Active discussions

Meet the Other Phone. Only the apps you allow.

Meet the Other Phone.
Only the apps you allow.

Buy now

Please or to access all these features

Talk
AIBU?

Share your dilemmas and get honest opinions from other Mumsnetters.

Original poster

Is this racist or am I being sensitive,

293 replies

NotGaming · 04/01/2023 18:46

Just saw on my local reisdents Facebook page, Chinese restaurant has posted to say that they’re shutting for a month to allow family to travel home for Chinese new year. Most responses are people saying to enjoy their well earned time off. Then someone has posted ‘make sure you don’t bring anything home with you 😷 🤢’

i think this is really inappropriate, but loads of people have posted laughing emojis and liked the post.

I’ve reported to page admins who have said it doesn’t breach their rules and left the comment up.

OP posts:
Terven · 04/01/2023 20:15

Chinese travellers can’t currently travel to UK and the EU without a negative Covid test. Is that racist too?

cookiegardencat · 04/01/2023 20:16

yes it's racist.
thank you for reporting it

toocold54 · 04/01/2023 20:17

But jokes aside, It's not racist to advise someone to use a condom if they are having unprotected sex with locals in Africa, in the context of health advice.

I agree but I would advise anyone to wear a condom if they were having unprotected sex, even in England where the HIV/AIDS is much lower.

It’s the ‘banter’ part which makes things more offensive, as they’re saying it to be intentionally offensive/ a below the belt dig but doing it in a way that apparently makes being offensive acceptable.

ILoveeCakes · 04/01/2023 20:18

Why bend yourself over backwards trying to label things as "racist"?

Oh, that's right - because people have been conditioned to see that as a special category and that everyone and everything that can be labelled as such must be "cancelled" and hurt out of all proportion to what they did.

Why not ask whether it is offensive? Or is that not incendiary enough for you?

courgettigreensadwater · 04/01/2023 20:19

Is it not more to do with the current situation over there? Is the government re introducing testing for anyone coming into the uk from China racist?

PutinSmellsPassItOn · 04/01/2023 20:19

It's inappropriate.....and it's the sort of inane drivel that makes people think its OK to be twats towards Chinese people in other ways. But it's not racist.

Must say tho given the situation in China at the moment I'm surprised people are allowed to travel in and out of the country. Covid seems to be out of control over there, I only hope things settle down for them soon.

AnElegantChaos · 04/01/2023 20:20

NotGaming · 04/01/2023 20:11

@KarmaStar because I couldn’t work out if I was being sensitive or if they were being offensive. if you read the comments here, I’m not the only one.

for those who’ve asked, it wasn’t posted directly on the restaurants Facebook, but on the residents page. I’m also not sure who posted it, I didn’t look so my opinion isn’t based on their nationality and wouldn’t have changed if they were Chinese (I’ve checked now 😁)

I find it offensive because I feel like it’s trying to stir hate, again

I find it offensive because I feel like it’s trying to stir hate, again

Yes this, it's been written during a time when racist attacks - sometimes violent - towards Chinese communities in the UK have risen significantly. Context is everything.

It's just feeding the ongoing (since 2020) narrative used by racists that Chinese people should be blamed for COVID. You're not being sensitive, it's racist.

Georgeskitchen · 04/01/2023 20:20

It's not racist to not want a virulent new strain of covid to come into the country and potentially kill 1000s

EmmaDilemma5 · 04/01/2023 20:21

Racist? To acknowledge that Covid is running wild in China at the moment?! It is! It's not racist at all, it's fact.

Oystersandwhelks · 04/01/2023 20:21

It's not racist - it's about location not race.

WendelineTestaburger · 04/01/2023 20:21

This reply has been deleted

This has been deleted by MNHQ for breaking our Talk Guidelines.

Stepuptowardsinfinity · 04/01/2023 20:22

Its not racist in the slightest. Covid is rampant in China at the moment and it's all over the news. You are being ridiculous OP.

Dahliasandtea · 04/01/2023 20:23

Big assumption to make that staff will be travelling to China for Chinese New Year. Couldn’t they just be heading to a semi in Essex? Not all Chinese people live in China. and Chinese New Year is celebrated by Chinese people all over the world. Including Britain…..

it’s stupid people making stupid comments…. Yes, racist if you choose to see it like that. Lots of people won’t. I do. And I don’t at the same time. I’m not white…. Or Chinese.

e11even · 04/01/2023 20:23

GETTINGLIKEMYMOTHER · 04/01/2023 20:14

If anyone non-Chinese was off to China and someone made the same comment, how would that be racist?

Some people take offence at everything. And some seem to actively look for things to be offended by.

The comment was a joke, maybe in poor taste, but given that COVID is well known to be rife in China at the moment, I fail to see how it was racist.

You can't apply statements that are meant to offend one group of people to everyone though. Of course it might have a different effect on someone who isn't Chinese.

FancyFanny · 04/01/2023 20:25

Why is it racist? The joke is based on the fact that people travelling to Britain from China will now be expected to take a covid test because cases are so high there- nothing to do with their race. Exactly the same joke could have been made to a white family taking a trip to China right now!

Nogreens · 04/01/2023 20:27

This is the problem with people thinking racism means anything that might offend a certain group of people. Racism is suddenly everywhere.

amatsip · 04/01/2023 20:28

Blaming china for covid at the moment is to take away the emphasis from the outbreak over here.
It’s all over the UK, I’m getting over it at the moment as are quite a few I know.

I would read it as racist.

ShimmeringShirts · 04/01/2023 20:30

Considering the situation in China currently I can understand the sentiment, however I would think that goes for any country in the throws of a covid spike too (including the uk).

Mark19735 · 04/01/2023 20:30

Well, I've been told to go and educate myself by several strangers on the internet upthread. (Must be cold up there, on the moral high ground).

So I did. And I want to modify my position. I think context and intent matters too. Racism is not actually an offence on its own. In cases of employment discrimination, or discrimination by an organisation against a service user or member of the public, the details are specified by the Equality Act 2010, which defines the offence of harassment. There are 9 protected characteristics, and race is one of them. Separately, if a crime has been committed, then it is also possible for that crime to be a hate crime if it was motivated by hostility towards one of 5 characteristics, and race is one of them.

I don't think what the OP described constitutes a crime, therefore it cannot be a hate crime. The test for harassment then is for a persistent and deliberate course of unreasonable and oppressive conduct, targeted at another person, which is calculated to and does cause that person alarm, fear or distress. That's quite a stiff test ... and the key term there is "is calculated to and does cause ..."
For the comment referred to by the OP to constitute harassment, it would be necessary to show that the poster's intent was to cause harm, and that harm was indeed caused. And for that to have been unreasonable. That is patently not proven on the evidence adduced by the OP. Therefore ... it does not meet the standard for harassment. (Never mind the more immediate legal issue, that there appears to be no employment relationship in this situation, or any other legal duty owed by the poster to the recipient).

Interestingly ... if the poster had been a pub landlord and had ejected the target of the comment from their pub with the same commentary, then it would be harassment on grounds of race, capable of being brought to a civil court. The usual compensation payout is about £10k. There was a case involving travellers that was published recently on exactly that basis.

But, in summary ... back to the OP and the many angry social justice warriors on the thread ... I have read up on racism, and this is still not racist.

HomeAGnome · 04/01/2023 20:30

I don't think it's racist either
If the restaurant owners are travelling to China then I think they are bloody stupid though but there's nothing to say that they are

choochooandspook · 04/01/2023 20:32

no not racist

WeBuiltThisBuffetOnSausageRoll · 04/01/2023 20:33

I'm not sure I agree with you here.
I grew up in London in the 70s during the IRA bombing campaigns as the U.K. borm child of an Irish family. I couldn't tell you how many 'jokes' I lived with about me or my parents or extended family having semtex in the house or phoning in bomb scares or being part of the IRA. When they were just hard working migrants trying to build a life here.
All these hilarious jokes were entirely based on the assumption that everyone from Ireland was a potential threat just like all these CoVid jokes appear to be.

Can you really not see the difference between assuming that somebody is a terrorist because of their nationality and pointing out a natural risk that's prevalent in a country that somebody - whether a native of that country or not - is travelling to?

I think some of the 'yes, it's racist' comments on here are actually racist themselves, as they appear to be conflating people of a certain race/nationality with Covid itself - i.e. having Covid is somehow a feature of being Chinese, so it's racist to criticise or draw attention to it; rather than acknowledging that the fact that Covid is currently rife in China does not automatically implicate all Chinese people; and that it is the Covid that people quite understandably hate and do not want near them, not any of the Chinese people (or non-Chinese people travelling to China). I'm pretty sure the people who are living in China and not travelling anywhere don't want to get Covid either.

Scarfweather · 04/01/2023 20:38

Rude and in bad taste, but not racist. There is a Covid problem in China.

Bluekerfuffle · 04/01/2023 20:38

No, not racist. If France was the place having a major outbreak at the moment and someone commented the same to a French person going back there for a holiday would it be racist? No, so why is it different in this case.

LuluBlakey1 · 04/01/2023 20:40

I don't think it's racist. It's about geography of covid infections currently- not a remark about race.