.
I don’t know what to attribute it to (homophobia, transphobia, sexism, laziness, whatever), but, as a gay trans man, I was raped/sequestered for a couple hours/robbed by some drugged out guy a few years ago in an abandoned building. I went to the police station right after he had let me out, so, like, 15 min after, since it was nearby. The policemen weren’t interested in going to that place to find the guy (who had told me he was living there, that he had a gun, that he had just been let out of prison). Instead they told me to go to it myself the next day with a big strong friend (subtext: to beat the guy up I guess).
That was in a big city in the north of france in 2006.
I could write a book about discrimination in China, but the one that really got to me is when my honors class was given to a much-worse teacher (with a massive drinking problem that severely affected his work life) because he had a penis and that’s what is important.
Or the time my tourist visa to Tibet was mysterious pulled because it “was not a good time,” for a tour starting less than a week after a male colleague set out on the exact same tour.
Or when my boss gave me, a 30 year old professional and my hard drinking hard smoking hunting and fishing female colleague (who he knew quite well) giant pink stuffed teddy bears and some poodle-mittens-on-a-string as gifts on an official occasion.
There is a reason why there are relatively few long term expat women in China. It’s like going back to the 1950s.
About ten years ago I was on vacation with some friends, and we stopped at a Cracker Barrel in Tennessee for breakfast. Chatting with the waitress, she asked if we were on vacation (we were all wearing motorcycle gear). We said “yeah, we’re from up north; we have this great program where nobody has to work.” She replied with “Oh, we have that down here too, but if you want to be in it, you have to paint your face black.” :eek:
I have a number of neighbors who want to turn our local school district into a church. And get very upset when I tell them I’m Jewish and they can’t.
I’m not sure what you mean by “turn our local school district into a church”. Do you mean they want to turn the local school into a church?
Either way (and I’m just asking), why can’t they do that just because you’re Jewish? Is it a public school and you have kids there that would have to be moved to another school?
The job my husband just lost had an owner that was very free with the n word. The whole atmosphere just reeked. One of the guys refused to wait on a black customer and referred to him as a porch monkey.
I would not have lasted a day, but my husband felt a responsibility to bring home a check and it took forever to find that job, so he hung in there until they laid him off.
Agreed. The worst I can come up with these days is being refused service while the waitron stood five feet away and loudly told her co-worker “fuck those dykes, I’m not helping them”.
The 70’s and 80’s were much worse; being fired from working with handicapped kids - “we don’t think your kind belong near children”, or my landlord telling me “I’m not renewing your lease, we don’t want people like you in this building”, and on and on…
The worst I’ve had directed towards me is a random person on the street asking, “what the fuck are you?” (i.e. what gender). Not so much upsetting, as just surprising. There’s a lot worse that can happen to trans people.
Does it count as a hijack for me to ask why religion is included here, and is often included as a protected category? Unlike all the other characteristics, which are neither chosen nor harmful, religion is a choice, and is very often harmful; in fact it’s the reasoning behind lots of racism/sexism/homophobia/heterosexism that we see in this thread and in today’s headlines.
Interesting post/username.
I was listening to Our Lady Peace at the time, and I am male.
Uhh…you realize, don’t you, that religious persecution has been ongoing for centuries, and in fact has a higher body count than nearly all other forms of discrimination combined? (Think Crusades, Spanish Inquisition, etc.) And would you really change your faith just because the status quo doesn’t agree with what you believe in?
Back on topic…as a male, hetero WASB it’s a major challenge to compete with the stories here, but I’ll try:
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I’m currently boycotting Popeye’s because they seem to be prejudiced against whites, at least in this city. (Long story.)
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Patronizing an “authentic Mexican” restaurant as a white guy results in a 50/50 chance that you’ll get the scrapings off the floor & countertops instead of the good meat, and your so-called carne asada will resemble rat droppings. Attempting to speak Spanish often hurts more than it helps.
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FWIW, the white folk ain’t much better, esp. if you appear to be one step up from white trash, as I am – I have a nasty habit of triggering the “shoplifter alert” at various stores just because of how I act & dress. (How ironic, because back in my feckless youth, nobody ever suspected anything and I never got caught…oops I’ve said too much!)
I know, I know…First World Problems.
Sometimes being poor is a fast track to the back of the line, but it’s subtle.
Once, completely out of nowhere, a black waitress called me and my friend “crackers,” and then just stood there staring at us for a while before finally walking away. I was so upset I could barely finish my chowder.
Wait, what’s the “great program where nobody has to work”? 
buddha_david beat me to it, but religion is included because there’s some pretty horrible examples of persecution based on religion - the Inquisition, Crusades, Holocaust, etc. You can decry the racism/sexism/etc. in a religion without seeing that as being ALL there is in a religion and condoning senseless bigotry towards its adherents.
I’ve gotten in the habit of answering random labels like that with “Would you please call me Christ?”
That usually activates the still-functional WTF region of their brain, and they walk away.