to this is not ok (racism related)?

[Warriorqueen69]

Name changed. I'll keep it brief and this is really more a WWYD than an AIBU, but I guess they overlap. DH is American. We live in the UK. Our two DCs have always grown up understanding that they are both British and American. We keep reasonably good links with our huge family over there, celebrate American holidays and they pick up American vocabulary and phrases from their father. All in all, both DCs consider themselves to be both. They have dual nationality, so this is the reality of the situation.

Throughout primary school, my older DD has had occasional anti-American remarks made to her by some of the other kids (e.g "I hate Americans" or "Americans are stupid"), but school never seem to do anything about it when I bring it up. Now, a boy in her class has taken to regularly mocking her, putting on a fake American accent, and saying, "Hi, my name's XXX. I'm American and I'm stupid and dumb." Again, her teacher has told her to just ignore it, but both she and my DH are pretty annoyed, as am I.

Why do some people think it's ok to make racist remarks against Americans? I don't think it's ok, not one tiny bit. But I'm not sure whether it's worth taking things further with the school by speaking to the headteacher. WWYD please?

Pakistan and America are both nations, so it is equivalent, Steaming Nit.

Cadmium, racism is discrimination based on ethnicity, national origin or race. Although race does not exist, some people still believe in it and will be racist on that basis. So people still need protection against racism on the grounds of perceived race as well as ethnicity and national origin (which do exist).

Various countries have now removed all mention of race from their policies and laws. Sweden is the most recent one going through the process. But that doesn't mean that laws against racial discrimination disappear.

Except, SleepyGene, most of those of us talking about the definition of racism (and whether it even exists) DO think that the OP's situation should be taken seriously. Very seriously. And that the school are wrong to have ignored it and brushed it off.

Actually I can see, thanks to Almond's explanation of the evolution of laws and the context from which they come, that it would be better to replace 'race' with 'ethnicity'.

Meanwhile, black families are at risk from white supremacists and young black men are the most likely to be unemployed against peers with the same qualifications, white soldiers are attacked in the streets of Woolwich, everyone hates travellers (it seems) and 'chavs' (ditto), women are routinely subjected to bile sexist language and abuse, earn less and attacks by rapists and domestic abuse are downplayed, disabled people, well, where would you start?

Some individuals, and some groups are more at risk than others because of the wider context and history, but every act of discrimination and abuse is not to be tolerated. Inaccurate language doesn't help. How can it?

(oh, and that Almond's explanations demonstrate that we are in a right mish mash of cobbled together bits of legislation. Which does explain some of the odd logic) (btu does not undermine the main thrust of equality legislation: that we ensure people have a means of protection from discrimination)

Yes, if you replaced an example of something that isn't racist with something that is racist, people would be much more likely to say that it was racist

But why? It makes no sense.

If I went up to a Pakistani person and mocked their accent I would be quite rightly arrested for it. If a comedian on TV made jokes about Pakistanis or Chinese people they would get taken off air.

Why is it then acceptable to go on about Germans reserving poolside spaces with their towels?

Remember when skinhead NF used to daub walls with YANKEE SCUM in the 80s?

Noticed how 'Yankee' is used a term of abuse for anyone with white skin? How 'weird burger smells of foreign cooking' are objected to?

No, me neither.

Yes, if you replaced an example of something that isn't racist with something that is racist, people would be much more likely to say that it was racist

Pakistan is a country, America is a country.

Why is it racist to mock the accents of Pakistanis, but not racist to mock American accents?

hmmm face indeed !

if a builder wolf-whistles a Pakistani women with "get your tits out for the boys love", it's sexist, right? What is it when he wolf-whistles an American woman with the same (vile and obnoxious) chant?

If a not-very-good comedian observes that when westerners are all away in the same sunny resort together, Germans always seem to bag the sun loungers, it's a teeny bit different from a stand up doing a satirical impression of Mr Patel The Corner Shop Proprietor, or Yin Yan the Chinky eating flied lice.

Inaccurate language doesn't help. How can it?

what inaccurate language? That the world in general defines racism differently to you? I didn't write those treaties. I have no issues with the international definitions of racism. It's you who has that issue.

But, I agree inaccurate language doesn't help. I have said that a 100 times on this thread, that by refusing to call this racism, and by referring it to it as just bullying or just discrimination doesn't help, it hinders, it minimises, it condones, it lessens, it makes hideous, vile things milder and a touch more "palatable".

I wouldn't like to be called a bully. But I would much prefer to be called a bully than to be called a racist bully.

Steamingnit, of course the collective experiences of gay people, women and Pakistani people are worse than those of straight people, men and American people in the UK.

And when we're looking at specific policies, such as housing, we consider the disadvantage experienced by particular groups who are worse off collectively.

But hate crime laws and recording of racially motivated bullying in schools are about protecting individual victims (and promoting community cohesion of course).

The OP's child doesn't hold power in that situation. The teachers do.

Equality laws protect men and women, gay and straight people, Pakistani and French, and so on.

yy Almondcakes

Equality laws protect men and women, gay and straight people, Pakistani and French, and so on

Yes, but they don't say that discrimination against all those groups is racist.

I don't think the language is inaccurate Cadmium. Racists are far more likely to use slurs about Pakistani heritage than they are to make remarks about the most likelu skin colour of a Pakistani person, in my experience. It would be ridiculous to expect victims of such racism to make a distinction between origins, ethnicity and appearance when the three are not distinct in the creation of either individual identity or racial hatred. It is impossible to separate the development or continuation of racism from relationship to geographical areas. It comes from colonisation, land grabs, resource grabbing and development, enslavement of groups from certain nations and so on.

I have no difficulty with the law declaring that discrimination as a result of nationality is wrong.

But when that law is framed in terms of 'race' includes 'nationality' it is inaccurate. 'race' and 'nation' are quite simply different things.

'Ethnicity' and 'nationality' are different things.

And those different words, meaning different things are useful, in our language as a whole.

'Paki' is used to mean everyone from Madras to Mauritius

The N word doesn't apply to white Jamaicans

And of course my kid being told she can't be a fairy because she has a 'chocolate face' is a compliment because chocolate is nice, right?

No, I never said that, SN.

Discrimination against men breaks equality law on gender.
Discrimination against straight people breaks equality law on sexual orientation.
Discrimination against Americans breaks equality law on race.

Most racially motivated hate crime reported to the police is carried out against white people (and I suspect massively against people who are white but not white British - white Polish, Russian etc).

You seem to be arguing that if a person belongs to an ethnic group (in this case dual heritage American and English) that doesn't experience collective disadvantage it isn't racism if slurs are used against them or people say they hate their group.

That means you are redefining racism to exclude a large part of racial discrimination based on race, including most recorded racially motivated hate crime.

Cadmium, and we can still use all of those words, and people's ethnicity is a mix of their culture, appearance, ancestry and nationality. And racism targets all of those things, very frequently blended together. It is not practical to separate them in law.

You only have to look at the census. Some people are putting their ethnicity as Black British, others as Chinese British. Do you think it is practical to have a separate set of laws for xenophobia against those who define on chinese national origin and racism for those who define as black?

It just isn't separate in the way that gender is different from disability.

If the Equality laws defined abuse of E European people, for example, as Xenophobic hate crimes then it would still be a crime, still horrible, etc.

We know it to be a terrible thing. The cause of slaughter and wars, and individual disadvantage and torment. An imbalance of power. Just because it is very much like racism doesn't make it exactly the same thing. Except the law has confused the issue by removing the distinction between the words and insisting that nationality and race are interchangeable.

It's fine, the upshot is that the ACTION is all illegal, as it should be.

But the words have been stretched, in the way the law is written

"Do you think it is practical to have a separate set of laws for xenophobia against those who define on chinese national origin and racism for those who define as black?"

No, I don't. I think the law should say 'it is illegal to discriminate on the grounds of ethnicity, nationality, cultural background or skin colour"

All the protected characteristics are within one law anyway - there are separate bits t cover maternity, disability etc, but they are withon the over-arching discrimination laws.

There are already separate sub-bits to cover, for example, access to interpreters, the need for which surely often comes with nationality or cultural group. No need for completely separate laws.

I honestly don't know what you are talking about in your definition if racism. Most people don't even know what the different races supposedly were anymore, outside of the USA. The vast majority of people globally consider things like the massacres in Rwanda to be racist. The word has not been stretched. Most people do not believe in the existence of 'races' outside of the US. They haven't been brought up to believe in races. What race are Iranians supposed to be? White, according to the US. Most racism is about things other than antiquated notions of race. It is not what racism refers to any longer.

You just sound like somebody who says, 'I'm not homophobic, because that translates as fear of sameness. '

"Most people do not believe in the existence of 'races' outside of the US. They haven't been brought up to believe in races."

Really? In the uk? I think people very much refer to race. It happens on Mn all the time, esp on the threads about Islam.

I agree that it would be better to do away with the term , for the reasons you outline.

Rather than make it mean something beyond the word 'race'.

In our household we have a range of identities which involve nationality, ethnicity, disability, skin colour, first language.... all have different implications at different times and in different circumstances.

Anyway, I don't think you are a racist because we have different views on the use of the word in our current legislation, and I don't believe I am an apologist for racism because I also don't have the same understanding of the way language is used as SleepyGene.

Cadmium, you remind me of my grandmother who used to bemoan at length the unfairness and sheer stupidity and wrongness of the homosexual community hijacking the word "gay". She would go on about how she could remember the day when gay meant happy, not homosexual. She would even tell people they were wrong using the word gay out of context when they used it to describe a homosexual.

I am not denying that in 1850 or 1910 or 1730 my grandmother's p.o.v was probably the correct one for her region in that time frame. But language, like everything in else in life, evolves over time. So while gay meant happy in 1850s London, now (or back in the 1980s when these discussion took place) in London, and the rest of the English speaking world, it means homosexual. To say otherwise is just stupid stubbornness.

I am not sure if your definition of racism is just centuries old and antiquated, or more likely it is like almondcakes describes, peculiar to the US, but either way, you are like my grandmother in the 1980s, puffing out her chest and bemoaning the unfairness of the world in general not agreeing with her definition of a word.

I don't know what you mean by the word race so I can't possibly know what you have defined people on MN talking about race as meaning.

Certainly the word racism only came into use in the nineteen thirties (to refer to Nazi ideology) and had been internationally defined as including ethnicity and national origins by the sixties. So there never was a period of time when it meant something different.

What do you think the word race means?

and I don't believe I am an apologist for racism because I also don't have the same understanding of the way language is used as SleepyGene.

if it makes you feel any better I just hate any crime that has a name and then someone comes along and waters that crime down by giving it a more palatable name.

I know a man convicted of rape. I got into terrible rows with people who had been his friend previous to conviction who would call him a pervert. I object to that. I don't mind calling him a perverted rapist. But the word rapist has to be in there somewhere or his crime is being minimised. Pervert is a word open to such wide interpretations (everything from mild fetishes to the most horrendous crimes, depending on who you're talking to) that I would just hate someone to think that particular rapist was "just a pervert". Rapist is worse imo than pervert. And racist is worse than bully.

Whenever I see either words being diluted down, I will react and call the people rape apologists or apologists for racists. Because that is what I believe they are doing. Making those crimes that bit more difficult to stamp out by using watered down and more palatable (apologist) language.

I think people use rce to mean the ethnic groups Caucasian, Asian, African etc.

I realise they are out dated and not useful, though.

no-one I know in RL would say that a white American and a white Brit are o different races.

You(lmond) want to do away with the word / concept, SleepyG wants to preserve it as a strengthened notion to include a range of things.

I agree with the range of things but think they should be called something different.

Dashng out...to an event described as 'Afropolitan'!!

you(lmond) want to do away with the word / concept, SleepyG wants to preserve it as a strengthened notion to include a range of things

NOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOO

all i want is for everyone to sing from the same hymn sheet and accept the word as it used HERE and NOW and TODAY

they can change the word "racism" to "xfactorism" for all I care, as long as we call agree discriminating against someone due to their nationality is every bit as bad as discriminating against someone based on their colour