Racist relative - I don't understand it

[Cattenberg]

A relative of mine is half Australian and has spent much of his life in NSW. He's nearly 60 now. He and his wife have always been kind, hospitable and generous towards me. My relative was a volunteer member of a lifeboat crew until recently and once earned a bravery award for carrying out a particularly difficult and dangerous rescue.

However, he is somewhat racist. He uses terms for other races which would be unacceptable in the UK. Usually, he uses these in a neutral way (if that's possible), but recently, he was the victim of theft while on holiday and commented, "bloody [ethnic slur in plural]". I was a bit shocked and very disappointed. It was the same slur that once caused controversy on an episode of Top Gear. I've never heard his wife say anything racist, but she recently posted a photo of her hobby room and there was a pair of gollywogs on a shelf😞

Having read The Slap, which contains various ethnic slurs and not just in the dialogue, I'm wondering if this is partly a cultural difference. Not that that would make it OK, but it might go some way to explaining it.

I think the answer is complicated. I had to google to find out what the Top Gear ethnic slur was. Apparently it's a term that originated in America. I'm Australian and I've never heard anyone use it. If I heard your friend say it in that context, I would think it was racist.

Gollywogs are generational, I've found. Older Australians think they're just dolls and don't see the problem, younger ones find them horrifying.

The author of The Slap is Greek-Australian so I'm assuming one of the slurs you saw there was "wog"? That word has been been reclaimed by Greek and Italian Australians who have written a series of very successful shows using it - Wogs Out of Work, The Wogboy etc. It's also very common in non-Anglo communities to use ethnic slurs for themselves and for other people. My in-laws, for instance, are Italian, and will call themselves and their friends dagos and wogs but I, as an anglo-Australian, don't use them.

I have found that the “culturally acceptable” ways of referring to things can vary massively between America, Australia and the U.K.

in America for example, the standard word is handicapped. It’s not a disabled parking space it’s a handicap space. You wouldn’t use that in the U.K. in the UK the acceptable word is disabled.

how sure are you that some of the language he is using isn’t the “correct” language for Australia?

(i don’t watch or follow top gear so I don’t know what clarkson said)

Ok I have googled the top gear racial slur and I’ve never heard of it before. I’m a U.K. poster if that helps.

so I have literally no idea how offensive it is in another culture or in mine for that matter because I’ve never heard anyone use it.

@RipsChafferty I think your post is well intended but your open use of those slurs is very upsetting. The w slur was used a lot in the 70s and 80s here in the UK against Asian people - I know this because I was called this a lot at school. I haven’t heard it used in years but seeing it written down like that brought back some very unhappy and appalling memorises of the abuse I suffered. Perhaps you could edit your post and remove them - I’m sure we all know what you mean.

Yeah, I’m not so sure any of this is well intended. 🧐

I'm sorry you feel upset, but your experience is not relevant to the Australian context. The shows that use that word are hugely successful stage shows and movies created by Greek/Italian Australians. I was quite clear that I don't use them myself.

I hear those terms and many more all the time because I live in Western Sydney with lots of people from all kinds of cultures who use them about themselves and others.

If that is directed at me, you are mistaken.

I have Australian family and the slur with W is well used in their area to describe people. There are terms and slurs everywhere to describe people and sadly it won’t ever stop or if it does a new one will be made. As long as you don’t say it don’t think about it too much. Im Irish and European and the ones I get are disgusting but I try not to overthink jt.

@RipsChafferty Thanks for minimising my experience. I simply suggested you don’t need to spell out the words themselves to make your point,

People should be past using racial slurs. Cultural use of language needs to change and evolve, but in any case, using a racial slur when taking about behaviour of someone (the thief in OP’s example) is completely unnecessary and needs to be confined to history.

I'm not minimising your experience of racism in Britain. I'm genuinely sorry that happened and I don't doubt for a minute that it was awful for you.

I'm discussing the use of ethnic slurs in Australia because that is the topic of the thread. Not the same thing.

The term you don't want me to use is not used the same way in Australia as in the UK. Here, it was directed to people of Italian/Greek/Maltese heritage and has been reclaimed by them for their own use.

Some people seem to enjoy using them. I’m always cautious of people that use them, even in a supposed explanatory way, and of threads like this in general.

Was that term used for Italians and Greeks? I’ve only seen it used for black people

Yep the term that’s being mentioned is used in Australia for European /Mediterranean descent not the way it’s used here in the uk. Still obviously a racist slur though. I’ve got Eastern European family and been called it before.

Well Australians are known (obviously not all, but a higher percentage than some other places) for being quite racist/xenophobic

Nick Giannopoulos is the creator of the Wog Boy trilogy of films - and I think he had a stage show of the same name. It is still used freely by some members of the Greek community in Australia to refer to themselves.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wog_Boys_Forever

And British people are known (obviously not all but a higher percentage than some other places) for having bad teeth, hooliganism, shit food, being monolingual, drunkards and the usual racist and misogynists - but not all mind!

Was It to do with his experience of being a victim of theft?

I have dual citizenship of Aus and UK and lived for lengthy times in both countries. Both countries are racist. The main difference in how it presents is how generally the 2 countries are different. Australians are more upfront, whereas I find British can be more 'polite' to people's faces but that covers up a lot that comes out when people drink or are behind closed doors.

Australian racism is probably more obvious and said out loud. I don't think it is actually any worse than Britain, and there is a lot of white English people that look down even on white Australians as uncouth people from one of the colonies. White people in the UK saying racism in Australia is worse in Australia is another example of this. It is white British being supremacist against white British decendants in colonies as well as racist.

Regarding the W word I will not type out because I don't want to offend anyone. I have literally only heard it used one time referencing an 'Asian' in Australia. It was an episode of home and away with an East Asian man talking about racism and he said he was called the 'W' word and it stood for 'westernised oriental gentleman'. I remember it because I was a teen and everyone watching went WTF? It means Greeks and Italians, maybe they had a British script writer in. It has been used extremely widely and had its biggest heyday in the 90s and early 2000s when a large amount of media was produced by Greeks in particular, movies and TV shows with the W word in the title. Its often used affectionately, but like many words in context it can still be a slur. All the 'W' tv shows in Australia would be similar to the type of stuff like The Kumars at No 42, which was made around the same time. Particularly enjoyed by those of that ethnic background but also widely watched and enjoyed by many people and mainstream.

Even the use of the term 'Asian' differs between the countries. In Britain I found it meant someone from the subcontinent and in Australia it generally refers to an East Asian, this would reflect the dominant migration patterns of each country. Up until approximately 15 years ago, 'Asian migration' came from East Asia in Australia, more recently a lot more Indians have migrated.

There was also very little African migration in Australia until recent years and people were ignorant to the symbolism of gollywogs. No excuse, but many people over 40 see them as a standard toy they grew up with and have affectionate memories of them. And people over 40 I reckon start to have cognitive decline and when you explain its racist some will accept that and change their ways, and some dig their heels in and will insist it was a nice doll they played with and you are crazy for calling them racist and they get upset and angry. I am not excusing their ignorance and racism, just trying to explain it. Young kids in Australia today are not growing up with gollywogs and young people know now, so the acceptance of gollywogs is dying out.

And people over 40 I reckon start to have cognitive decline

WTF are you talking about?

Australians are aware that Gollyw* are offensive. When I was there I saw some dodgy depictions of Aborigines with over exaggerated features. Of course they're familiar with black people.

Yep, don’t dispute that!

Yes, the Sushi mango lads on you tube happily call themselves the W word. I was quite shocked!

Undoubtably, he wasn't happy about the theft, but by saying "bloody sl*pes" he generalised it to all people of that ethnicity as though they were all thieves.

I haven't heard him use the term "wg", but that was probably the word in The Slap which shocked me most. He has also made a remark about there being lots of "Jps" and "Ab*s" in a certain part of Australia.

It is just natural human reaction. Attitudes towards other racial groups has a lot to do with personal experiences. It can also happen between groups of people of homogeneous ethnicity.

There will be positive interactions that may shift his view again. I wouldn’t read too much into it.

If that is aimed at me, I'm aware that this is a sensitive issue and I did hesitate before posting, as however I worded it, it could be read as an attack on Australians.

I'm trying to understand my own mixed feelings. I have always liked this relative and there's no doubt he's done some good things in his life that many people wouldn't have been brave enough to do. However, I'm starting to feel guilty for liking him and spending time with him. We all know that racism is bad. But is my relative "bad"? I hope not.