White people and racism - Slightly drunk AIBU

[Keanuismine]

Hello MN! I have Name changed like a MN pro for this so no one can possibly guess my secret identity mwahahahaha

So, I have been in the pub tonight and had an experience that, together with 2 other experiences in the last month have made me think. me and my brother are very interested in your opinions.

I am a mixed race woman - heritage mum white Northern British, Dad mixed race Jamaican Rastafarian. I look white(ish), some of my 17 siblings less so. We're a mixed bunch. Anyhow, I was accused of racism tonight and my SIL (mixed race Indian/white) a month ago. SIL is married to DB who is mixed race like me. On Chinese NY I was out with my friend who is ethnically Thai (but Northern British) was accused of makign excuses for Cultural Misappropriation. We are all bewildered so I am asking MN for opinions. AIBU to say this incidents are NOT IN ANY WAY racist.

1. First in incident SIL calls her son -who is 1/2 white, 1/4 Indian. 1/4 black a cheeky little money because he kept running up to her in the park and sticking his tongue out at her (he is 3). A white man with no children with him marched over and scolded her for using a 'racist term' and advised her she was 'doing untold damage to his self esteem" and it "would be seen as racist". She said 'I'm his mum" and he replied "Are you now?" and took a photo of her before walking off. WTF!
2. Ethnically Thai friend watching the parade and the man in front said to her in a stage whisper "Look some of those people in the Lion are not even Chinese!!" she laughed and said "I reckon all of them are Mancunian to be honest mate" and he replied "you might think cultural misappropriation is acceptable but some of us are not racists" and stormed off glaring at her. WTF!
3. Tonight in the pub DB and I were drinking rum and ginger ale and having a catch up and he did a hilarious impression of our dad which was genuinely very funny (he is watching me type this!) and I joined in and was speaking patois which is my dads main language he speaks - and will only speak in his old age, and we all grew up in Jamaica so in many ways its our first language and its so fun to speak and....... Anyway, after a couple of minutes DB went to the bar and a woman sat next to me (we were sharing a table as it was so busy), told me that DB wouldn't appreciate my behaviour and I was being racist by imitating him. I said "he's my brother" and she replied "Hmmm you need to think" and get up and left. WTF? My DB and I were flabbergasted.

So, are we bigots? Why are white people suddenly telling us we are racists? Wtf MN? AIBU to say this is crazy.

We have rum, ginger beer and are sat awaiting your response.

DB wants me to add Jah bless here but I am chickening out

I think partly because a lot of anti racism training says that Don't just avoid saying/ doing racist things, but call it out wherever and whenever you see it. Some stupid she's interpret this as hunt out and destroy. They are usually fucktards who prove it by Thier actions.
Calling a child a cheeky monkey is not offensive - I doubt if soccer fans being racist to a black player call him this.
Interestingly a large popular clothing retailer whom I forget, had a sky blue top with a chimp in football kit standing in s goal. I don't recall any argybargy about this.

I am from a Scandinavian background but also have some mediterranean blood in me and because of this I have met other white people who have accused me of "pretending" to be white. Now I make sure to tell every new person I meet that I have that "other blood in me" very quickly after I first met them so that I don't invest time or emotions in people who turn out to be total nazis anyway. Some people interpret this to be a sign that I am very proud of "the other blood" but when they get to know me better I rarely ever mention it again, because it is not really something I think about and culturally I am very much a Scandinavian. Ok, cosmopolitan, but still very Scandi.

These people you have encountered seem to be very fixated on other people's race. Probably most people didn't notice (or care) what colour skin any of you had. Which kind of makes me think that the people that commented must be internally fighting their own racist tendencies!

I'm just @WhereShallWeMoveTo comment about "typical" jamaican men. Way to stereotype much. How offensive and downright rude! My grandfather and my father never had multiple families and/ or babymommas. And it is also not common within my immediate circle of friends.

White people & racism

YABU

I'm mixed race and have about twice in my life had white people tell me I should not accept if someone uses the term "coloured"
(which I quietly corrected as being out of date)
Didn't bother me

In contrast, I suffered hundreds of actual racist insults, abuse & discrimination, including assault,
nearly all before various laws making all that illegal.

That dominated my life growing up and made it a misery
It still caused hurt when it very occasionally happened in later years

There've been quite a few threads on MN from people claiming to be mixed race and laughing at the well-meaning "woke",
rather than describing the years of racism which is my own lived experience

I find the people (in anecdotes and on here), who say someone can't call their own son a monkey or people can't use words from their own culture because of their skin colour, horrifying.

Deciding this stuff by skin colour is racism just as much as if it wore a white hood. Humans don't have 'races' decided by 'blood'; ethnicity is cultural not objective.

I don't think these loons lecturing OP and others about what racism is are well meaning, I think they risk undoing all the progress we've made. I think it's just another excuse for arseholes to exert power over others.

"I don't think these loons lecturing OP and others about what racism is are well meaning"

Well, the racists who abused me over the years certainly meant badly

• and they outnumbered the woke about 1000:1

In contrast, I suffered hundreds of actual racist insults, abuse & discrimination, including assault, nearly all before various laws making all that illegal.

Sadly, where I live, this stuff is far from over. It would be lovely if everyone could focus on getting rid of real racism before we start arguing over whether Chinese festivals in the UK are cultural appropriation.

So I know which lot are a danger to me

It is likely that those who have witnessed years of harmful racism are more sensitive than those who haven't

I concentrate my ire and my wariness on those I see as a danger,
which despite all the "interesting" threads on MN has always been the racists

Some people need to mind their business and don’t talk nonsense trying to be clever and woke.
Both of my parents are Jamaican and I would not be offended by a person Who looks white talking patois, because anyone with true Jamaican heritage knows - ‘out of many one people’. Jamaicans are a mixed bunch of all colours, so white, Chinese, black and everyone in between can be Jamaican.

I can see how this feels like a horrible whitesplaining of racism, particularly if these people are aware of your heritage. However if you and your SIL look ‘white’ then I suppose what’s happening is white people trying to get other white people to think about their behaviour and how it might affect others. Which I think has to be seen as an improvement on racism. But it does have the unfortunate effect that people will think you are not entitled to participate in your own culture if you don’t look the part. Ugh.

It is complex but I do hope we’re moving in the right direction.

It seems these people just got the wrong end of the stick.

I'm so over people shouting 'racist' when they don't know a damn thing about the context !

Racism is only racism when the intent is to de-humanise or humiliate.

Why on earth can't a family have a laugh imitating their parent ? ( I do a great one of my gran, who is Irish, so am I racist if I imitate her ?)

The whole world has gone way too far down the rabbit hole with PC correctness !

I have never been a racist and I have never wanted to nor tried to humiliate someone or cause them offence, but I HAVE been accused of being racist by total strangers who imagine/ invent racist intent.

To me saying the phrase "cheeky monky" is racist, is taking it a bit too far. It means they are acting like a monkey. It would never occur to me it had anything to do with colour. To me it's the fur that's black, not the skin.

Is “Jive turkey muthafucka!” ok? I’d hate to commit a social gaffe.

People ignoring what they perceive is a racist comment, wrong.
People calling others out on what they perceive is a racist comment, also wrong. With woke thrown in for good measure.

I'm white, DH is black with a mixed family some of whom look white and our son is light skinned mixed race. People often get very confused - I was told off for allowing my son to get "tanned" in the sun last year when he was a little baby. I do think some people have a problem understanding that people come in many "pantones" and you aren't just white, black etc.

Increasingly more and more children will have mixed heritage but people do seem to find it confusing.

In answer to your OP I don't think any of the situations were racist and it seems very odd for BME people to be told they are being racist to their own family by white people

It would be lovely if everyone could focus on getting rid of real racism before we start arguing over whether Chinese festivals in the UK are cultural appropriation.

Agree 100% with this..

Totally agreeing with totallyrad also

It must be such hard work to always be on the look out for something to be offended by.

God yes, mustn’t it just? Being super woke must be mentally draining and exhausting, especially as they are all probably vegans and have very little strength anyway, due to a diet deficient in protein and iron.

My thoughts are scattered all over the place reading this thread. But it's a learning process, so I guess that's to be expected.

I'm white. I'm horrified by the current shift towards racism becoming more 'acceptable'. Lots of the stuff I've read over the last few years has led me to think that calling out racism when I see it (amongst white people) is something I feel I should do, otherwise I'm no better than a racist. It's generally reserved for people I know, but I think if I'd seen some white people in a pub taking the piss out of the Jamaican accent, I'd make a comment. I find it hard to verbalise, but I don't want white people thinking public places are 'safe spaces' for their racist behaviour, and thinking it won't go unchallenged. But I'd never try to correct a BAME person for racism. So I can imagine myself in the position of the white person at the pub, thinking you were white. But once you'd made it clear you were not, I'd apologise for completely getting the wrong end of the stick.

If you want to call me "woke", or "PC gone mad", that's fair enough. I'm completely open to criticism of my thoughts from people who know better, because I am trying to learn.

So, no, YANBU. Given your heritage, I don't think in any of those incidents you were being racist.

Can I ask, though, if it had been white people calling a BAME child a monkey, or taking the piss out of patois, would you think that was racist?

Idiots are like busses, you don’t see one for ages and then three come at once.

Some people like to broadcast their stupidity. This is when you chuckle to yourself and think thank God your not as misguided as these individuals.

As a mixed race perosn, I have sometimes found the "woke" silly,
but they don't bother me

It's racists who bother me

and the eagerness of many white peope to leap on any opportunity to demonise the silly woke,
all the recent threads piling onto them
as a useful distraction from the facing up to the racism that many people of colour face

Racism hasn't gone away
and it is racists who are problem, who are the threat to me
I don't let myself get distracted by the silly, or by the far from silly who are using squirrels

I'm horrified by the current shift towards racism becoming more 'acceptable'.

What planet are you on? I don’t know how old you are but speaking as someone who grew up through the 70s and 80s I can tell you without hesitation that Racism (casual or otherwise) in this country has never been less acceptable than it is now, and rightly so.

Any perception that we’d might be going ‘backwards’ as a country in that respect is just plain wrong.

We have in recent years gone through quite unprecedented levels of immigration from countries where the people were previously fairly unfamiliar to us (not Ireland, India, Pakistan and the Caribbean in other words) and that, naturally, causes some friction until new foreign communities take time to integrate and assimilate and the British people living in close proximity to them take time to become accustomed and familiar with their presence and not threatened by it. Eventually it settles down but it takes time. It’s the same in every society across the world. British people are human beings and no different in the way they react to their territory being ‘invaded’ than the next tribe of human beings.

Some people will always be racist but I don’t think their are any more racists in the UK now than there used to be, proportionally speaking. In fact I think there are fewer, because people under 40 have grown up around BAME people who are second and third generation British and are fully accepting of them, whereas that was not the case for their grandparents. Plus this country has worked very hard to stamp out racism and discrimination in all walks of life. The attitude to foreigners or BAME British people is not always as we’d like it to be, but it’s still a world away from how it was in the 1950s through to the 1980s.

To say otherwise just shows you weren’t there.