To feel like pub staff should not turn a blind eye to inappropriate comments?

[LaurenSw]

We have just returned from a great week away in the UK, staying by the coast and travelling to nearby areas each day.

We visited quite a few pubs, and a feature in almost all of these was local men stood by the bar making sexual/racist comments and then chuckling away.

The bar staff would usually roll their eyes and tell us they just let them get on with it.

On the last day, my DH said something to a man in one of the pubs who made a particularly vile comment. The staff who was present actually told my DH to cheer up!

Is it me or should staff do more to cut this sort of thing out?

Are you saying that people in deprived areas shouldn't be held to the same standards?

That is a fair point. However, often, people living in the most deprived areas often bear the brunt of mass immigration and it would be unfair to judge candid comments made in a pub setting harshly, prior to returning to an affluent middle class area, to how they might discuss these issues in their polite dinner parties.

We don't know if the OP was in a deprived area or if their comments were about being directly affected by immigration. I believe it's possible to discuss current affairs without being racist.

@MiloMinderbinder925 well she did mention Dover, which did appear to be pretty deprived when I last visited there in August 2020, an all too brief period that our dear leader allowed us to leave our homes.

In any case, I was addressing your broader point about holding (or otherwise) people on the lower end of the socio-economic scale to the same standards as those in 'polite society'. While there is no excuse for racism, I am inclined to be more forgiving to those who have seen the character of their town change and their life chances trampled upon due to mass immigration, legal or otherwise.

The OP didn't say she was in Dover, she said that one of the wags mentioned Dover and snipers ie picking off asylum seekers one by one.

She didn't say that the drinkers were on the lower end of the socio economic scale. From my experience, racists aren't on any particular socio economic scale.

You can discuss austerity, lack of industry, globalisation, wage stagnation, neo liberalism, lack of regulation and increasing poverty without talking about shooting foreigners. In fact, you don't have to scapegoat foreigners at all.

I assume you've never worked in a bar? Next time stick yo cafes and tea shops where you can be more genteal and clutch your pearls freely.

And when, when will we be able to separate the issues of racism and immigration? Only then can we have a sensible, grown-up discussion about immigration, which is surely about numbers, resources, infrastructure, housing, jobs etc - rather than race? Yes, there are racists around and they'll fixate on the topic, but while all racists will object to immigration, not all those who question immigration policy are racists. Many are themselves from British ethnic minorities.

Off topic - sorry - but it's a massive problem because immigration is something all European countries are now wrestling with due to wars, oppression and climate change elsewhere and it's not helpful or realistic for some people to try to shut down such discussions with knee-jerk accusations of racism.

End of rant.

Well the question is why we have immigration. This never gets discussed in the dry way it should be. It’s about money and growing the economy. It is not about;

diversity, equality or some sort of cultural quest to consider global thinking

It’s totally reasonable to say immigration is about economics. We could discuss why British people lack the relevant skills or what help they need to get them. That’s not racism, it’s pragmatic.