I'm not racist but...

[MIdgebabe]

I guess most people accept that the statement "I am not racist but " usually comes before a very racist remark.

But I have noticed another phrase common on here

"I'm not racist, I just don't like "

Why is it similar? Because you can't really know why you don't like someone. You may think it's a rational dislike, but all the evidence is that it's actually an unconscious decision on top of which you add rationality.

All the evidence? Because BAME people know they are more likely to be disliked / police searched / lose out at interviews than white people. Because we know that people who are chosen in blind tests are not chosen if the tests are not blind, no matter how unbiased the people doing the choosing think they are.

It's really difficult, and it is hard / daft to attribute to individuals a behaviour that emerges from people on average. And most people want and try to be non-racist

But when a BAME person suspects that racism underlies something, denying that , which happens on here, or claiming "not me" seems a very racist thing to do.

‘A bit Chinky’ used to describe eye shape of one of my children when they were small, for example!

That's horrible

Except those things aren't exclusive to the examples you gave DoctorAllcome.

Neither is rape and yet lots of people are calling Nicolas statement racist. If the litmus test of “not a racist” statement is oh well action x is not exclusive to that race/culture, then it’s not racist....well then no statement that starts with I’m not racist but can be racist.

DoctorAllcome. Sorry but racist.

Try these sentences -
FGM is Child abuse and should not be tolerated.
I dislike the idea of male infant circumcision
I think polygamy is harmful to women.
I think marriage is anti-feminist.

On the subject of polygamy, it’s racist because not all polygamy is Muslim. There are white, polygamist families in the states living in tight communities and aligned to the Latter Day Saints but now rejected by the mainstream religion.
Is lesbian marriage anti-feminism? Is all marriage Christian?
What about where a boy has phimosis or hypospadias ?

@ flashingbeacon - English is nearly always a first language for an Indian doctor (it’s a national language and most kids learn it, Hindi/ Tamil, and their regional languages) who emigrates to the UK / USA. Where it isn’t they have usually received so much education that they are often fluent by the time they go into secondary school. The accent issue is separate and discriminating against an Indian accent is as stupid as discriminating against a thick scots / Irish accent - if you can’t understand you ask someone to repeat themselves. You don’t say I don’t understand Indian accents because most Indians speak like the Queen!

To the Muslim men bashers - you lead very sheltered lives, clearly. I’ve travelled the world to countries of different faiths and I haven’t come across single man who behaved as you describe.

You cannot minimise the experience of other women just because you personally haven’t experienced it

@LoseLooseLucy
I live in a town with a large Muslim population, feral youths (majority white) are the biggest scourge on the town. Horrible you stereotype like that Nicola.

But it’s ok that you’ve just blithely stereotyped “feral youths” as white?
If we are going to discuss exploring racist thoughts, don’t exclude thoughts about white people too.

It’s not that simple. There are large grey areas.
Try these statements
“I’m not racist against Middle Eastern people, but I don’t like FGM.”

But why can't the person just say they're against FGM?
Why the need to start with "I'm not racist but..."?
And with a statement that clearly equates all Middle Eastern People with FGM... It's should be about the practicioners and their societies, which BTW are mainly in Africa and Asian islands.
en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Prevalence_of_female_genital_mutilation_by_country

@ ShirleyPhallus - considering most crime against women in the UK is committed by white men, I think you need to give your head a wobble. Yes when it comes to racism every individual experience needs to be discounted because it is never acceptable - you can hate your attacker but hating the race is morally wrong and discriminating against them is illegal

I haven't blithely stereotyped white feral youths DoctorAllcome, it's a fact. I live here 🙄

But it’s ok that you’ve just blithely stereotyped “feral youths” as white?

It wasn't stereotyped. It was posted that there were many feral youths and the majority was white. That's observation.

Stereotyping would be saying that white youths are feral.

@Usernamealreadyexists are you sure you aren’t the one who has lead a sheltered life? Have you never been leered at/cat called etc? Not once?

And for everyone else I am going to say this again.

ISLAM IS NOT A RACE. Racism is wrong because you are discriminating on the base of meaningless physical characteristics which the individual has no power to change. Passing judgement over members of a religion which is inherently misogynistic on the other hand is perfectly reasonable. If someone doesn’t believe that a woman has half the worth of a man they can just leave the religion like I did. It’s offensive to people who suffer actual racism to equate the two and it’s making excuses for people who willingly support vile belief systems.

@DoctorAllcome the fact you can’t see the difference between saying the majority of the feral youths were white and all white youths are feral is rather interesting. There is a fair difference between the two.

@CherryPavlova

Interesting. I have wondered about those kinds of statements that I see as to are they racist/not racist.

So Loose said, not racist because not exclusive.
You are saying, is racist also because not exclusive.

Hmmmmm. (I don’t have answer)

You cannot minimise the experience of other women just because you personally haven’t experienced it

I'd then state that white men are violent, misogynists, condescending, cheaters and sexual harassers.

Erm, no, I didn't day your examples weren't racist. They are, because they aren't exclusive to the examples you gave..

@ DoctorAllcome - why are you splitting hairs between racism and prejudice with the belief that one is more right than the other? Have you ever experienced racist behaviour? The two go hand in hand!

I’m not defending that poster for saying she dislikes all Muslim men. That, to me, is not on.

But this “I haven’t experienced it so it can’t exist” attitude is utter bollocks.

@Teddybear45 there are lots of white Muslims.

That aside, of the sexual violence/harassment I have experienced (first hand or second hand) from Muslim men none of it has been reported. The vast majority of serious crimes were committed inside the home with men being violent to their wives. The rest of it was low level sexual harassment (which I started experiencing myself as soon as I hit puberty). As far as I am aware none of this was ever reported to anyone. There are several reasons why. The first being the Muslim communities tend to blame women in these situations. The second being that it’s difficult to prove that your husband raped you or your friends dad who is twice your age is constantly ogling you, mating inappropriate comments about you etc. The third is that the police don’t really have the resources to deal with low level crimes. They’re really not going to care if a man started cat calling you andfollowing you down the street.

@SoVeryLost
the fact you can’t see the difference between saying the majority of the feral youths were white and all white youths are feral is rather interesting. There is a fair difference between the two.

Yeah one is more racist than the other. It’s not ok to say that the majority of feral youths are white because that statement is based on a racist assumption. There is no “feral youth” survey where a researcher has defined what is a feral youth and then objectively counted heads. Nope. The statement is based on Loose walking around her town and seeing white youths and going “yep that’s a feral youth”. It’s purely subjective and thus racist.

Just a few more
“I’m not racist against Jews, but I disagree with circumcision of male babies”
Muslims, white Americans and many tribal societies also do it.

“Im not racist about the Muslim religion, but I think polygamy is harmful to women”
Not exclusive to Muslims at all. It's practiced also by some US sects, although not legal.

“I’m not racist about the Christian religion, but I think marriage is deeply anti-feminist.”
Marriage is, well, not a Christian exclusive, but that was just a token example, wasn't it?

Just no, DoctorAllcome, incorrect. Thankfully PPs have decent reading comprehension.

DoctorAllcome - why are you splitting hairs between racism and prejudice with the belief that one is more right than the other? Have you ever experienced racist behaviour? The two go hand in hand!

? I never said one is more right than the other. It is surely important in a discussion about racism to know the difference between actual racism and prejudice? That’s why I’m splitting hairs because to discuss racism we all need to be working of the same definition of racism and not confuse it with other things like prejudice.

Why can’t we admit it is human to feel a fear which is based on prejudice following something as horrific as a rape? It is human to flinch afterwards in some situations but it is ok to be flawed - surely the main thing is to own it and work on understanding it and hopefully overcoming it?

We won’t overcome it by demonising the woman who flinches and fears a group of men following her rape.

@BogglesGoggles - I had sexual harassment against me by white Irish men and the Irish communities I know - all the things you said are commonplace (including the under-reporting of crimes). I still don’t hate all Irish men. It is white privilege in the UK to hate an entire non-white race because one person of that race did something bad to you - non-white people in the UK never do this to white people.

Preceding a statement with "I'm not racist, but..." will imply that whatever you're going to say will be racist.