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AIBU?

Share your dilemmas and get honest opinions from other Mumsnetters.

Original poster

To Have Walked Out

400 replies

queeneileen · 08/04/2015 20:23

My mum is truly doing my head in. She's managing to drum up arguments left, right, and centre with both me and my DS(13) I've got to the point where I'm limiting the time DS and DM spend together to less than 30mins at a time - they're as stroppy as each other and wind each other up - but I still go round every night after work for a brew. She's 67, disabled (can still get out and goes out every Saturday night to the local for company), but doesn't really do much socialising during the day.

Aaaaaanyways, she's just becoming more and more argumentative. Yesterday we rowed about politics, royal mail, the SNP, Scotland, her tv guide.
Today it was about employment law and the fact she thinks it's a shame employers can't hire who they want but instead have laws they have to cow-tow to. This was all sparked from her asking if Asians owned my opticians as the place was "flooded" with them. I work for an employment law company and started telling her about (quite sodding obvious) laws in place to stop discrimination happening. Queue massive row where I don't allow her to have her own opinion and it culminated in her accusing me of calling her a racist pig, and me telling her she IS racist. She is - not 15mins before she told me she was nearly sick when the Asian optician was checking her eyes as he was in her face. (note: I'm sorry. It's what she said)

She decided then she was offended that I think she's racist, and offended that I could say that to her in the manner I did. And I just said I was leaving and walked out.

I can't hack listening to her. I can't hack the rows. I can't hack the expectation of me sitting there listening to her spout bullshit because it's her opinion, even if I find it offensive. I end up openly questioning what she's saying and - I'll be honest - telling her she's talking crap.

I'm hugely sad I've walked out but AIBU to have done so?

OP posts:
daffsandtulips · 11/04/2015 22:41

In order to pity you have to think you are better than that person.

pinningwobble · 11/04/2015 22:41

Daffs you are literally talking crap. My white working class mother raised six of us more or less alone in a two bedroom house in a crappy part of East London. I worked incredibly hard at school to go to uni and make a life for myself (and so did my siblings) and I was able to go because I got generous support from the government due to my mum's financial situation.

Not being 'comfortable' is no excuse whatsoever for racism. It has nothing to do with anything.

Enjoyingmycoffee1981 · 11/04/2015 22:41

Daffs, I can't stand your views. I can't stand your approach in this thread. Blindly spouting the same bullshit, over and over again.

So yeah, I will be patronising about your appalling grammar. You don't deserve me not to be!

Chippednailvarnish · 11/04/2015 22:41

It's the personification of Daily Mail. Talk total made up gibberish and then claim it's a fact!

Kampeki · 11/04/2015 22:42

Why does it make a difference if Lisa went to uni or medical school?

LisaMed · 11/04/2015 22:42

Dear heaven.

When I grew up in the seventies, in a new town, there were massive complaints about immigration - about the Irish. Now that has to be an ongoing immigration story. Surely every big city has its Irish Club, and it has been going on in fits and starts for centuries. Once upon a time Irish jokes were acceptable. That is a recent thing And it's more than twenty years ago

But it's only the latest in many different waves of immigration and, to be honest, the British have done very well out of it.

I should go to bed, but I don't think my blood pressure will let me.

Enjoyingmycoffee1981 · 11/04/2015 22:42

Daffs, I don't know you. I don't know Kampeki.

On the basis of this thread, Kampeki is an infinitely better person than you are!

daffsandtulips · 11/04/2015 22:43

To think someone is hateful then you must hate.
In order to pity you must think you are better than them.
In order to call someone vile names then you maybe a bit vile?

its all relevant.

pinningwobble · 11/04/2015 22:44

Daffs you haven't responded to Kameki's question. Again. What on earth does it matter if Lisa went to Uni? What does that have to do with anything?

Kampeki · 11/04/2015 22:45

In order to pity you have to think you are better than that person.

I pity you because you are full of bitterness and irrational hatred. Do I think it's better not to be bitter and full of hatred? Sure I do.

Do I think I'm a more valuable human being than you? No.

LisaMed · 11/04/2015 22:46

daffsandtulips My dad hasn't a shilling. After spectacularly failing to save a penny he lived with us for a few years and is now in a fully funded care home and likely to die in the next six months after strokes/seizures. He has no problems with the carers there who come from a very multicultural selection of backgrounds.

I have no degree, no medical school, no fancy qualifications. I've got some typing certificates, if that helps. I also have an open mind and I read widely and critically.

daffsandtulips · 11/04/2015 22:46

It depends where you live and why immigration has had a negative or positive effect on your livelihood surely?

florascotia · 11/04/2015 22:46

Daffs, I don't hate you. And I don't care what colour or gender you are. It's irrelevant; you could be bright blue and intersex for all the difference that makes. I've been talking about objective data about migration and legislation - historical facts (dates of laws etc) and numerical statistics taken from official government sources. Other people have similarly offered you factual and impartial observations.

What puzzles and saddens me is that you seem unwilling to look at these facts, let alone think about them or accept them as the actual state of affairs. Instead, you ask us to 'understand' you.

What, precisely, are we meant to 'understand'? I understand that you have strong opinions, but - please forgive me - these seem to be based either on an inaccurate view of history or an inaccurate reading of the statistics, or both. So of course few people are going to agree with you, or understand why you hold such views.

The OP originally posted on Mumsnet because she was offended and upset by her mother's racist opinions (her words, not ours). You then seemed to be defending the mother's views, on the supposition that a woman in her sixties could not be expected to know better. Many - most - all - of us felt that supposition was wrong. Racism is racism, whoever expresses it. It has been publicly challenged since the OP's mother was very young, and has been against the law for 50 years. You say that 'things take time'. Surely half a century is quite long enough for the OP's mother - and anyone else - to get used to the idea that racism is wrong.

Enjoyingmycoffee1981 · 11/04/2015 22:48

To think someone hateful then you must hate.
Well, umm, yes Daffs. If I think someone is hateful, I probably will hate them!

In order to pity, you must feel you are better than them.

No, not really. I pity Stephen Hawking for the health issues he suffers. I absolutely don't think I am better than him. However, in this instance, I do pity you a bit, and I absolutely think I am better than you.

In order to call someone vile names, you must be a bit vile.
As far as I can tell, no one has called you any vile names on this thread. Oh yes, "absurd" being the exception.

pinningwobble · 11/04/2015 22:48

I really, really hate people using underprivileged backgrounds/lack of education as an excuse for being ignorant and bigoted.

Like Lisa's father (I'm sorry to hear he is ill, Lisa) , my mother had absolutely not a penny to her name. I went to a crappy state comp in a crappy part of East London with a lot of violence, gangs, drugs etc.

I am not a bigot. I am not a racist. I am open minded. I do not require a 'grace period' to come to terms with some people from another country coming to live in the country I live in.

Enjoyingmycoffee1981 · 11/04/2015 22:49

Kampeki, I disagree.

The less Daffs about the better. Whereas the more people with your approach to this issue, the better.

Chippednailvarnish · 11/04/2015 22:49

This reply has been deleted

Message deleted by MNHQ. Here's a link to our Talk Guidelines.

Kampeki · 11/04/2015 22:50

Once again, why does it matter if Lisa went to uni or med school?

Are you making the point that racists tend to be relatively unintelligent and uneducated? If so, then I agree with you.

Or are you suggesting that racism is normal for people from working class backgrounds? If so, then that is wrong and incredibly offensive.

pinningwobble · 11/04/2015 22:52

It depends where you live and why immigration has had a negative or positive effect on your livelihood surely?

Again, grew up in East London. Many, many immigrants. One of three white British people in my year at school. I would not change a second of this.

RabbitIssue · 11/04/2015 22:53

Maybe I'm being silly but reading this was like going back in time to when daftpunk used to post. Really similar style, all faux innocent etc Hmm

daffsandtulips · 11/04/2015 22:54

I live in the heart of london that has changed, become far more violent in the last 20 years. I have seen stabbings. I have been screamed at for being an "infidel". I have been spat at, you name it, its happened. I was asking for grace and got vile disgusting names yet again spat at me, told I am stupid, told im ignorant, told im a moron too. There was me giving grace. Really? I said it depends where you come from and what has happened to you. None of this was listened to. Whos the moron?

LisaMed · 11/04/2015 22:54

Can I just add - I am passionately proud of being British. The British Isles have played a part in world history out of all proportion to their size. I am not blind, but the Brits have done a lot of good things.

And I get very cross when people do not respect the history that got us to this place.

Kampeki · 11/04/2015 22:56

The less Daffs about the better. Whereas the more people with your approach to this issue, the better.

Well, obviously I would like to see as few people with views like daff's as possible. However, I do believe that all human beings have an inherent value, regardless of their views.

I don't think daffs is evil. I'm sure that she has some good points. She is simply unable to see or think beyond her own horrible prejudice in this matter. I don't think she has the insight or the self awareness to recognise how irrational she is being.

I think her views are to be despised, but as an individual, she is to be pitied. A bit like the OP's mum.

daffsandtulips · 11/04/2015 22:57

Shame on you kampeki, shame on you.

Chippednailvarnish · 11/04/2015 22:57

Interesting Rabbit, but in retrospective rereading the thread I linked to earlier I would have gone for Mylovelyboy...

Similar "style" blaming everything on the Forriners...

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