AIBU in thinking that racism is acceptable on Mn but any form sexism is stomped out immediately.

[rosebudyblue]

This is not about Mn HQ but the posters who jump on anyone who sees a racist comment and points it out. Sometimes, if they don't jump on the offended person, they make snide comments about how it's ruining the flow of the thread or starting an argument because everything was going so well. How dare they! Or how people take things so seriously by being easily offended. To me this shows how people are so an aware of racist sentiments that they think their peace is being disrupted. The amount of racist comments in the last two months has been rife.

My understanding is people lack awareness when it's racism related. If a person thinks that it's ok to point out a whole race as this or that in a negative way, How everyone from this country behaves like this and is in a negative way then more likely than not, you are being racist. The most common one I have seen is how people view English people from abroad. This has appeared in the "shower comments" and the "no rinsing dishes" threads and other threads too. People just found it acceptable because what, you can't be racist to white people ?
In the threads referring to black people and racism you tend to find those who dismiss it completely.
Then you have the threads where people are talking about how they have been to a certain country and they stereotype the whole race with the one bad experience they have had by pointing out the characteristics of the people in general in a negative way. use of some racist undertones or innuendos for example in the black women and mental health post.

The worst ones are those that don't even realise they have been racist and when you point out to them they try to be defensive about it. Self editing would be great. Before you write something about a group of people, ask your self if you would say that about a woman, about children or about gay people. If you think that people would find that offensive then it's best to stay clear because it probably is racist.

Wut?

I understand what you're trying to say OP and I do agree. I've said before that as a black woman, I try to avoid any threads about racism as I find the comments, sometimes even from posters I admire, really very upsetting.

Niceteeth am glad someone else has noticed it too. Mn does delete most of them off. If you have lots of people posting such things without awareness it makes you wonder what else they say in private. A lot of them claim to have not known it was racist at all.

Well said OP. There is no need for it.

What? . I haven't noticed any racism. In fact I have seen people shouting 'racist' for things that definitely aren't.

Not been my experience at all

Wondering it might be wise to ask why they think it's racist and let them explain.

Theres quite a patronising tone to this thread.

I saw quite a racist thread recently and was shocked at how the racist posters were not jumped on. I reported a really racist post (referring to slavery), and HQ agreed and deleted it, but there were 100 posts before me, and no one had commented on it. I was very surprised.

Theres quite a patronising tone to this thread

Can you please explain why it's patronising or why you think it's coming across that way?

Where And what sections op
as never seen this myself and been here for years.

My experience is quite the opposite.

The BBC prides itself if equal amounts of complainers call it both right wing and left wing biased as it shows they are neutral and putting both sides.

I guess this thread will show mumsnet is doing ok then.

When it comes to the stereotypical racism of 'How are the English viewed abroad?' threads, I actually find it really interesting. Being able to see how other cultures view Brits is a rare insight, I think that the UK would be better off for being a bit more self aware!

If I see ill intentioned racism, I would call it out straight away and report. If it is racism made out of lack of knowledge then I would suggest such.

Feminism is something that we (most) of us have in common on Mumsnet as the majority of us are female. I love that Mumsnet is a bit of a feminism/sexism sounding board.

We are ethnically diverse though, I think it would be really great to have a board similar to the Feminism board where ideas and thoughts can be constructed or deconstructed and more posters can make an informed stance.

Very few posters would actually WANT to be racist but it is still institutionalised throughout the Uk and the media. It's a topic that we should be discussing in depth.

Studies have recently shown that many children of non-caucasian origin in Scotland have never witnessed racism whilst at school- and it is only after they have left that they encounter it. Racism isn't just something we should be warning our kids about- it's something that we should actively be trying to understand and combat- rather than the passive 'I have brought my children up not to be racist.'

Where we are is better than where we were but it still needs improvement.

Could you give some examples?

Not noticed this at all.

I also think generally men can take care of themselves in this world. They have for thousands of years anyway to the detriment of women.

I think the terrible abuses world wide perpetrated by men on women in the name of custom and religion piss me off far far more than racism per se.

However generally op sorry i think your post is factually incorrect.

OP I agree with you entirely, although I expect there will be some denial of that. In the past few weeks the amount of threads Ive seen dissing black women are disgusting, from nasty insinuations about black women's mental health issues not really mattering, to complete tearing down of black female singers. I don't bother to say much about it because someone will always come along "oh but it happens to other women too" well yes it does at times, but when there is a pattern/succession and its the same kind of reasons, its glaringly obvious. I hate people aiming to tell me what is racist and what isn't, via their definition that has nothing to do with my own race and culture.

There's also the regularlity of the golliwog threads that just have to come up so often, and the amount of posters who pretend theyve always had a golliwog, it was their favourite toy of childhood, oh its not a caricature of a black person, why are black people offended..and my favourite, which always lands somewhere in the thread "my dad is black as the ace of spades and HE'S not offended!". Oh so thats ok then

Im glad sexism is stamped on immediately. I hate any form of sexism. On the other hand casual racism seems to be just fine and its disappointing. I couldnt give much of a shit about racists I just find them stupid and dont really engage in the threads anymore..you cant talk to a thick impenetrable wall of a person and get any sense out of them. But it does surprise me still..for some reason I thought MN would be different to various sites out there. It still makes me smile when I see people describe something as being "like something out of the Daily Mail" then on another thread theyre spouting nonsense about black people.

When I 1st joined I had a baptism of fire there'd been a programme on the night before, Im sure it was Undateables..ages ago when series 1st started, and a black man was naked in one scene. Next day, cue loads of comments and jokes about a black man's cock. OK I can take a joke like anybody else. But it began to go too far in terms of all a black man is good for, comparisons etc. When I pointed out hang on this is too much bordering on racist stereotypes I was called "professionally offended" by loads of posters, then told I was being reported. Wtf..can you imagine if id started a thread about white mens cocks and then black posters started commenting in derogatory fashion?! But.. the poster who backed me on that thread was a lovely woman - not black, my point on that being you don't have to be black to try to understand or empathise with racism. You know right from wrong.

There are a good few people who challenge racism on here though, I cant deny that.. but they tend to get drowned out. & when its a well thought out response from posters who are fairminded, that response is inevitably completely ignored. Especially by the my dad/sis in law/mate/next door neighbour's cat is black crew.

I think we are slightly overdue for a golliwog thread. In this forum of "racism? what racism? Ive never seen anything Nope, nothing at all". Another month or so should do it I think. Stick "golliwog" in the search box and see how many times various people have actually felt a need to create a thread on it again under the wide eyed pretence of "but I just dont KNOW why black people find golliwogs offensive - do all of you?" and tell me there arent some seriously stupid people around here... if we heard of kids doing that kind of thing there'd be plenty said, but it seems when adults do it, its nothing really

I assume you are referring to posts you have read recently and that I have not read.

I haven't seen any racism against blacks on mumsnet, apart from a few people who deny that there is any racism against blacks anymore, despite what black posters are saying and I've not noticed any particular racism against whites. I'll be the first to admit that we never rinsed our dishes when I was growing up.

However I find the attacks on travellers and Muslims here extremely nasty and MNHQ does absolutely nothing about them.

Mistress

You may be right In so much that most sensible posters would see a golliwog thread and just think 'here goes another daft goady fucker' and not bother.

Of course it's the Internet and after years on mumsnet I would estimate that st least a quarter of threads are started by trolls.

Atenco

I haven't seen any racism against blacks on mumsnet, apart from a few people who deny that there is any racism against blacks anymore, despite what black posters are saying

^ Theres something in that sentence that has to do with what I am saying in terms of denial and what the minimising^ of racism against black people actually is... its a very good example

However I find the attacks on travellers and Muslims here extremely nasty and MNHQ does absolutely nothing about them

^ its not a "versus" thing - if a black person mentions racism there always has to be a comparison with another nation who experience nasty, derogatory behaviour. As if there's a queue of racism or some such and we must step to the back of it as ours isn't supposed to be "up there" with the others. MNHQ doing absolutely nothing about the Muslim and travellers threads ..well then, that would mean casual racism is ok here wouldn't it, in your estimation that is? Which goes right back to what I said.

These are the ones I can remember so far.

There was a quest post, a black female actress talking about hollowed and the oscars. The first comment dismissed what she had written and a few people called it patronising.

Their was a thread where op was complaining about usage of a word that was offensive to Jewish women. I think some of the people where saying that Jewish women use it. Or the person who said it must be Jewish because it's a word that belongs in the Jewish inner circle. The op had found it anti semantic in a long line of other post she had seen before.

I have seen a few usage of the n word. The most recent was in the appropriation thread. In that same thread, a poster posted a list that was meant to be a joke and funny about what white people like and do. We would never do the same for women, girls, boys or men because that would be affirming stereotypes. The poster didn't get it when explained to her or him.

In the thread about about idris Elba. The person commenting worded their comment in away that said something along the lines of, "they are a BBC type of person. Getting all the work then they will move to America and come back to complain about not having opportunities in the uk as a black person. They didn't know that he had made his big break in America. The same post then had the excuse of saying she was only writing what people say on the guardian website. Her next post made it worse because she mention a female who had not worked with the BBC in 20 years as one of the people the BBC favours. What she was saying was that minorities and women are being favoured by the BBC.

There was a thread about Rihanna and towards the end it went from being hate to racist undertones.

The black women with mental health thread the op dismissed it completely because she had done her dissertation on black women. I think it was to do with black women's perception. A few people tried to explain things to her but, hey! She knew best because she the black women who were trying to explain it to her were wrong. I think the thread also had links to the study about mental help.

There was a thread about what places scared people the most when they visited. They had a few racist undertones. When it was pointed out some of them didn't agree.

The thread a bout showers and a few people kept on referring to English people in general not having good hygiene.

I could go on. Including a thread about how to looks expensive on a budget. I can write the word down. Someone pointed it out and a few people took offence to that because that because it was going so well.

I have seen the Muslim ones too.