Is There Racism ? What would you have done ?

[matt wade]

So, those are the facts, and another fact is that, you, matt wade, are out of line in turning the accusation at me, of racism. Some of my best friends in this state are African Americans, and I have never entered an African American church here in the South where I was made to feel unwelcome.

However, sad to say, in the predominantly white State of Western New York, as I have shared in this forum, I have gone to white churches where not one came up to shake hands and welcome me and my wife.

In a white Mennonite sacred harp session in Rochester, all the white ladies at the alto section stood up and sat somewhere else and left my wife all alone in the middle of the row, with nary an invitation to join them.

Third experience with whites.

My wife applied for a job in Buffalo, in a bridal shop whose employees were all whites. She was made to stand in the reception room by the receptionist, white, of course, until somebody else noticed her, after about 15 minutes, and in between, customers, whites, have gone in and out of the store, to the receptionist, and been attended to.

She was hired, but given a broken down high speed sewing machine ten years old, and told she was expected to work very efficiently with that machine and churn out work as quick as they came.

Needless to say, we gave them the bird.

And I can count time and time again that latinos and blacks have treated me horribly. I've been called a whitey and a honkey. I've been shoved around and gotten in to fights for no reason except that I was white. I, unlike you, don't account their bad actions to the entire black or latino population. I attribute it to them being stupid people, regardless of their race. That's the difference and that's what makes you a racist.

 

[annsni]

PB - I've had the same kind of treatment at times and I'm regular old white. You can see in my pic. I'm sure there's some racism but I also think that sometimes people just label any time that people are rude as racist when that's not the case.

BTW - My daughter's boyfriend is from Guadamala and his parents speak English pretty well but with a very strong accent and somewhat broken. I sincerely hope that when they're old enough and ready, they marry. And I wouldn't care if he were black or green. He treats my daughter like a princess and loves the Lord. That's what matters to me.

 

[pinoybaptist]

pinoybaptist sez:This post seemed to be a bit on the "victimization" theme, but the quoted sentence capped it!

I dare say that you have NO idea what you may have said that any given caller took as an insult, or "racist", or even just rude.

You may have no recollection of any such comments, BUT you have absolutely no certainty that somebody did not take your comment(s) the same way you did the clerks in the OP. I could accept you claiming not making intentional comments of this nature, but the emphatic mode that you wrote that you [have never spoken a rude word back]makes you appear a little too cocky and a lack of sense of your own human frailties!

Self righteousness is NOT an admirable quality.

When you work in a call center, each and every call is recorded. In addition, there are quality control supervisors who monitor calls received by every call center agent, and believe me, if any agent so much as said anything rude or out of line to any customer, provoked or not, that agent will not be there the next day.
I have never been fired from a job, call center or otherwise, here or in my old country.
I don't know what you do for a living, but this is what I do for a living, so if you have not worked for a call center before, it is wise for you not to show your ignorance just so you can keep grounding me to dust.
I do know my human frailty, and treating a customer rudely, insultingly, and impolitely, is not one of them.
It's a Filipino thing, we try to always be polite to people who put food on our table, a.k.a "the customer".

 

[pinoybaptist]

And I can count time and time again that latinos and blacks have treated me horribly. I've been called a whitey and a honkey. I've been shoved around and gotten in to fights for no reason except that I was white. I, unlike you, don't account their bad actions to the entire black or latino population. I attribute it to them being stupid people, regardless of their race. That's the difference and that's what makes you a racist.

And I've never been shoved around or treated horribly by latinos, blacks, and Jews, and I think that' s because they have never been treated horribly by what they perceive to be my race their judgment coming from the color of my skin: brown. I'm no threat to them. Personally, or historically.
You on the other hand have gotten into fights simply because you're white, and that is why you think you're entitled to jump right in and stick your dirty, white fingers at my face and call me racist, and by implication justify the white lady's actions and words as proper, correct, and worthy of emulation.

So actually, you and I are of the same level here.

You reacted and called me the racist because you have been beat on by non-whites simply because you were white, and I can't help but think that lady is racist based on my past experiences with whites. And that is how you react to anyone who ever says anything not so good about whites.

We're even.

 

[matt wade]

And that is how you react to anyone who ever says anything not so good about whites.

We're even.

No..I would have reacted exactly the same if the cashier was a black or brown skin woman and you were a white person with the same stupid story. Once again, that's what makes you a racist, and me not one. You bring race into everything while I try my best to overlook it.

 

[Winman]

Making remarks about food can be racist. I work with a Cambodian man who brings in his lunch everyday. Many times his lunch is fish and does have a strong odor. I have never said anything, fish really doesn't bother me, but a few employees have made fun of his lunch on numerous occasions. He took it quietly for a long time but one day I guess it got to him and he lost his temper and started shouting at everyone in the cafeteria. The most amazing think about this incident was that the comment that set him off was made by our HR lady, the person who should have known better.

So while it is really true that his lunches often have a strong odor, people should try to be considerate and temperate of people from other cultures who often eat foods strange to America.

 

[targus]

When you work in a call center, each and every call is recorded. In addition, there are quality control supervisors who monitor calls received by every call center agent, and believe me, if any agent so much as said anything rude or out of line to any customer, provoked or not, that agent will not be there the next day.
I have never been fired from a job, call center or otherwise, here or in my old country.
I don't know what you do for a living, but this is what I do for a living, so if you have not worked for a call center before, it is wise for you not to show your ignorance just so you can keep grounding me to dust.
I do know my human frailty, and treating a customer rudely, insultingly, and impolitely, is not one of them.
It's a Filipino thing, we try to always be polite to people who put food on our table, a.k.a "the customer".

Did it occur to you to simply address your concerns to the store manager so that he could correct this girl's behavior?

In doing so you might have saved some future customer the same uncomfortable feeling that you experienced and she may have learned something that could have helped her to become a better person.

 

[MrJim]

To continue the title: What would you have thought, and how would you have reacted ?

Last night I went to Giant, one of the "superstores" here in Waldorf, Maryland. Among the items I bought were two wrappers of salted Mackerel fillets. At the check out, the cashier, white, pretty and attractive, and conscious of it, reacted in a manner which I found to be insulting, tactless, and bottom line: racist.

When she got to the two items mentioned above, she said and did something right there in front of me, other customers, and her bag boy. She made a slight face, with the remark that the "stuff" is smelly, she doesn't like it, would not eat it, held the stuff the way one would when handling a dead, rotting rat.

I repeat, all these, within hearing distance of me, who sometimes have to wear a hearing amplifier, the shopper who bought the food THEY were selling, treated like a mountain man who eats live chicken, yuckie, yuckie.

I was sorely tempted to put her in place right there and then, but that would cause a scene, hold up other customers who had nothing to do with the problem, so I kept the receipt which had her name on it, and fired a complaint to Consumer Affairs of Giant.

What would you have done if this happened to you, and how would you have felt ?

I've been to Waldorf on many work-related occasions and I think it just might be the town, folks are a bit...different down there:laugh:

 

[Twizzler]

Everyone needs to just run AWAY from this thread as fast as possible. There is absolutely nothing to be gained here. Nobody is going to be changing their minds on anything that happened, so why even argue? These discussions disgust me. How can one know another person's heart?

You can't.