posted
But would you be offended if someone asked you to read German? I doubt it.
I had someone (a black man) complain "I discriminated against him" because I couldnt stop my printing presses to run his small order but I was able to take five minutes (while the presses were still running) to help an old (white) woman to fax her stuff. I was so mad, I could have belted that fuck. The guy smiled at me, called my corporate offices on his cell phone and told them I discriminated against him and then wanted me to run his order immeadeately anyway....all while I took a wnother woman's order (white) for 24 hours later because we were so busy. He didint tell corperate that part, though. As if by his calling corperate and playing the race card, he was entitled to preferential treatment. I told him what I could do his job in 24 hour at best. Still pisses me off though. I'm a tall white guy that shaves his head and I have a short cropped beard/goatee. To this guy, I must have looked racist, so he assumed that was why I couldnt do his job (my explanation notwithstanding). So, was I discriminated against because of his preconceptions?
-------------------- Justice inclines her scales so that wisdom comes at the price of suffering. -Aeschylus, Agamemnon
Registered: Aug 2002
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Cartman
just made by the Presbyterian Church
Member # 256
posted
People like that deliberately look to start something, nothing more. It's overcompensation for what they think still exists (and the sad truth is, it does).
[ December 06, 2003, 07:07 AM: Message edited by: Cartman ]
Registered: Nov 1999
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posted
It does exist but jumping the gun and assuming you're always being slighted is hardly what Dr. King had in mind....
-------------------- Justice inclines her scales so that wisdom comes at the price of suffering. -Aeschylus, Agamemnon
Registered: Aug 2002
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posted
Why is it so offensive when people make assumptions about you based on the way you look or talk? I don't get it. That's how we work. You analyze with your senses and make assumptions about your environment. Some people are better at it than others.
Being a big stinky and fully-americanized kraut, if someone thought I was Irish or Swedish or Danish or Dutch, it wouldn't surprise me. Like, yeah, I'm a really big white dude with blue eyes and blonde hair. So it's kind of a gimme.
If a person of asian descent had difficulty distinguishing between the admittedly subtle variations in scandanavian heritage, I wouldn't be the slightest bit offended. I have difficulty with it at times myself. And so sometimes people don't know the differences between Danish wrtiting and German, and that's a totally natural mistake. Who's got time to be offended by that? How is it different if I have a tough time distinguishing Cambodians from Vietnamese?
Registered: Sep 2000
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posted
The assumption is the whole crux of the argument. Yeah, if I was in China, and saw a white person, I would take a stab that they are likely to be American, but I wouldn't go up to them and start chatting in English assuming that they could understand me.
In the same way, I have Indian friends, but I wouldn't assume that they could read, say, punjabi. I would ask. Because, at the end of the day, it's polite.
quote: I was so mad, I could have belted that fuck.
As Diane said, don't you think you are overreacting just a tad?
-------------------- Yes, you're despicable, and... and picable... and... and you're definitely, definitely despicable. How a person can get so despicable in one lifetime is beyond me. It isn't as though I haven't met a lot of people. Goodness knows it isn't that. It isn't just that... it isn't... it's... it's despicable.
Registered: Mar 1999
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quote:Originally posted by Omega: You missed the analogy. This is an American asking an Asian person in American if she could read Chinese. An Indian person in India might ask an American if he could read German.
And that analogy doesn't work, because on the one hand you're talking about a person of a certain race in a country, and the other hand a person from a country being in another country.
Anyway, assuming that you weren't being casually racist (Asian people aren't proper American like wot we are!), and assuming you meant "white person" instead of "American" in the final part, is still doesn't work. Looking at the relative racial make-ups of both countries, a white person in India is far less likely to be Indian than a Chinese person in the US.
And in any case, there's a far clearer delimination of lines amoungst Far Eastern races. Chinese people look far more different from Japanese people than Americans do from Germans. Apart from the weight, obviously.
-------------------- Yes, you're despicable, and... and picable... and... and you're definitely, definitely despicable. How a person can get so despicable in one lifetime is beyond me. It isn't as though I haven't met a lot of people. Goodness knows it isn't that. It isn't just that... it isn't... it's... it's despicable.
Registered: Mar 1999
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posted
We hired a woman here couple weeks ago. She had the oddest skin coloring. You know that color coffee turns when you add one of those little creamer things? That color.
Now, we don't track our workers according to race or anything like that (even though it is legal to do so because we run government contracts...) Couldn't just come out and ask her because it would have caused a backlash.
Then again I don't know that it would have... I just didn't want to take that chance.
Long story short, one of the other workers asked her and she's a mix of black/chineese/native american.
Kind of cool to find out her background, but I wish it was easier to just ASK people these things without fear of being blasted.
-------------------- Like A Bat Out Of Hell...
Registered: Aug 2001
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"Chinese people look far more different from Japanese people than Americans do from Germans."
That doesn't really say much, since the Americans in question might be German (or, rather, of German descent). An American could be of any number of racial sub-categories (and probably a mix). If you're gogin to compare sub-sets of white people, it would probably be better to use Germanics, Mediterraneans, Slavics, etc. Or something like that. I don't really know where the lines are drawn.
And, anyway, I can't tell the difference between different types of East Asians. But, then, I can't tell the difference between different types of Europeans, either.
Registered: Mar 1999
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quote:Originally posted by PsyLiam: The assumption is the whole crux of the argument. Yeah, if I was in China, and saw a white person, I would take a stab that they are likely to be American, but I wouldn't go up to them and start chatting in English assuming that they could understand me.
Happens all the time here in Tokyo. All non-Asians are assumed to speak English. Even non-European non-Asians are assumed to speak English. It's the best guess, since English is the world's lingua franca, and most international business people and tourists (as opposed to economic refugees) here do speak English. The largest exception are Chinese and Korean tourists.
About 15 years ago, when foreigners were relatively rare here, school children would routinely yell "hello, hello!" at any non-Asian person to try out their English. Drunken salarymen will still do this.
On the other hand, whites are usually assumed first to be Americans, then English. Scots, Australians, Germans, Frenchmen, and especially Canadians and Frenchmen spend most of their time feeling indignated.
-------------------- When you're in the Sol system, come visit the Starfleet Museum
Registered: Oct 1999
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quote:Originally posted by PsyLiam: And in any case, there's a far clearer delimination of lines amoungst Far Eastern races. Chinese people look far more different from Japanese people than Americans do from Germans. Apart from the weight, obviously.
The Japanese pride themselves on being able to discern fine differences in quality between various consumer items, types of rice, and quality of cloth etc.. This discernment also extends to races and the belief that Japanese can infallibly tell by face alone who is "really Japanese" and who is a Chinese, Singaporean, or Korean "passing" as Japanese. The fact is, populations in all these countries have a great deal of overlap in appearance, due to ancient and more recent immigration as well as having all descended from the Chinese. So, while we can probably agree what a "typical"Japanese (or Chinese or Korean) face looks like, many native Japanese look like Koreans and Chinese (and vice versa). Furthermore, the standards of beauty or handsomeness in each country change considerably over the years such that a person considered ideally Japanese from the 1920s would now be considered to look somewhat Chinese.
I find that clothing, walking style, haircuts, and gestures are more reliable means of picking out non-Japanese tourists than is facial appearance alone.
-------------------- When you're in the Sol system, come visit the Starfleet Museum
Registered: Oct 1999
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quote:Originally posted by PsyLiam: I was so mad, I could have belted that fuckAs Diane said, don't you think you are overreacting just a tad?
I was'nt mad because he thought ill of me, but I was pissed that he assumed he could call corperate and get preferential treatment over other customers by making a stink....his smug attitude after he called corperate was what made me mad. I couldnt have stopped the orders I was running for anyone: it would have caused us to miss an imporntant deadline.
Annnnnyway, Maso, I it's intresting that you see diffrences in how people walk. The only real diffrence I've noticed between cultures is the volume they speak in: that tends to vary wildly between what is socially acceptable in diffrent cultures.
-------------------- Justice inclines her scales so that wisdom comes at the price of suffering. -Aeschylus, Agamemnon
Registered: Aug 2002
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posted
There's a black guy in the UK who's now been banned from taking out any more discrimination cases because he's taken out about 70 of them. Every time he was turned down for a job he would take a case to court claiming he hadn't got the job because he was black. Even when the successful candidate was black. Now that's overreacting.
Interestingly, last time I was in the US most people seemed to think I was Australian. I didn't mind but you would've though that Americans would know a British accent, bearing in mind the number of Brits in the US media (well, Blair and Hugh Grant at any rate). And it's not like the two accents are similar.
-------------------- "I am an almost extinct breed, an old-fashioned gentleman, which means I can be a cast-iron son-of-a-bitch when it suits me." --Jubal Harshaw
Registered: Feb 2002
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To you, perhaps. But some British and Australian accents are similar enough to each other (when compared to American accents) that an American who doesn't know or care about the difference (i.e. most) couldn't tell.
Registered: Mar 1999
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