Racist comment or statement of fact?

[Spinxsta]

7 year old DS said that a TA at his school stated "the Chinese eat dogs". He said they were talking about what people in other countries eat.

I feel there should be some context behind a statement that stereotypes people. Maybe "in the past, some of the poorer people in china ate dogs as they were starving" or something.

Another school mum said the statement didn't sit right but she didn't see it as racist.

We spoke to DS about how people have made statements like that in the past to be racist towards Chinese people and make them seem like disgusting people. I want to say something to school but I'm not sure if this is even complaint worthy... it just doesn't sound like something I want my children growing up saying or thinking.

Am I right to feel cross about this or am I overreacting??

@Fimofriend who knows?! MN appears to have a hierarchy of consumable animals.

The Belgian eat horsemeat

So do many French, especially in the south, where in some places "mince" is horse by default
Ditto some of the cheaper restaurants, where if you've ordered the 10 Euro steak frites dish and enjoyed the tender open texture you've almost certainly eaten horse - and very good it is too

I know. I havent said otherwise.

Omg this!

When you read this statement you know exactly what colour that person is!

I would say ‘the French eat frogs legs and snails’ and obviously I wouldn’t mean every single French person, but it is food they eat in that country. Therefore, I dont think saying ‘the Chinese eat dogs’ is racist. Its a fact. Kids learn about the different foods eaten in every country and they do eat dog meat in China.

Age 7 is old enough to talk about how some cultures see dogs as friends, some see them as food. That some see cows as sacred while in Britain many people eat them. How whether an an animal is for eating or in the group a culture says is not for eating is a social construct. As far as the animal being butchered is concerned, there’s no right animal to eat.

Like people in the west eating cows. Some Indians are as horrified at it as the west is horrified at eating cats and/or dogs.

This. I think the racist thing is imagining that not eating dogs is somehow superior. It's just a different cultural norm.

FWIW the Swiss also eat dogs (and cats).

The overwhelming majority of people on MN saying it’s a statement of fact should be your first indicator as to how racist it is.

What does this even mean?

I’m not sure that you can say it’s just poor areas due to my own experience below but also understand it feels racist.

I was in Shanghai about 10 years ago as a student, hade Chinese counterpart students showing us around and taking us out in the evening. We were out drinking until 3am most evenings, our host took us to get street food and only after eating he informed us it was dog, we were all appalled because we were initially told it was chicken. I hope he was joking as I don’t like the thought that I’ve consumed dog, although it was like nothing I’d tasted before so I think it was.

With all things like this blanket statements aren’t helpful. There’s a large portion of people in this country that have eaten horse without releasing I guess.

The thing is, I don’t necessarily disagree with people eating dogs and cats. It’s the way they are killed that I disagree with.

Boiling them alive, torturing them to make the meat taste sweeter, and the conditions they are kept in, is what I disagree.

I personally wouldn’t eat it even if it was ethically sustained and killed…but I won’t deny people eat it.

It did start because of poverty

So did a lot of things in the UK, especially before the days of effective birth control. If you'd got many mouths to feed, not much money and a recently slaughtered beast you wouldn't have been too fussy about which parts of it to eat, which is how intestines, feet and the like came to be eaten

Of course many of them have become fashionable now which blurs the picture a bit, but it doesn't change the history of it all

Wouldn't bother me at all, it's factual. I mean yes, 'some Chinese people eat dogs' would be helpful just as saying 'some Americans eat hamburgers' 'some Italians eat pasta' 'some Thai eat rice' but frankly when someone is educating young kids about food and cultural differences around the world I'm not going to get hung up on that. And frankly you have no way of knowing they didn't use a qualifier, second hand.

Eating dogs is obviously a horrifically barbaric thing to do and just so, so awful, I can't believe people do that. And so is eating pigs, and cows, and chickens, and snails, and fish, and whales, and shark. I can't believe people do that either. And so is enslaving them to drink the milk produced for their young while slaughtering their offspring. There are atrocities committed all over the world every millisecond of the day. We're not better.

It's very multilayered. I think it's an issue to call them gross for eating dogs. As they do. We are not morally superior in any way for eating pigs, chicken, cows, deer and so on as they all have hopes and dreams too. I worked on a farm as a kid. All friendly and capable of being just as cuddly and good a companion as a dog. Perhaps this is the better lesson to teach your son the next time you are picking up some chicken in your local grocery store. Perhaps he should appreciate better where his food comes from.

As a student in halls 18ish years ago a group of chinese students did kill and eat a dog.

They ended up being investigated by the RSPCA.

There are asian countries where they breed dogs to eat. Its part of their food production industry. Eating dogs in these countries is not a historical thing for poor people.

I don't know if China is one of those countries. If it isn't then the statement is inaccurate rather than racist.

In many cultures animals are ‘stuck’ esp pigs in order to make the meat sweeter
They are penned in, people stand around them with sword type things and as the pig runs around squeeling they stick him/her with the sword .
It makes the flesh more tender and sweet.
So it’s not just cats and dogs at so called ‘festivals’ that are tortured.

Chinese person here. Never eaten a dog and nor have any of my family. I'd consider the comment naively racist on the basis that it's simplistic stereotyping.

As an adult it's sad to be on the receiving end of questions like "Do you eat dogs?" because this is one of the only things that British people are told about Chinese culture.

We really associate dogs with being family members- it is one step down from cannibalism in a lot of people’s eyes.

Given the number of people who can't wait to tell you that 'I love my dogs - I prefer dogs to people, actually' I suspect that, to many, cannibalism would be rather more acceptable than air-frying an Airedale or chowing down on a Chow.

I don't much care what people eat, it's the how. I'm still not quite over the image I saw of the boiled-crispy-from-the-neck down, still-alive fish that I saw on twitter the other day.

I do think it's okay to critisise cultural practices we find cruel, or should we just be quiet on things like FGM as well?

@bellac11 that’s my point though. Some foods in British culture would now be seen as unpalatable, disgusting, cruel and/or unhealthy by many modern-day meat eaters. What is normal to one person may not be normal to the next. I wouldn’t especially judge someone for eating dog. But I would judge them for knowingly eating foie gras, illegal bush meat, or crated veal, or those force-fed little birds you get in France etc. Other people might judge my own eating habits pretty gross because I will eat meat and fish of many types including certain foods that many people would nowadays consider unappetising (eg rabbit or sweet meats). That wouldn’t be a racist attitude, just an opinion about me.

But the statement “Chinese people eat dogs” is a blanket statement and I would be very surprised if it was said in a context of “healthy delicious protein foods that we should adopt in our local food culture” because that statement is designed to shock: dogs are pets, Chinese people eat dogs, Chinese people would enjoy eating your pet. It gets trotted out frequently, it’s a stereotype used to create a negative impression of an entire people.

I suppose you can at least ask a human

Look at Chinese dog meat markets online. Eating dogs, kept in inhumane conditions, is still felt to be culturally appropriate. So yes, it's emotive but doesn't stop it being fact. The only alteration could have been that some Chinese eat dogs.

Haggis was originally from England

Age 7 is old enough to talk about how some cultures see dogs as friends, some see them as food

You'd think so, yes, but I'm reminded of when Paignton Zoo halted the public viewing of feeding time for the big cats (though I understand they've since restarted it)

Obviously they don't prepare the food as pretty little steaks but offer a whole carcass because that's what the cats prefer, but apparently a noisy group of parents raised hell because their DCs were "traumatised" by the "cruelty" - which is just the sort of thing education can avoid

I have an idea for a movie - one of those 'eight people stranded in the Andes' things, but in this one there's also a dog.

"Well, obviously, we're going to have to eat the Labrador."

"No, no! Not Goldie! Why can't we eat...er...Barbara?"

"Me? Why me?"

"Goldie can guard us at night. Can you guard us at night, Barbara?"

"That's ridiculous!"

"Actually, it would be useful to have a dog. I mean, when the snow melts, we might have to hunt rabbits or something."

"That's true. Sorry, Barb...."

"Get her, Goldie! Yes! That's it! Who's a good boy? Who's a good boy then?"

---

The screenplay Oscar's a formality really.