...to think it is disrespectful to tell an immigrant how you dislike immigrants but "people from your country are ok"?

[Intrum]

I have to share an office with a man who doesn't like immigrants as they either scrounge off the state, steal british jobs or live ten people in a tiny flat. I try not to argue with him as I'm trying to stay friendly with people I work with and have to see everyday.

However, I'm an EU-immigrant so get very offended by this, but he doesn't understand why as he thinks people from my country are ok.

Thing is, I'm a Swede. He doesn't like the Polish. I've got the exact same right to be here as a Pole. There isn't much of a difference. I've "stolen" a British job. So how can he think I will not get offended by him going on about immigrants all the effing time?

My Aunt did this about immigrants to the U.S. I pointed out that she was talking about my husband and we wouldn't be here without him. She said that was different because he was married to me.

:roll eyes:

I get this sometimes. I am a Brit in Germany. Last year our little town suffered an horrendous crime (a stone was thrown through the town hall window ) and everyone was talking about it. It was said to me several times that it was probably a foreigner. I protested my innocence and they said 'well not you one of them'. 'Them' being the small, peaceful Turkish community we have here.

I also had a friend who hated immigrants. Not me of course, them. Then again, she also pierced her 3 month old's ears, genuinely believed that dressing a boy in a pink sleeping suit would make him gay and happily boasted that she had never read a book. We're not friends anymore.

I'm in a weird way happy other people have experienced this!

It's like he thinks he flatters me by not thinking of me as an immigrant.

The difference is that you're from a rich white country instead of a (traditionally) poor white country within Europe. Therefore you are not scrounging off the state (not sure how he squares away the fact you are 'stealing a British job' in his tiny mind). Plus, he knows you. The whole point of the sentence "Some of my best friends are [x]" is to simultaneously hold prejudiced views about people x whilst re-categorising those you know actually to be human beings as 'not the same kind as people [x]'. It's doublethink for racists.

Because you are from Western Europe you are "as good as" a British person. Possibly even better because you gave the world ABBA . But seriously, you should tell him you are an immigrant and are no different from those people he has an objection to, and you would rather not have to listen to his opinions. Personally I would tell him to do one in no uncertain terms, no-one should have to listen to such crap in their work environment, even if it isn't personally applicable to them.

LOL @ the horrendous crime by the way. My guess is it was a teenager.

Well its all media driven isn't it?
You can't blame people thinking like that when its practically pushed down their throats.

I'm Asian and I got this all the time when I was growing up but it was more like 'you're not like the rest of them though'.

Sounds like my dad! Racist bastard...

It is indeed disrespectful to you and whoever he's talking about. Certainly not a conversation for the office - he's very unprofessional as well.

Don't forget IKEA, tribpot! ;-)

I mentioned to him the other day that it was International Womens Day and he got rather upset that women had a day of their own when men don't have one as we're all equal in todays society (apparantly). The only women he feels sorry for are the ones that have to wear veils. (But he's got every right to force these women to take their veils off if they're in his country, they need to accept the British way of living.)

I did ask him if he reads the Daily Mail.

and was his answer 'yes'?

"It doesn't matter what I read, this is true! This is what the immigrants DO!"

Um interesting one. You have come from Sweden which is generally considered to have a higher standard of living than Britain, therefore you are seen as coming here for 'good' reasons. This could be with your partner, for education, to experience a different country etc. therefore you will add to the country. People coming from poorer countries are seen as coming to take advantage of our higher standard of living by claiming benefits/ using NHS.
As an aside how are Brits living in Sweden considered? Are they able to claim any benefits or use health service?

I would take that as a yes

i don't think it's disrespectful. it's a sign of someone putting their foot in it, showing themselves to be Xenophobe ....and then trying not to be the kind of xenophobe who doesn't care about the person they're talking to.

more rude than disrespectful per se.

Intrum - actually the horrendous crime turned out to have been committed by a middle-aged German man who had been refused planning permission.

Seriously. Nothing happens here.

Can you tell him once and for all that he is bothering you,with his topic of conversation, then take it higher if he won't stop talking about certain things in a discriminatory manner?

You can hold whatever views you want, you just cannot spout them daily in the workplace, if they are bothering others.

You are wasting your time arguing with him, he obviously won't be educated, so use workplace polices on diversity.

as a black person i get this all the jffing time "bloody blacks but your ok"

Well I've got an observation on this. In this vast Metropolis that is London there are people from all manner of cultural backgrounds. We, as a family, have been at very multi-cultural gatherings where people of various (one or two generations ago non-British) backgrounds have in all earnestness been complaining about 'immigrants' taking all the jobs, places in the best schools etc.... !

I've had a similar discussion a few years ago after I asked what do you call an asylum seeker (genuine question at the time. I hadn't been in the Uk for long and the could see the word used in context that were very very different).
It then came to the conclusion that these awful asylum seekers were just coming for 'economic reasons'. So did I... Which I pointed out. Yes but that's different...

TBH I had quite a bit of laugh taking their definition of asylum seekers and showing how it also applied to me...

The main difference was , I am an EU citizen and 'they' aren't....

No point arguing or getting upset about it. I am just feeling very lucky to be in one of those categories because it means I feels accepted whereas other people (like Pols) aren't :(

It's ignorance rather than disrespect.

Pig ignorance. It's a "I'm not racist but...." comment.

I was being harasssed at the newspaper stand once here, some fat old git slobbering all over me "Are you from the East?" (as if I was a bloody wise man on a camel with a jug of frankinsense- except he meant of course Eastern Europe) My friendly newspaper man butted in and said "no, she's English, she's a teacher" which of course made it all right for fat-git who apologised and shuffled off in disgrace.

Unfortunately in so many places it's endemic. Every time ahouse gets broken into or someone murdered here, the newscaster will loudly say "and maybe they had eastern European accents" (yeah, and maybe they were just local Italian lowlife, but they never mention that)

My hrs used to be like this about 'forriners' stealing all the jobs etc.

Tried to have a conversation with her about how this wasnt a great view to be sharing in public (this is going back some 25 years) whereupon she carried on '... I mean, they come over from and even from and they even come from different countries like Wales and Scotland. There's even some that come !!!

Once we realised that her definition of foreigners was 'anyone not from her half of the county' and that she felt that she had practically emigrated by moving from the village she grew up in to one about 15 miles away after getting married it kind of made the whole conversation a lot more :o and that it was a bit difficult to tell if she was being racist or not when to her 'foreigners' came from anywhere in the rest of the world outside a 20 mile radius of her house... If anything she found it easier to accept people who had come from thousands of miles away and had been escaping persecution, bad conditions etc than someone who had come from 50 miles away.

Mind youshe did have2 welsh dils and she also used to be able to justify that they were different somehow from the other welsh people that had moved locally...

YANBU. This infuriates me.

I was born in England and brought up in the Scottish Highands, where it was perfectly acceptable in the 70's (and still now really) to say how much they hate the English but "you're alright". Oh thank you for including me, I feel so fucking honoured.

People who say things like this have either no social skills or empathy and just don't understand how such statements can hurt. Or don't care but need to know how unacceptable it is.

If it were a colleague, I'd speak to the boss immediately and make it very clear that I take personal offence and expect the boss to make sure it stops.grr

I have been getting this a lot. As I am Norwegian, I am "ok" and not scrounging off the state.

But what really used to infuriate me was the "of course you got accepted to a UK uni (ucl), what with your high tuition fees, any uni would want you".

Like I had not have to jump to any hoops at all. No blardy IELTS test to prove I could handle English, No translation of my local uni work to English to prove my academic credentials, and no equivalent of A level results had been necessary, oh no! I only got accepted to Uni because I had to pay twice as much as a Brit....

Fairyliz, brits would get the same as any swede if they went there.
There are obviously idiots in Sweden too who said my brit dh was ok but didn't like people from other countries coming in.