Dont want to cause some big debate but is anyone else on here getting sick to the back teeth of having to watch their p's and q's through fear of offending every tom, dick and harry.
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AIBU?
Sick of having to be Politically Correct over nearly everything
585 replies
SickofThisCountry · 04/04/2013 01:47
OP posts:
MrsDeVere ·
05/04/2013 15:42
This reply has been deleted
Message withdrawn at poster's request.
sudaname ·
05/04/2013 15:04
He was actually - very funny - also he would with endless patience and enthusiasm explain anything you wanted to know about his religion , why he wore certain things, why he wasn't allowed to use after shave (he made his own based on orange oil and used to bring us little bottles in and it was lovely) - all the rules about having more than one wife or not and how the first wife and her family had to agree to it from the outset and so on and so forth.
I do wonder if a lot of racism (or any ism for that matter) is just based on pure ignorance/fear of the unknown , because he seemed to do a lot for office harmony by just talking to people, educating them l suppose in this way. Almost as if , even a few that were quite bigoted and 'us and them' to start with , as they learnt more and more from Yusaf and became friends with him they would become much more open minded to and mingle more freely with not only him but other people from other cultures whom they would have previously avoided/been suspicious of/uncomfortable with or whatever.
I remember smiling to myself one day when one such former office bigot - a self confessed one at that, always coming out with generalisations as to why he didn't like 'them' etc came in one day (open plan with no designated seating) and given a choice of many empty seats plonked himself in an empty seat imbetween a young lady wearing a full cover burkha(sp) and Yusaf and said 'Alright,how are you?' and proceeded to chat to both his chosen neighbours as if it was the most natural thing in the world.
Which of course it was. 
OxfordBags ·
05/04/2013 14:22
Me too, Eldritch. I think they spend so much of their time fuming and muttering to themselves about people thinking they are arseholes for calling an Asian person a pki or whatever, that they actually don't pay any attention to the reality around him.
My Aunt used to date a man who constantly (bizarrely, pointlessly) bemoaned the fact that 'ngger brown' wasn't a paint colour anymore (yes, I know. WTAF?!). Yet you should've heard the vitriol my folks got for telling him to STFU or that I got when, in my teens, I started shutting him down by asking him what shade it was, exactly, seeing as black people aren't one universal colour. God, I hated that fucker. Funnily enough, he didn't bring his paint complaint up to the black heart surgeon who saved his life 
sudaname ·
05/04/2013 13:51
Ahh that's ok Amberleaf l didnt think you did honest.
phew
Good point about the over zealous being easier to put right than the out and out racists too. I had a good workmate called Yusaf many years ago a lovely lovely man - used to keep telling me he was allowed a second wife in his religion and was l interested, but he had to ask his first wife etc and l used to say (it was all in jest as l was married at the time to my first husband) 'I'm not being anyones second wife , you tell her l will be wife no. 1 otherwise forget it.'
Anyway you kinda had to be there but we used to have a real good laugh and,really good banter between us, trading insults at times etc etc.
One day he did something really stupid at work and l said 'Come here,l'll do it , what you like ,you're bloody useless, Yusaf.
He started laughing at the Useless Yusaf and wrote Useless at the top of his daily time sheet in front of him instead of his name.
Well one such manager spotted this and asked who had written this and was about to launch a witchunt , when someone just said 'Oh l think it was just Sudanames nickname for him'
So l'm hauled into her office and read the riot act and the companys anti racism policy was spouted at me and l was told to attend a disciplinary hearing etc etc.
My friend Yusaf got wind of this and barged into the office and told her exactly what had happened and it was him who had written it and him who had picked up on it and found it funny etc but she was having none of it.
I was in the union and went into the hearing with Yusaf and my union rep and it was all thrown out. Basically it was said that my 'joke' was a play on his name, not on his religion and not on the colour of his skin, so how on earth could it be racism plus no-one was offended and the 'victim' was my chief defence witness.
How on earth indeed? .
She was reprimanded and in the end agreed she had wasted everyones time and she calmed down a helluva lot after that incident and had to go on a course about racism again.
Altogether one massive waste of time , money , stress to all concerned and man-hours.
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