Yesterday I was queuing for petrol at Asda. All pumps closed apart from two so long queue. There was a van stopped at the pump, with nobody in it, or at the pump. I got out after a while to find out what was going on. Asked the man in car in front if he knew why the van was stopped there, he gestured to a woman over at the payment bit (It was a self pay pump) and said 'that traveller woman doesn't know how to use the pump and the staff are all on their tea break.'
I know it's not awful in the scheme of things, but really, why mention she was a traveller? How did he even know? And why did nobody offer to help her use the pump? The subtext was clearly 'she's too stupid to use the pump because she's a traveller and I'm not helping because she's a traveller'.
Oh and travellers/roma/gypsies are a recognised ethnic group so that is racism, before people start talking about travellers being thieves/troublemakers!
There are other examples all the time. People mentioning a person's race for no reason, and implying that their behaviour has something to do with it, it's so prevalent and gets me down.
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to be sad at the casual racism I see everywhere?
105 replies
ObsidianBlackbirdMcNight · 11/08/2009 11:37
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