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?

Yes. If I had as many people with me as they had with them.

Forest Fan wrote:
> stuff

You can come off all politically correct and suchlike refering to there awful stereotypes, but when it comes to religion then you're as intolerant as those "drunken layabouts" in the beer garden.

Racism, homophobicness and stuff doesn't especially bother me, probably because im not especially politically correct and im selfish in that there aren't any "remarks" to make about normal working class white guys. I'm not going to stand up for a race of people if someone makes a joke about the size of their appendages or their bushy shylock eyebrows. Most racist remarks are made by ignorant people as it is, so whats the point in offering them an opinion, they'll only dismiss it, punch you and go home and beat their wife.

The only thing that would really provoke a reaction from me would be someone bragging/etc about something kiddy-fiddly related. Then I'd break their face.

I'm quite lucky to live in such a mixedly diverse area as Ilford, as not too many racist comments are thrown around (except to Tamils for some reason?). I'd like to say I would speak up against racism and I have in the past, but truthfully I don't know whether I'd have the guts to tell a group of drunk white-trash the ignorance they spout.

A very similar situation actually arose when I was out with my geography class on a field trip to Somerset back in July. My entire geography class (bar myself) is Hindu with one other white. As we walked past a group of drunken lay abouts sprawled in a pub garden they shouted some insults at us like "Go back to London, you bombers." or "you f-ing bomber p@kis". Incidents like that show me I'm lucky to live in such a multi-cultural society and that it's a bit biased and unrealistic to think the English are always accepting different colours. A couple of us were able to tell the losers however, that they were ignorant, wrong and didn't know what they were talking about.

By the same token however when a gang of Muslims or whoever shout and swear at you "white boy" "white sh-" etc. it's not always easy (on your own at least) to speak up. And frankly when it's against me, it really doesn't bother me but I don't like to see other people offended.

Timmargh wrote:
> What FFF said.

Same.

I've spoken up against racists many times. Had a glass thrown at me once, that was fun. :)

I don't think I've ever been in a situation which required me to speak up.

I'd like to think I would do regardless, but I guess it depends on the situation.

Goatboy wrote:
> I dont want to go into it to be honest, I tend to see red instantly on
> that topic and it's too sunny to be filled with rage.

Gah! Fair enough :)

But in seriousness, if I overheard a conversation with racist remarks in it, for example, something like "...and teh black bas did this..." I'd ignore it - if I did say anything I'd either get a laugh and a "pisss off", or a punch.

If it's a mate (never happens though), or my parents (happens a lot), I'll tell thenm to shut up, and I have arguments nearly every weeks with my dad over his racism (He was brought up believing black people are scum, I know this because my aunt and uncle which I see regularly are exactly the same, so it's not something he picked up on his own, and it's not something I can change (though I've tried), but he always comes up with stupid excuses, and admits that he shouldn't be racist, but he is anyway.

Even talking about New Orleans the other night he said "I know you're not going to like what I'm going to say, but...." and then he continued on about the black people there.

I try convincing him all the time to stop - the night before last being the last time (would have tried last night, but we had visitors, and it would have been obscenely rude to show him up in front of friends, considering he hadn't said anything racist last night).

Sometimes my slave calls me "White Master".

Don't worry though, I beat him every time.