Discussion»Questions»Human Behavior» If someone you communicate with, someone who perhaps hopes to get with you - suddenly made a racist statement.. what would you do?
I am married for 20+ yrs so not an issue now. But I have had customers make comments about products because saying they want to buy that "racial slur" ....I politely tell them I don't have any of those. If they persist I tell them I will not sell it to them.
Thirty years ago, if a girl made a racist remark I woukd privately decide NOT to ask her out, unless it was an obvious joke and she was a member of the group she was joking about. One girl I fancied of Italian descent frequently referred to herself as a "wog". The only jokes about Australian Aborigines I've laughed at were told by an aboriginal mate of mine. It does make a difference, it's why Mel Brooks gets away with all the Jewish jokes. If he wasn't Jewish, they'd crucify him.
That's relevant because until Ross Perot ran for president and turned the phrase "You people" into a racist slur, I had frequently used the same phrase to designate or address groups of people of any color---and no one took umbrage at that appellation.
So, depending on who says something and how it is says, I usually cut people who make such statements a good deal of slack until I understand their intent / reason for using it.
And that's a good point.. we shouldn't assume.. we should ideally ask what they mean.. and if there's any glint of doubt I would ask... but there didn't seem to be here..
I applaud your honesty in admitting you examined your own attitudes. Perot's line about standing outside the black churches and hearing the singing? It is just an unfortunate fact that America was segregated at the time; not Perot's fault. What he intended to convey was that he always felt some connection to the blacks, but he could have chosen his words a little more carefully, and politics being what it is, his opponents jumped on it, and made more out of it than was really there. Trump said much more racially offensive things, and a great number of them, and still got elected, which leads me to conclude that a good part of the US public has lost its moral core. Shame on them!
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Randy D 