This is racist aibu to dump

[Shinnoo]

We are both white.

Bf described an annoying customer to me as an 'angry little Indian man'.

When I said that is totally unacceptable, he said well he was angry and he was of South Indian descent so what I supposed to say?

And I was like errr if you're going to use diminutive , negative words before an ethnic description that is racism and is totally unacceptable to me.

He said i always have to watch my ps and qs with you

Wtaf??

Thai

Accents are completely different from assuming every Asian is Chinese because 'they all look the same' instead of Korean, Vietnamese, Japanese, Thai, etc. Or everyone who looks middle eastern is Arabic or Indian same as above, 'because he looked like an Indian or Pakistani'. This is not about an accent from a white person.

Find it pretty hard to wrap my head round the alternative scenarios that people are proposing. Happy German woman? wtf? Really? (I'd think that weird n all actually)

I don't think the comment in itself is overtly racist, it is descriptive, but it's excessively descriptive for its purpose, as we've been told, and IME the people that use excessive description in such circumstances normally hold some, at least outdated if not outright racist, views

Most people know not to be overtly racist now because in general it's not well recieved but you can take a good guess at their internal dialogue based on what they actually are willing to say

My partner is Tamil, as far as anyone cares, she's Indian. In terms of ethnic origin they're correct, except she doesn't come from India and nor do her family, she was born in London and her family are from Sri Lanka. She wouldn't be mortally offended if someone called her an angry little Indian, the angry and little are definitely factual, but she'd raise an eyebrow to someone ignoring her south London accent to give her a different, albeit incorrect, nationality

It's not the same as being called a paki though, which happens quite alot too. Those people are definitely laying it out clearly

@Havaina

It's probably a bot that identifies the 'n word' and removes the post automatically.

It does serve a good point thought that context and intent are incredibly important .i

@ Havaina - that’s happened to me. I don’t understand the reasoning behind this decision. When I think of the words that are allowed......

@deydododatdodontdeydo

It must be exhausting going through life pretending to be outraged and offended at everything.

Yes, so exhausting answering a question on an online forum...

Yep but I wasn't talking about the answering a question bit. I was talking about the constantly being on high alert for an opportunity to be outraged/offended.

@Havaina You can't write the word in full. It is 'n word', or 'n-r', or 'n---er', etc.

Holy Christ....

Actually I don't think any forums on the internet will allow the actual word written in full.

You can be a white Indian, if you live and grew up in India.

If a person is Anglo Indian they are from a very different caste and probably vastly richer and comfortable with this than you

@Mlou32 Stating something is racist, when it blatantly is, does not mean one is on 'high alert' 'for an opportunity to be outraged/offended', that is rather hyperbolic. You don't need to be on 'high alert'. Just able to hear or read, and have common sense. That's all.

“I was talking about the constantly being on high alert for an opportunity to be outraged/offended”
No need. Sadly you don’t have to be in high, low or any sort of alert.

Oh, and you can think something is a bit of a shit, racist thing to say without being outraged or offended. Just a bit dispirited at the rush to defend the right to be a bit shit and racist.

I have a team (in Me) of many cultures. The main issues I have are with Indian castes where people feel it isn't their place to order higher castes around. The Arabic guys are generally discriminating according to people's ability and tend to get irrited by 'wasta' type nepotism. However, as much as descriptors are usually regarding nationality, there is very little angst. Religion however, off the table. Don't say the Hindu or Muslim, that would be deeply offensive.

Jesus wept.
I could see where you’re coming from if he’d called him an angry Indian (put in whatever expletive you wish!!) but angry Indian man?!!

Are you just looking for an excuse to dump him?!

@BertrandRussell

“
^The reminds me of a conversation with my (black) dp recently where he was laughing about the long winded lengths people will got to to avoid to avoid saying the word black or mentioning race when trying to describe someone to him.“

Yay! Does he collect gollywogs, too? Please tell me he does, then I can tick two boxes!^

No of course not, but then he's a 57 year old professional with a distaste for clutter. He doesn't 'collect' anything at all.

I'm not sure if your trying to insinuate I'm making him up, or the conversation? (Neither is the case fwiw) It's just a thing that he and his friends notice and find amusing in a lighthearted way. Believe it or don't, it's no skin off my nose if an Internet stranger believes me

Hmm it’s weird that you can’t type out the n word in full but it’s fine to type out ‘Paki’?

I actually consciously typed out the ‘n’ word in my previous post because I’m aware that black people have reclaimed the word and rightly so.

This is a bit like banning the word ‘Voldemort’.

Freewheelingto40 Totally agree. Bloody bonkers.

“ I could see where you’re coming from if he’d called him an angry Indian (put in whatever expletive you wish!!) but angry Indian man?!!”
Interesting that you dropped the “little”.....

@OMGshefoundmeout
The OP knows her BF and was part of the conversation. To her his words came across as racist and given her prior knowledge of his attitudes she is probably right. I think the fact that other people could use those words in a different, non racist context isn’t relevant here.
Succinctly put. There’s nothing else to add really, I’m not sure what some people on this thread are getting so confused about. Racism can be blatant or subtle. In this case it was fairly subtle but given tone, context, and past form of BF, the conclusion is obvious.

Defo dump

@Havaina
Millions of black people throughout the world find the word used in any context and by any group of people (other than in study of black history) as extremely offensive.

Defo dump

Well yes, but thta dosent cure anthingy does it?, perhaps try to educate him if you can?.

Better end result surely?.

@SarahNade

But there are plenty of people out there that are on high alert to pounce as soon as they hear something that they can deliberately take the worst possible meaning from and use it to help them mount themselves up on their high horse. Sadly there are a lot of people like that. You can't say anything these days without people of these ilk turning and pouncing!

Hmm it’s weird that you can’t type out the n word in full but it’s fine to type out ‘Paki’?

I imagine you can have a bot that recognises the n word and deletes any post containing it, because that sequence of letters doesn't occur in any other word. Whereas if you programmed the bot to delete any posts containing "Paki" then any threads that discussed the Pakistan cricket team or the history of the creation of the country would be a mess of deleted posts.

Ie I don't know if you can get a bot to distinguish between Paki, as a stand alone racist word, and Paki* as part of an innocent word.

But there are plenty of people out there that are on high alert to pounce as soon as they hear something that they can deliberately take the worst possible meaning from and use it to help them mount themselves up on their high horse. Sadly there are a lot of people like that. You can't say anything these days without people of these ilk turning and pouncing!

Absolutely agree.