Am I racist? I hope not.

[Kendodd]

I was watching One Born Every Minute the other day and they had a black midwife on there, she was lovely. It got me thinking though, I have seen some doctors and hospital staff who are foreign and that ideally I would not want to see me because I haven't been able to easily understand what they are saying. The midwife on telly appeared to be English, English accent and mannerisms. Having said that I wouldn't want somebody with a very strong local accent that I couldn't understand either although I would feel a lot happier voicing that.

I think we all have prejudices, obviously myself included but it's not easy to just change what you think and feel.

Racist = discriminating because of race/skin colour - you are not guilty IMO

Accent-ist = discriminating because of accent - you are guilty, but reasonable

so... if you were Scottish and your midwife was from say The East end of London and had a strong cockney accent you would have issue with that?

Jax - think OP would have an issue if she couldn't understand the conversation, nothing more.

It's not just that though, I do have other prejudices, I do make assumptions about people I don't know because of the way they look. Not all of them bad but not all good either.

I'm not the sort of person who wouldn't want anyone different living next door or as friends or for my children to marry. In fact I would quite like it as it would bring a bit of interest into our lives, but that in itself is racist is it not? It's not treating everyone that same until I get to know them.