To wonder what “cultural reasons” are?

[BogstandardBelle]

I was just reading a thread (though this isn’t a TAAT honest) and both the OP and some posters talk about “cultural reasons” for why someone might or might not be willing to do something. I’ve seen this mentioned on other threads too. But often, no one says what “culture” these reasons belong to or come from.

Are there some subtexts or assumptions that I’m missing here ? How does anyone know what culture is being referred to if no-one names it? Are people trying to avoid being racist or stereotyping? I’m genuinely confused by this and wondering if my very monocultural upbringing has left me missing obvious clues as to which “cultures” are being discussed.

Reflect you’re probably right, but the little I know of the whole Balkans conflict is not enough to decide if her reluctance was understandable or racist. Happy to be corrected, and I’m sure it’s extremely complex, but I understand that the Albanian genocide was carried out by Serb forces in the 90s? That’s to me both cultural and understandable really. If I had a Muslim Rohingya person working for me, maybe I would expect them not to want to work for someone from Myanmar. I don’t know enough except to know that it’s not always cut and dried racism, and could be down to deep trauma from conflict, or else again maybe just a hierarchy that we’re not used to in the U.K. or even down to just unusual (to us) behaviour or expectations.

Happy to be corrected, and I’m sure it’s extremely complex, but I understand that the Albanian genocide was carried out by Serb forces in the 90s?

In Birmingham:

"I'm not cleaning for Mrs O'Reilly, I remember the pub bombings?"

In Mill Hill or Finchley:

"I'm not cleaning for Mrs Takahashi, my grandad was on the Burma railway?"

To greater or lesser extents, we would dismiss all of those as racism. We expect "people like us" to be able to distinguish between groups and individuals, and we disapprove of stereotyping. It's normally considered poor form to assume that every German has a grandfather who was big in the Waffen SS, and we regard people who think like that as being wrong-headed, stupid and a bit vile.

So why's it OK when the same attitudes are being advanced by people who aren't "like us"? It's the racism of low expectations: we are sophisticated and know that ethnic origin doesn't make people war criminals by proxy, but they are a bit less sophisticated and can't be expected to make the same distinctions.

@ReflectantMomatomism I thought like you as the Serbians nationals I've worked with had no problem with anyone and weren't history deniers. I then houseshared with a Serbian national who denied the genocide in the war.

I can therefore understand why some people from areas of conflict would refuse years later to have dealings with people on the other side.