King Charles III's time is up

[Dom Traynor]

In New Zealand where I think around 28% of us were born overseas it's perfectly acceptable to ask people where they're from. However even here we wouldn't interrogate people. I hope.

Occasionally a Māori person will get asked by a Brit or an American and that is cringe. To say the least.

I have to say though that my partner and her mates (all Filipino) are terrible and spend ages speculating on the racial origins of randos. Still it's noseyness not hostility.

 

[pseudonarcissus]

 

[Serge Forward]

When I was down south, I once came a cropper with "where are you from?" I'd detected a fellow Manc so I meant what part of Manchester. She not unreasonably took it to mean The Big Racist Question and I felt like a right twat

 

[ska invita]

dinnerladies was

 

[likesfish]

83 year old upper class twit racist shock and horror

 

[kalidarkone]

In New Zealand where I think around 28% of us were born overseas it's perfectly acceptable to ask people where they're from. However even here we wouldn't interrogate people. I hope.

Occasionally a Māori person will get asked by a Brit or an American and that is cringe. To say the least.

I have to say though that my partner and her mates (all Filipino) are terrible and spend ages speculating on the racial origins of randos. Still it's noseyness not hostility.

Yes it's definitely about the context of the question, not the question itself.

 

[danny la rouge]

Yes it's definitely about the context of the question, not the question itself.

Yes, the implied subtext behind the question, and in this case the downright abusive persistence. Ngozi Fulani, the charity boss in question, is in the news today as saying it was abuse. She’s right. I’m amazed she managed to stay so polite.

 

[danny la rouge]

I really hope the Monarchy is crumbling. I hope they fall in grace. It’s such a bulwark of embedded privilege. Hopefully people generally start to question its role in society.

 

[Sweet FA]

The other horror is that none of those bastards will think she's racist. They just won't get it. They will refuse to even countenance it. It's not like they're going to discuss it with black people or do a bit of reading or in any way consider their position. From the way the transcript reads, Hussey clearly thinks Fulani is being disingenuous and avoiding the question - though not for the reasons she thinks.

We can't educate them: execute them all, the rotten, degenerate fucks.

 

[danny la rouge]

I have to say though that my partner and her mates (all Filipino) are terrible and spend ages speculating on the racial origins of randos. Still it's noseyness not hostility.

That’s the thing isn’t it? It’s perfectly normal to be curious. Like Serge Forward ’s accent query. We enjoy finding out cultural connections and variations. We like to fill in backstories for people.

I have a mongrel accent. I’ve picked up bits from my partner, who is from Staffordshire, from my parents and grandparents, from places I’ve lived and worked. It tells the story of my life, my background, and a couple of drinks in me and I’ll gladly regale you with it all, then listen to yours. We can swap local idioms. I’ll tell you my granny would say “come away ben the hoose” to visitors at the door to mean “let’s adjourn to the living room”. And so on.

But that’s not what’s happening here. It’s about names and skin tones being used to signify Other and getting people to “admit” their Difference. And it’s shit that generous curiosity is tarnished by this smug racist fucking superior fucking small mindedness in this day and age. And that we’ve still got a fucking embedded family of the cunts right at the centre of the state, symbolising power.

 

[ElizabethofYork]

I just knew that GB Bastard News would be discussing this today. The vile twats had a poll of their viewers asking "is it racist to ask a person where they're from"? The result was that 99% of people said no - unsurprisingly. The hosts then said yes, the snowflakes have got it all out of proportion as usual, and the poor old lady is a victim of lefty loonies.

 

[danny la rouge]

I just knew that GB Bastard News would be discussing this today. The vile twats had a poll of their viewers asking "is it racist to ask a person where they're from"? The result was that 99% of people said no - unsurprisingly. The hosts then said yes, the snowflakes have got it all out of proportion as usual, and the poor old lady is a victim of lefty loonies.

Unsurprising. Mrs LR and I were discussing yesterday and we had some anti Meghan people in mind (distant relations) we knew would come to the same conclusions as the above.

 

[skyscraper101]

I had this with a friend of mine recently in the pub. We got talking to this Aussie woman of Asian heritage (who'd lived here for 20 odd years), and my friend was all like 'but where are you originally from' and I was like - and the woman was all polite about it and said Hong Kong or something, but I took my friend to one side and said I know it wasn't meant offensively but it does sometimes piss people off being asked like that.

But then my friend started to berate me for taking her to task, and it got a bit argumentative before I decided it wasn't worth the agg so just dropped it.

 

[skyscraper101]

I should've just showed her this tbh.

 

[rubbershoes]

I always remember banging on a random door in the SE of England. The (Asian) woman who answered said something in a very broad Scottish accent and I immediately said 'ooh, where're you from?' and she said 'Dundee' and we ended up having quite a long chat.

Now obviously I could've meant it otherwise but guess my accent kind of tipped her of about what I meant. (It was only later on that it dawned on me she could've taken something else from my question entirely )

If she'd said her family was from Gujerat, you would have said . No, where are YOU from? Is that Dundee I'm hearing?

 

[danny la rouge]

I’m aware most of the thread is white people saying “but the thing I did wasn’t meant that way”.

 

[Serge Forward]

I’m aware most of the thread is white people saying “but the thing I did wasn’t meant that way”.

To be fair, when she confirmed which part of Manchester, me saying "fuck off Didsbury scum" did me no favours

 

[danny la rouge]

To be fair, when she confirmed which part of Manchester, me saying "fuck off Didsbury scum" did me no favours

I thought that was basically the same place as Salford?

 

[Orang Utan]

I’m aware most of the thread is white people saying “but the thing I did wasn’t meant that way”.

These people have to learn that good intentions (or lack of bad intentions) don’t count, it’s how one’s comments are received by other people that counts, which is why people need to listen and learn

 

[Kevbad the Bad]

A long, long time ago, back in the the days when I had an over-the-top Afro (Irish curly hair genes) and quite a tan (outdoor job all summer) I went to a party sporting a Rasta tam a friend had given me. So someone asked me where I came from. So I told him, at great length, that my father was black from Sierra Leone, my mother white from Croydon. I knew next to nothing about Sierra Leone, but luckily he knew even less.

 

[8ball]

A few years ago I was at the corner shop and had the following confusing conversation at the end of the booze-buying transaction:

Me: … and that’s everything, thanks.
Lad behind counter (lbc): You are from Iran <pronounced more like “Irrun”>
Me: Sorry
Lbc: You are from Irrun, right?
Me: Iran?
Lbc: Yes, Irrun.
Me: Ah, no. I’m not from Iran.
Lbc: Oh…. <thinks> … But you are from Persia right?

This was an Iranian-owned shop and the Iranian family on my street had a lot of people round for the old fellah’s 80th bd at the time, so maybe he figured I was one of that family, but the Iran/Persia thing still doesn’t make sense to me.

 

[danny la rouge]

A few years ago I was at the corner shop and had the following confusing conversation at the end of the booze-buying transaction:

Me: … and that’s everything, thanks.
Lad behind counter (lbc): You are from Iran <pronounced more like “Irrun”>
Me: Sorry
Lbc: You are from Irrun, right?
Me: Iran?
Lbc: Yes, Irrun.
Me: Ah, no. I’m not from Iran.
Lbc: Oh…. <thinks> … But you are from Persia right?

This was an Iranian-owned shop and the Iranian family on my street had a lot of people round for the old fellah’s 80th bd at the time, so maybe he figured I was one of that family, but the Iran/Persia thing still doesn’t make sense to me.

Politics intit. It’s like Derry/Londonderry.

 

[8ball]

Politics intit. It’s like Derry/Londonderry.

Yeah, on Googling it looks like it may be ethnicity vs. nationality. Like you can be ethnically Persian but Scottish either due to becoming a citizen or being born in Scotland. Whereas “Iranian” is used more in reference the nation State apparently.

Though I have a mate in Nottingham who refers to herself as half-Iranian, so I suppose it’s not universal.

 

[danny la rouge]

These will be the sort of headlines they’ll have been hoping for. They’ll be glad they made the trip.

 

[Serge Forward]

A few years ago I was at the corner shop and had the following confusing conversation at the end of the booze-buying transaction:

Me: … and that’s everything, thanks.
Lad behind counter (lbc): You are from Iran <pronounced more like “Irrun”>
Me: Sorry
Lbc: You are from Irrun, right?
Me: Iran?
Lbc: Yes, Irrun.
Me: Ah, no. I’m not from Iran.
Lbc: Oh…. <thinks> … But you are from Persia right?

This was an Iranian-owned shop and the Iranian family on my street had a lot of people round for the old fellah’s 80th bd at the time, so maybe he figured I was one of that family, but the Iran/Persia thing still doesn’t make sense to me.

Iran Chamber Society: When "Persia" became "Iran"

 

[ska invita]

Perhaps meant that Persian could be any of this

 

[Sue]

Iran Chamber Society: When "Persia" became "Iran"

Interesting, I used to work with quite a few people from Iran and they would always refer to themselves (and their language) as Persian. Wonder if there's other stuff going on there terminology-wise.

 

[8ball]

Looking at the above, I think he prob was talking just in terms of ethnicity as opposed to where I live.

 

[DaveCinzano]

Yeah, on Googling it looks like it may be ethnicity vs. nationality. Like you can be ethnically Persian but Scottish either due to becoming a citizen or being born in Scotland. Whereas “Iranian” is used more in reference the nation State apparently.

Though I have a mate in Nottingham who refers to herself as half-Iranian, so I suppose it’s not universal.

Perhaps meant that Persian could be any of this

 

[Smangus]