To Have Walked Out

[queeneileen]

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?

I was asking for grace

Is this a veiled way of you saying you said something racist and expected people to just ignore it?

I have trouble believing you were called 'infidel'. I grew up with muslims and not once has that ever been said to me. On the contrary, I have been sexually assaulted twice by (different) white men.

Crime has got nothing to do with race.

What for?

There was a joke about the Nazi party: Hitler wanted all Germans to be intelligent, to be honest, and to be Nazis. Unfortunately it was only possible to be two at once.

Same goes for the BNP... and UKIP.

Shame on me for what?

You are why there is a problem. You are why there will never be any understanding. I said to give people grace and you are yet again making me out to be very small. I hope you go to bed and wake up a better person.

Probably for being better read and less prejudiced kam! Daff has to be the one suffering remember...

No, you are making yourself out to be very small.

When there is a "blanket" non understanding it starts awful trouble. I suggest you have non swaying views. Anyone that screams racist, screams idiot or whatever needs to think about themselves a bit more

My posts were not offensive at all. I was saying that it takes time to get used to things. England has been rather bombarded over the last couple of decades. This is a fact.

What a joke. Your posts are massively offensive, not to mention ignorant and totally devoid of any facts what so ever.

Daffs, let me guess, life has most certainly not been easy on you. You are not well educated, not well off, not well travelled and little prospect of that situation changing. Am I right?

With that as a background, you are resentful and jealous of people who have more than you and suspicious of people who are a bit "different". You try to present your narrow mindedness as being something almost honourable, and that you just "need time". When in fact, you are a racist. Plain and simple. I am not name calling Daffs. I am telling you how it is.

Please god, don't let it be that you are passing these views on to any children?

Im not proud to be fair and yes maybe i am small.

Is it just me or is Daffs literally speaking in tongues?!

I mean, if you're going to be a bigot, you could at least articulate yourself well.

Yes indeed, I do have non swaying views. I believe that racism is wrong, and I will always believe it is wrong. I make no apology for that.

Why is it that you want me to change my views, and yet after decades, you have been unable to change your own?

Great summary Enjoying.

You are why there is a problem. You are why there will never be any understanding. I said to give people grace and you are yet again making me out to be very small. I hope you go to bed and wake up a better person.

The individual you address is coming across on this thread as a lovely, calm and patient person. You are coming across as a bitter, angry racist.

Just stating facts.

I've been meaning to come back and comment, but really how do you comment when this argument is going on?

Daffs, I'm sorry you feel the way you do, but we can't ALL be wrong. I'm from single-parent-Northern-INCREDIBLY-working-class stock, from a town that had race riots within the last 15 years, but I have the presence of mind to think that ALL people are, for the most part, nice, kind, worthy of thinking the best of, and worth giving a chance.

Hope your Mum's health is improving op.

Daffs - whatever has happened to you, and wherever you live, does not give you blanket knowledge of other people. You might live in Whitechapel or similar, for all I know - which has indeed had a large cultural change in the last few decades.

However, just because you have that experience, does not give you knowledge (or much sense) of how "the older generation" react to other nationalities/races/cultures. "The older generation" is a bollocks blanket term, a little like "Mumsnetters" - we are not one homogenous mass who all think the same, nor are "the older generation" - we are all individuals who think differently about things. Your insistence on refusing to accept the term racism is ridiculous. Your insistence that we should allow older people who are racist to be racist because they are older is ridiculous. You cannot see this because you do not have the thinking power to step outside of your own prejudices and see that you are projecting hugely, and over-generalising in a massive and completely wrong fashion.

I don't hate you, I don't hate "on" you (whatever the fuck that's meant to mean) - I just think you are remarkably incapable of rational thought.

Daffs - There is no excuse for bad or violent behaviour from anyone, and I'm sorry to hear that you have experienced them. But just because some individuals are bad, it does not mean that everyone from the same religious/ethnic/political etc etc group is the same. And, as an earlier poster said, you should see Glasgow after a Rangers vs Celtic football match, or have been in parts of Belfast during the Troubles. Almost all participants in those outbreaks are/were white, and all from families settled in their respective communities for at least 100 years.

The reasons for any kind of sectarian behaviour are complex - they include fear and deprivation and crime and family break-up and gang intimidation as well as religion and individual aggression; ditto the reasons behind inner-city conflicts. I'm not excusing violence or insults, but sadly they happen in all kinds of different areas. And they are not just dependent on the past 20 years of immigration.

Chipped, thanks - she's getting better. She had a stroke and has to have her bloods checked every few weeks. It's really thin at the minute so they're adjusting her tablets.

That's not a recent stroke btw, it was 3 years ago. She's not had one since, thank God.

daffsandtulips The problem is that lots of people are telling you information that you don't want to hear. Some of it comes from very safe sources that give reliable, unbiased information.

If you are saying then that all the personal experiences and government sources of a huge thread are wrong, and that you are right because you have suffered antisocial behaviour, it doesn't make a very good argument. It isn't an argument I can respect.

You are also making people lesser than they are. You are saying that older/poorer/less educated people can't think things through. You are saying that immigrants coming to this county are violent and antisocial. Actually a lot of immigrants are lovely, caring and kind in my personal experience, and a lot of older/poorer/less educated people can think for themselves and not be overwhelmed by immigration but enjoy the chance to have a good curry and new experiences.

It sounds like you have had a tough time, but think again. Have a look at people as people.

btw the 'med' in my name comes from a shortened version of my surname. My last medical training was a first aid course in 1976.

Glad you found out what was wrong, probably explains why she was so argumentative, hopefully it will get easier!

It seems to me that the OP has probably been dealt a shit hand in life, and that she is very angry and frustrated about this, which is entirely understandable. And when we're angry, it's natural to look for someone to blame.

Certain sections of the media are keen to scapegoat immigrants for everything. They're an easy target. The OP has had a bad experience (or perhaps more than one) with an individual from a minority ethnic background. She appears to lack strong analytical skills, so it's easy to put the two together, and conclude that all immigrants are bad, and that immigration is the reason why she's having such a shit time.

It's a self perpetuating view. She probably seeks to avoid immigrants or she might show her prejudice when interacting with them, meaning that she rarely sees the people who do try to integrate or the positive contributions that they can make.

None of it is rational, and as I said earlier, I despise such views, but I am not convinced that the OP is capable of changing them.

Thanks for those who have made kind comments btw.

Glad that your mum is getting better, OP. :)