Viewing Thread:
"Do you speak up?"

A topic arose on The Wright Stuff this morning about speaking up to people who make bigot/racist/homophobic remarks. I decided to post this here as it's quite an interesting topic which has affected me in the past.

Say if you was in the pub and you over hear someone making racist remarks, do you speak up and say something? Or do you just keep in quiet?

It's quite a hard dilemma seeing as you'd be concerned on the outcome. I remember Goatboy saying he punched someone in a bar for making some joke/remark about 9/11.

I've heard my Grandma say racist things in the past, but I've never said anything against it because of the fact that my parents have been there, making it very awkward to speak up. My friends have said the same about their elders, I guess it's just the way they were brought up compared to us.

So yeah - Speak up or keep quiet?

If it was someone I respected/talked about then I'd talk it over, see where they're coming from, although that hasn't happened yet. I've got a friend who used to refer to all dark skinned people (including Mexicans) as P@ki's, but he wasn't really racist as he didn't discriminate as such - he had a label for everything.

I'm a hippie, apparently! :@


If it's someone I don't care about then I figure it's their problem. If I saw someone being abused by it then I might say something if I had the courage, but I'm not really sure what I'm like over that... guess I'll find out if the situation arises. :-)

Interesting replies.

I think the older generation are still the worse for it, we're meant to respect our elders but I have heard them on occasion say things which don't seem right. Obviously like people have said, it's the way they've been brought up.

When you hear an older person spouting a load of racist crap, you kind of feel awkward (in my opinion) to say anything about it. If you speak up, you'd probably get a lot of stick from everyone.

Meh, I usually speak up against my Sister who usually spouts a load of stereotypical rubbish. Like, she always thinks black people are criminals etc.

Pretty much what Sheepy said for me.

I remember heading back to a mate's house from a night out, and we (somehow) got talking to some stranger... When we were speaking to him he was making... Not overtly racist comments, but he was hinting that way... I remember us comtemplating beating the crap out of him and stealing his (rather expensive) watch. In the end we just pointed him in the direction of the roughest pub around when he asked if we knew any good drinking holes...

If it's a friend or someone else roughly my age or younger, I make a big deal out of it generally.

Quite a few times I've split up fights for the rugby or football teams I play for, but turn around and dash back after them myself, if they pass a racist comment about a team mate.

I got into quite a big fight over racism actually. Racists really do have big, big problems.

EDIT:

Stupidest people are those who wear the racism bands, and then make biggoted comments...

Fort Deadly Kick wrote:
> I should bust my Table-torpedo move on that clown.

Again with the gay euphemisms...

I should bust my Table-torpedo move on that clown. (Throw a table at their teeth like a giant missile)

England. He was always making snide comments trying to get a reaction from me usually i'd ignore it however it was a bit hard to ignore something as offensive as that. The teachers agreed also and he was the one who got suspended for a week

Kawada wrote:
> I've also gotten into a punch up with an idiot in school over some
> remarks he made about 9/11 to. Was a couple of days after it had
> happened and i still hadn't heard from my family over in New York to
> see if they were alright and as i'm walking past the moron says *hey
> i've got a bucket and spade if you want to go over and dig your
> family out the rubble*

What kind of idiot says that? He must of wanted a punch up or something, you cant say something like that and expect someone to ignore it.

Was this when you were in Canada or england?

I have a black nan and a white nan. I rule.

I'd speak up if I were you, I wouldn't be nasty about it though, just let her/him know that you dont think what they said was right or funny.