Jolly Racist Banter

[Dogdidmyhomework]

Sorry I've gone on a bit...

One of my dps was Irish the other English. I was born and brought up in the UK. I live in the UK. My partner is English.

Twice now my ds (late teens) has told me that one of his uncles and a cousin has indulged in some 'hilarious' piss-taking about his Irish roots.

Last night he said that at a recent family get together another uncle and his dad (my partner) were joining in.

The sort of thing I'm talking about ranges from repeating such wittisisms as 'pig under my arm' and 'shillelagh' in a cod Irish accent to references to killing British policemen.

My partner's family like to say lots of 'close to the bone' contraversial things on all sorts of topics when they get together and laugh uproariously. It's their way of bonding and being together (thankfully infrequent). It's usually tedious but I just tend to ignore.

I've previously made it clear to my partner that I don't find the Irish stuff funny.

My dc doesn't find it funny but also doesn't seem bothered by it he says he doesn't feel anything about it.

Last night I felt very angry and upset because my partner didn't seem to understand why I felt disrespected and sad for my ds.

Worst of all my partner basically told me it was all in good fun and I should get over myself.

After a discussion/argument that followed a well worn path he did eventually apologise for unintentionally hurting my feelings.

I suffered a bit of name calling in the seventies at junior school because of my Irish parent, so I'm undoubtedly triggered.

I do recognise my partner and his family love my ds and wouldn't want to hurt him; I don't think they'd want to upset me. This kind of 'jolly banter' is just 'their way' (they'd say).

My partner can be pretty hopeless when it comes to emotions.
He does show love and care in other ways though.

This morning I'm less angry but I still feel hurt. I wish in a way I'd said nothing because we were all having a nice evening and now there's that awkward post argument phase to get through.

This post no doubt raises all sorts of questions but the general one is -
my partner feels I'm being unreasonable not to take it all as a jolly banter, am I?

I think that part of the problem with racism against Irish or other white people is that it can go unnoticed for quite a long time.

Many people think it's acceptable or even impossible to be racist against white people.

If you were black and your partner's family thought it was OK to make racist jokes about black people, would you have stayed and had children with him? Would he be calling it "jolly banter"?

What's the difference?

Nailed it

Yes I agree, I did say to him, 'if ds were half Pakistani' would you do the same?

And what was his response?

It's clear why you are angry about this and why it impacts you but your son who it was directed at was not and feels nothing about it so I'm not sure you should feel sad for him. It's a sadness that he doesn't have any sense of how this isn't acceptable about Irish people even if it doesn't impact him though. It seems pretty basic to expect your partner to know this isn't acceptable and I wonder how often the near the bone humour isn't acceptable but not directed at you and your off spring, and I wonder what he is learning about jibes about other groups or cultures which you let go. I'd find this attempt at humour hard to cope with and wouldn't indulge it as just their way.

Look at the "throwing a paddy" or "haitch" threads on here and you will see this is very common.

If someone told me that something that i said upset them, I'd stop saying it around them. Or I'd stop saying it completely if I thought I might also be upsetting other people too (who hadn't told me)

If someone doesn't care enough about how you feel, to stop saying things that upset you, then imo they're not very nice people

Your son can choose what upsets him.

A 'no' but sadly no thought went into it, it was said just to get me to drop the subject I think.

Sometimes he thinks about things and will recognise stuff after the heat of an argument and apologise (as do I).

My post is about racism and also invalidating feelings I guess. He does that a lot and it comes straight from his family, they all do it. 'Don't be silly', 'That's ridiculous' etc.

Post edited by MNHQ (to redact offensive term)

It sounds like you need to have a real discussion with him.

It's not OK for him to invalidate your feelings like that.

I would spell out that there is NO difference between his family's behaviour and making offensive remarks about "P*s" (for example), and that if you were of Pakistani heritage and his family were saying things like that, absolutely nobody would be telling you not to be silly or ridiculous. Most people would tell you that if he sided with his racist family over you and your son you should leave the bastard.

I think it’s best to be open with your family - you were bullied because of it so find sone of the humour too close to the language used by people who really hurt you and it still hurts

I’ve seen people take the piss out of others for all sorts of reasons and I don’t care if it’s racist or not - if it hurts the other person it has to stop. It’s the hurt that matters

Yes I agree. I don't want to pass something on to my son that he doesn't feel (good luck with that!).

And yes there are sometimes other jibes all said in an ironic ('this is only a joke') way and my son (and I) have challenged them, the good thing is my partner has modified his ways somewhat and recognised the other party didn't get the joke.

It’s certainly common, though (as an Irish person who spent close to 30 years living and working in different parts of England), obviously still from a minority of English people. I encountered it everywhere from Oxbridge common rooms to bus stops to taxi drivers to the family of friends to colleagues. The nasty thing is you never know when it will come up from someone who seemed perfectly nice. Someone queueing behind me for the Westminster Abbey midnight mass, with whom DH and I had been having perfectly pleasant chitchat, suddenly said ‘Of course, you Irish are such primitive people’ and did a big performative shudder about the only time she’d visited. A man at a bus stop in a midlands city centre telling me I must have been glad that the IRA bombed a building across the street (which happened when I was still at school in another country’. Jokes about drinking, fecklessness, backwardness, family size, superstition.

Generally white people, men more likely than women. Far worse outside London. The people who do it are also, in my experience, likely to be racist about people of colour. Irish people for them are not quite white, but can be co-opted into honorary full whiteness if there are non-white people around. I had people fully expect me to agree with them about ‘dirty Asians’ in the wake of an anti-Irish comment.

I was pretty assertive about it, but it ramped up where we were living around the Brexit referendum, and it contributed to our decision to leave the UK.

I'm sorry to hear about your experience but I'm not surprised, sadly.

https://www.abebooks.co.uk/servlet/BookDetailsPL?bi=30951585890&dest=gbr&ref_=ps_ggl_10939332144&cm_mmc=ggl--UK_Shopp_Textbookstandard--product_id=UK9780415918251USED-_-keyword=&gad_source=1&gad_campaignid=10939332144&gbraid=0AAAAAD3Y6gtdOUIogd-6AQfqHeyhkmkhI&gclid=Cj0KCQjwucDBBhDxARIsANqFdr2liMz_LFndvGugL3pW634GiyXL6Y2la1EAAr3GOMgCdfGt3wZ_JW4aAofbEALw_wcB

Buy him this. If not, buy it for your son.

I will thanks. In fact I watched a little bit of a video on just this theme the other day.

I'm a bit confused. You say that your partner is English, and he is the father of your son, but they were taking the p* out of your son's Irish roots?

Whatever it is just not acceptable. My mother is half Irish and every time I got into an argument with my former partner that was dragged in, that I was hot tempered or stupid because I'm a quarter Irish. No, it was because he was annoying.

That's because it isn't the same. It is arguably xenophobia, rather than racism. I think that trying to pretend that it is the same weakens the argument. I'm not saying that it isn't offensive, but it isn't 'racist'.

https://www.acas.org.uk/race

And you grasp that not all Irish people are white, right?

Legally it’s racism.
A lot of people say racism is based on colour, but legally at least it’s more than that.
https://www.theguardian.com/world/2017/may/31/to-counter-racism-you-must-know-what-it-is-start-with-the-definition-in-uk-law

The Equality Act 2010 says you must not be discriminated against because of your race. In the Equality Act, race can mean your colour, or your nationality (including your citizenship). It can also mean your ethnic or national origins, which may not be the same as your current nationality.

I know there are other definitions but that’s the legal meaning in the UK.

For practical purposes the exact definition is irrelevant- it upsets the OP. The end. Only someone nasty would continue to hurt someone they supposedly love and see as one of the family

Sorry, my son is a quarter Irish, my dad was Irish. I don't even know why the subject is of interest to my brother in law - he seems to go out of his way to bang on about it - I've long avoided visiting.

'Irish roots' was a bit of shorthand and my reference to 'half' Pakistani is confusing. Son isn't half Irish, I am. Although son is about to become an Irish citizen through his grandad - maybe that was mentioned and provoked some inexplicable 'ribbing'.

A whole generation was raised on "An Englishman, a Scotsman and an Irishman ...." jokes

So your partner takes the piss out of his own son because he has one Irish grandparents. That's quite a stretch and is just offensive. FWIW I can't imagine doing that to my DC (DH has one Irish parent) and so I don't think it's normal at all. I can understand why your DS feels nothing though, my kids don't feel Irish at all. But they have been exposed to the cultures of their other grandparents far more and have closer links to those.