This happened to me at the weekend and I feel ashamed I did nothing - Racism

[Changedusernameforthis2]

I was at a car boot sale at the weekend and there was a large stall there- that was a man and wife- selling 'fill a bag' type stuff - they were a house clearance company avoiding paying dumping fees I think

There was a lady there who was wearing a headcovering, she kept going behind the stall and they kept shooing her out
The man said in a sort of 'I'm muttering but loud enough for everyone to hear' way - he said "They're like rats, it might help if we stop giving them everything"
I was really shocked and just walked off but I feel really ashamed I didn't tackle it

What can I say if I find myself in this position again? I do not want to stand by and let it happen- I feel embarassed of being a coward

Why is that relevant? She may have been doing something she shouldn’t have done, but it didn’t warrant a clearly racist comment. In much the same way as a woman behaving badly wouldn’t justify the use of a sexist slur. Why are two different issues being conflated?

You’re not mental. A large number of people on here are champing at the bit to excuse racism. No wonder Trump and Farage are doing so well. People want to feel justified in their own bigotry.

So if you can categorically say this was a racist remark, the answer to your original question is staring you in the face. If this happens again, you can pull them up on the implied racism. That's up to that person to tell you whether you've interpreted their remark incorrectly. If it's blatant racism, then you can tackle it head on. Roll up your sleeves and get ready for action.

Weird that you chose only discussion around your response to respond to, rather than engaging with the substance of any of the replies to you, but ok. 🤷‍♀️

Eh?

It was clearly racist and the kind of ignorant comment you hear time and time again. Or see on social media. Thank you OP for calling it what it is. I'm sorry you've had so many racists telling you it isn't a big deal or worse things happen to Jews so you shouldn't care about other races.

I find the wide eyed "Huh? What do you mean? Rats?" reaction works well, as previously mentioned. I snapped and told someone they were a disgusting human being once but I don't recommend this unless you're able to run away quickly!

Challenging it is always, always a good thing as long as you do it wisely with an eye for your own safety.

There are a lot of people on here being very wide eyed and innocent about this "not being racist". Thank Farage and his cohorts for normalising this attitude. 😔 To see it on Mumsnet though, masquerading as respectability, is sickening.

Another one obsessed with Farage and Reform. It's a wonder he needs to campaign with mentionitus doing his work for him.