older people with racist and ignorant views

[x2boys]

Aibu in thinking age is not an excuse to racist and ignorant?
I was on the bus this afternoon and there was a man who appeared white but was dressed in traditional Muslim clothing and wearing a royal mail coat so presumably a postman,I,m sure like any other race religion Islam doesn't discriminate and anyone should they wish can convert to Islam
Anyway a couple got on the bus who were probably in their 70,s and started shouting very loudly that this man was white and why was he wearing clothes like that!
They continued to talk very loudly about it and then they man in in 70,s said the Muslim postman better not deliver mail to his house!! A second older lady joined in and said the postman was a white man is this a generational thing ?
My parents who are also in their 70,s have made if not racist comments certainly ignorant comments which I have told them off for?

Point taken Soucsadelic - physically I'm in my 70th decade, mentally I'm still demonstrating in Grosvenor Square (my Dad bailed me out of Bow Street nick).

DH's DGM is 97 and tries soooo hard to be correct, but sometimes just doesn't get it. She often asks if it's OK to say someone is black etc. She knows that loads of things are unacceptable, but does get confused.

The thing we do argue about is her attitude to 'immigrants' who 'come here, take our jobs and don't learn English'. I always point out that she was an immigrant who didn't learn the language or make any attempt to integrate when she lived in Spain. Needless to say, she doesn't agree! I also tell her that my Mum was an immigrant - she doesn't agree with that because my mum was white European. Much of this is generational, but not all and it does cause lively arguments!

My mother is 87 and is not at all racist. She will stop and talk to anyone and is equally cordial to all her immediate neighbours, who are white British, white Italian, mixed race and Pakistani Muslim in origin. Nor has she ever subscribed to the DM. Age is no excuse for racism or rudeness. However, someone elderly who is behaving in a socially unacceptable way may have dementia, it's always worth remembering. Also I think it's forgiveable for someone very old not to necessarily know the fine details of vocabulary that they didn't grow up with - eg my mum, smiling at little girl from Muslim family opposite, saying "That's a pretty dress- oh, it's not a dress, is it?" She meant that she didn't know what to call a shalwar kameez, which I may well have just spelt wrong and think it's understandable she didn't know the name of. That's a far cry from words like w** etc, surely?

I was in a taxi yesterday going to Alder Hey hospital.

The driver, in his 40's started off the conversati

Sorry, the conversation by asking "if the Tinkers were causing any problems", we have a Irish family living on the e

I arrived outside the hospital, there were Muslim women waiting for a taxi, "they're not getting in my cab" he said. "Who", I answered, "the Mothers waiting to take their ill children home", he didn't blink, just laughed.

My Mum, now 87 says very questionable things considering we are from a mixed race immigrant family and both her DH's have been immigrants. She doesn't spout hate speech, though.

MadAsASnakeNana

physically I'm in my 70th decade

Are you sure? Perhaps like me you are in your 7th decade.

I got bailed out after a demonstration against the Soviet invasion of Czechoslovakia 19 1968, so there you go, we are siblings under the skin!

*in 1968

At least this thread reminds me to be careful when catching the bus in Bolton
Poor man :(

It was a 19 year old girl who kicked a gay man to death in Trafalgar Square in 2009.
I wonder how old all the by passers were who chose to ignore the murder happening next to them.

I don't think they had dementia Alice even if one of them did it would be very unfortunate for both the couple and the other lady who joined in to all have dementia unfortunately I just think they were nasty and racist sadly.

As Voltaire almost said, 'I don't agree with what you are saying, but I defend to the death your right to say it.'

Sorry, I will never defend to the death anyone's right to be racist.

People can be ignorant, intolerant, racist, just nasty and all sorts of things at any age..

I think I would have found it difficult not to say anything to them had I been on the bus. But then again they probably wouldn't have cared since I am of mixed heritage.

to MadAsASnakeNana for what you did and continue to do.

I don't know really - my MIL (who generally thinks everything was better in the 50s and 60s) thinks its terrible that people can openly swear and talk about sex, but its not OK to call someone a n**r or darkie or whatever. She honestly believes that its not a derogatory term and that when people used to use it back then, they used it because 'it was just the word people used, it was innocent'

I don't actually think MIL is racist, she is just very naive and her rose tinted glasses are just ridiculous sometimes

Opppps..

and anyone else that was out tere demonstrating....

It's funny - my parents consider themselves very "right on", took us on anti-apartheid marches when we were little etc etc and occasionally come out with the most shocking statements, Mum in particular - she would never ever say anything racist about anyone with brown skin but doesn't quite realise the same extends to Chinese people as well. My MIL is a total bigot. I call them both on it all the time - you have to make them realise it's not OK.

It's funny what someone said about immigration in the UK - when I lived in London (am a white NZer) we'd forever hear from cabbies about "all the immigrants coming over and taking our jobs". Errr, we pointed it, we're immigrants too. "No you're not, you're one of us!" (That is, white, english speaking). Tell that to the Home Office who just made me pay 700 quid for my work visa!

I should have said something littlepeapod your right I was just very shocked at what I was hearing.

It's amusing that the op is being ageist, whilst bemoaning older peoples' racist and ignorant views.

Yabu to think you can ever argue with somebody old and grumpy.

Yes I'm quite sick to death of ms harperson moaning on in her latest rant about too many white middle classes at the theatres. Using white and middle class in a derogatory way.

Youngish couple in a lift the other day loudly complaining about some black girls, specifically they were African, who had gotten into the previous almost-full lift ahead of them, adding literally seconds onto this couples journey one floor up. The mans last comment as I left was "and people ask me why I'm a racist!".

My friend and I are white so they were looking at us in that way people do when expecting agreement. I had the cover up on the buggy cos my half Ugandan DS was asleep. Suffice to say I am not their target audience. I really really wish I had said something though, I hate the thought that my son might experience such stupid prejudice one day.

I agree these people were being particularly unpleasant, at least (if you can call it a positive!) the two girls from my example didn't have to hear all their spite. Unfortunately your man is probably used to it and doesn't take it much to heart any more.

And when the young are no longer young and the world has changed they themselves will be "racist, sexist, grumpy oldies". Or something.... Or will the new generation of youngsters think that the previous generation got it 100% right?

Some people are racist, some are not. Some are ageist, some are not.

My parents are in their seventies. They started teaching me and my sister that racism was wrong over forty years ago. I can't see why they would suddenly become racist just because they have been on the planet a bit longer.

Racist views are not old-fashioned, they are just bigoted. It was wrong then, and it's wrong now.

Do you see any irony in "older people" blanket term whilst nailing your non-racist credentials out there? Not enough conviction to call them on it in person. Or even have a civilised debate with them?

I don't think it's better to hoik and gasp and point with others in an orgy of outrage that the older generation have different life experiences to you.

Where I come from, there are places that white people rarely go. If they do see someone different (my DH) people point, exclaim, comment. To them, it's something totally out of the ordinary. Would you slam then as "ignorant and racist?"

They haven't travelled, are not sophisticated people but they have good hearts.

Many older people in this country haven't travelled much, and they aren't, despite what Londoners tell them, exposed to 'multicultural Britain' on a daily basis.

Rather than the default liberal hypocrisy stance so beloved here, why not engage, without name calling, fainting or hyperbole?

Do you genuinely not see the irony in berating total strangers, based on a tiny snapshot, for not sharing your supposed broad-minded philosophies.

The jackboot is still about in Britain it's just worn by different people now.

It was the students of the early seventies who voted to boycott Barclays as they were involved in South Africa and thereby supporting apartheid.

I have never had or will have a Barclays account.