Accused of being racist

[Montagu90]

Hi all

I have NC and don't want a potential flaming tarnishing my TTC posts!

Had an upsetting run in today that has made me have a long hard look at some assumptions I made and question whether I was in fact, being racist.

I don't consider myself in anyway racist and am not one of those 'I'm not racist but...' people. However, please tell me if in the below scenario IWBU

DH and I are avid foodies and like to try foods from various parts of the world. We really enjoy Asian, Thai, Vietnamese food but although love Indian food, we can never seem to master it at home. Over Christmas I attempted my fourth Biryani only to fall once again at the right balance and texture of rice.

So I decided this weekend to try once more. I went to a really good local greengrocers who happen to be run by an Indian couple and therefore have a good varied range of Indian spices and things I can usually never find (ghee for example). I picked up the ingredients for my recipe but noticed a few other customers had bought these packs to make up various Indian curries which have all the bits you need in them. So I picked up one of these too.

When I got to the till I asked the man whether they were any good. He replied they seem to be popular but he hasn't tried them himself. I then laughed and said I've never quite managed the perfect Biryani and I don't suppose he has any tips for the perfect recipe? He got visibly cross and said 'why, just because I'm Indian I must know how to cook a good curry?' I stuttered and apologised if I'd caused any offence, I was just genuinely asking if he could offer me any assistance... he then said he didn't go around asking every white person how to make gravy and I should consider what I say before making such racist comments.

I got out of there quite quickly but just felt awful. I've since wondered why I asked him... the fact that he ran a shop which had a specialist section on Indian food was certainly part of it. However, if the shop had been run by a white man, I don't think I would have asked.

So I did make an assumption based on his perceived culture. But I see this as no different to asking my Welsh friend for their best Rarebit recipe (which she happily gave me). I definitely wouldn't have stopped a random man in the street so where he was working definitely had something to do with it.

I am now sitting at home feeling awful that someone thinks of me this way when all I wanted was to make a nice Saturday night meal.

So WIBU?

I think his reaction was rude!

When he said 'just because I'm Indian you think I should be able to cook a curry' you should have said 'no! Because you work in a food shop selling such items!'

Terrible way to talk to a customer!

No different from asking a butcher how best to cook a roast IMO

It isn’t racist, no.

I was just about to make that point @poisonbuttasty I often ask my butcher how to cook a cut of meat that I haven’t used before or the local green grocer what to do with certain vegetables because they sell it. The shop owner in the OPs post sells these items so why is it racist to ask for tips on how to use them?

I am not British, if someone asked me how to make a random dish of my country, I would never consider that racist. On the contrary, I would be happy if someone asked, even if I may now know how to prepare it.
He said he never made any with this particular set, which sort of implies that he cooks (maybe that's how I read it though).
But some people feel very sensitive about their roots, and want to be perceived British or whatever, don't really want to be perceived as lets say Indian. I have a few Asian friends who feel like people see them as 'stereotypical' Indian or Pakistani despite being born in the UK just based on their looks.

I guess he may have crossed people like that in the past and just got annoyed, it was not nice towards you, but you were not rude to ask either!

You were not in any way racist. I'd take it as a compliment if someone asked me how to cook something British (roast beef or Yorkshires for e.g.).
I don't know why he felt you were being racist.
The only reason I can think of is that he feels more British or something. And you assumed he cooked Indian food (fair assumption).
That's not racism. Whether you look at it from his point of view or not. You just assumed something about him.

Being racist would be avoiding his shop because he was Indian.
Or not speaking to him because he was Indian.
Or objecting to an Indian shop in the area or something.

So, cook your biryani (in my experience Indian people I've shared a house with love to teach you how to cook their recipes).

But maybe he doesn't feel Indian. That's his problem really.

Thanks all for your responses. I agree I did make a cultural leap perhaps and shouldn't have assumed he knew how to cook this cuisine

I've really thought about the combination of things that made me ask him- his cultural background did play a part but only because of my conversation with his wife when the shop opened as stated in pp.

I guess I felt asking someone from the country of origin might give me some top tips. But again, this assumption was also based on the type of shop he owned-not just his heritage.

I will put this down to experience and perhaps ask a few more feeler questions before jumping straight in next time-but I do also think his response was rude and uncalled for so will be shopping elsewhere!

Ad someone else had said, I don't think YWBU to ask him, but I also don't think he WBU to react. I've done similar - I also don't think of myself as racist, but I now think I've probably made assumptions about people based on where I assume they are 'from.'

I also think as a white, British person, it's easy to forget that other people are often experiencing racism every day, on multiple levels (hence exacerbated reactions).

In all fairness mumsnet really isn't the place to feel what is considered racist nor not given the demographics of this board.

What matters is what the shop owner felt, not the OP or anyone else's opinion. He has a right to feel offended if that is how he feels and it is not for any of us to call him a "snowflake"

unfinishedkitchen 'If you worked in a clothes shop and a man came in and asked you to how to darn socks ......'. But that is not anywhere near the same thing. Aside from department stores what clothes shops sell sewing/darning equipment. Even a department store would direct you to a different section. I have worked in a 'nice' others shop and men would shop for women wives/girlfriends/mothers and they would ask advice because we work there. I eat out a lot and always ask advice on the menu - I assume they know because they work there.

OP has said she had spoken to the wife about indregients on previous visits, so one would assume he would be equally helpful purely to increase sales.

If owner was white she would never had asked him
That doesn't make it racist.

I wouldn't ask a 5 year old for directions - doesn't make me ageist
I wouldn't ask a 90 year old what is the current number one - doesn't make me ageist
I wouldn't ask someone in PC World how to do some DIY
I wouldn't ask someone in B&Q how to fix my PC
I wouldn't ask a Russian the best way to make Tiramisu, but I might very well ask an Italian.

We all make little assumptions in every single day of our lives... we assume someone wearing a hi-viz jacket is either an emergency service, or construction / services. We assume an Italian might have a little knowledge of the Italian language more than we do... it's perfectly legitimate to make these assumptions providing we accept they are only a starting point / guess, but could well turn out to be wrong).

Put it this way:
If you had a bad accident in India and needed someone to get you to the hospital quickly - You can bet your arse you'd choose someone who 'looked' local and who might know. Of course, that brown skinned person could be a tourist, and the white person next to them could be a local, but you have to make educated guesses in life. It's not racism.

I’d be interested to understand why people think what op did meets the definition of racism.

My not Indian but Indian decent DH wouldn’t have been offended by that but, being a man from that kind of background, he knows fuck all about traditional cooking. There isn’t actually anything offensive about it is there? But it must get annoying. If you are going to make assumptions based on race then make the correct ones.

I thought you were perfectly reasonable to ask someone running a specialist food shop on how to cook food that could be prepared from the ingredients they sell. (Though it would be acceptable for them not to know the answer).

But then you said you probably wouldn't have asked if the person had been white, which shouldn't have entered the equation at all. Therefore I think your question came from an assumption about a person based on their race and think you probably are rasist.

I used to know a greengrocer socially. He would sometimes get in something unusual and would happily tell customers how to prep and cook it though he wasn't much of a cook himself. Brixton, white guy, ordinary produce. This was about 25 years ago, and I'm thinking of unusual stuff along the lines of celeriac or fennel root.

It would be normal to ask a shopkeeper about their produce, and to ask for tips on cooking those specific things. Would you ask my friend how to cook, say, the best Sunday roast dinner? No.

So I think asking the shopkeeper/owner how best to use the things he sells, but not how best to cook an actual dish. So I think you were racist. Sorry.

Is the issue that India is an enormous country with various distinct cuisines? Perhaps he perceives an assumption that as he is from India he must know about biryanis when he could be from an entirely different part of the country with a totally different cuisine. Sort of equivalent to a Breton chef being annoyed at the assumption they’d be an expert in a Provençal speciality.

I suspect his reaction actually had little to do with you, but with comments and assumptions he has been getting for years, and you unfortunately ended up being on the receiving end when he snapped.

Racism surely implies some sort of discrimination or prejudice, or else it's not racism. I don't see how this is racist.

People on here really get their backs up whenever a white person gets accused of racism/ignorance.

The OP made an assumption based purely on the fact that this man was Asian. She said outright that she wouldn’t have asked a white person working there the same question. And for people saying that it’s fine to ask because he works in food shop - if she had asked about a product then fair enough. She didn’t, she wasn’t asking which product was better, she asked for a recipe.

Maybe he could have reacted differently but do you know what - that’s his choice. He doesn’t have to politely smile and accept casual racism. He’s allowed to be pissed off about it. How many women on here would be happy if a man assumed that as a woman they automatically knew how to bake a cake or sew something, based purely on the assumption that all women know how to do these things, because all women are exactly the same and conform to an outdated stereotype?

Not all racism is outright hostility, sometimes its more subtle and ingrained in people’s mindset. Doesn’t make it any less hurtful to the people who have to deal with it day after day.

I'm usually the first person to mutter about people being offended, but this is a fairly textbook example of everyday racism, OP.

I realise that you did not mean it to be, that you would not dream of offending someone, and everything else. But neither of those facts means that the result wasn't a racist comment.

I am actually quite depressed how few people seem to be able to recognise this on this thread.

I’m with you pfwow

Please explain it Hefzi

Racism surely implies some sort of discrimination or prejudice, or else it's not racism. I don't see how this is racist.

Stereotypes based on race can easily be racist even when the stereotyper assumes they are positives.

In the country I live in, people used to talk to me about a third country as though it were the same as my own. Think Sweden and Denmark. It's annoying, but not racist. Even if the guy has never even eaten a biriyani in his life, it's irritating I guess if he doesn't know, but it's hardly racist.

I would have an entirely different stance if you’d just stopped a random Indian man in the street but this was more about his position in the shop.