Lest We Forget
Posted in Blog, In response to...., Rants by: LottieAs we hopped into a taxi on the rank on Dame Street we commented on the bad rank-etiquette of a taxi on the road ahead. We had barely secured our seat belts or tasted pine scented air when Mr. Taxi uttered the words “I’ll betcha it’s a black fella” quickly followed by some poor attempts to mitigate his (false) comment when he was met with a stony atmosphere and some scornful remarks.
Times are hard and everyone is out for themselves. Jobs are dwindling and people have become bitter in their struggle to maintain the standard of living they have become accustomed to in the arms of the Tigress People are looking for someone to blame. But are we not the country of a thousand welcomes? Haven’t the Irish been welcomed into every country world wide with open arms? When did it become acceptable to throw words and phrases like “the non-nationals” “them” and yes “the Blacks” around with such careless disregard?
It is easy to target Taxi Drivers and I by no means intend to tar every taxi driver with the same sickly brush but it has been my frequent experience that once the driver in Dublin City sees the pale skin and hears the accent they feel it acceptable to launch into a tirade of passive-aggressive racism. It’s an attitude that needs addressed quickly and efficiently before this pent-up hostility and ignorance manifests itself into further and wide-spread incidents of anti-social behaviour and sullies the minds of future generations and the reputation of the Irish across the globe.
October 16th, 2008 at 10:18 am
We need a stock phrase to stop it in its tracks. Something assertive and uncontentious like ‘I don’t have any interest in having a racist conversation’ Let’s change the subject’.
The husband has thrown people out of the shop in the past for being unpleasantly sexist or racist, I think it’s great to set a firm example like that.
October 16th, 2008 at 10:25 am
Yep, awful stuff, but we’ve always been like that. If it’s not the knackers it’s the blacks or the Polish or the Chinese. The American husband was appalled with the blatant racism when we got here. Even the news is bad… non-national means black and foreign-national means Polish. Come on if an Irish person commits the crime they don’t say so!
Mad stuff.
October 16th, 2008 at 1:35 pm
I’m proud to say I’ve removed people from the last place I worked for racist remarks to one of the Chinese employees. The punter (and his friends) couldn’t understand why I had done it – they were “just being funny”.
It’s the people who don’t realise they are being racist who irritate me far more than the hate-mongers. At least you can turn your back on the out and out racist types.
However, the ones who don’t seem to know they are being disparaging are our friends, our family, our shopkeepers, our barpersons and, yes, our taxi drivers. How has this culture managed to invade every part of our nation? I like to think I’m a proud Irishman, but not if that is what being Irish is. Perhaps it is better to consider myself a citizen of the world.
October 16th, 2008 at 1:37 pm
Jo is completely right. We weren’t even in the taxi thirty seconds when he piped up with that shite, yet none of us challenged him on it. I’m inclined to think that we are paying for a service and have a right not to listen to that kind of bullshit.
I once had quite a long taxi ride with a guy who was unbelievably vocal in his distaste for ‘the blacks’ and i did call him up on it, though not too strongly as he was such a scumbag that I was a little nervous he might drive me to a remote part of town and stab me. I told him that i just took what he was saying as unfounded racism and he said that he didn’t care. He knew damn well that he was making me uncomfortable and didn’t give a shite. But if we had said something the other day yer man could have kicked us out if he had wanted and we’d just have hopped in a different cab. I’m annoyed at myself for staying quiet.
October 16th, 2008 at 2:49 pm
you stole my post!
October 16th, 2008 at 4:04 pm
i think it’s foreign national now i think the term “non national” isn’t used at all anymore in an official setting.
October 16th, 2008 at 4:11 pm
and i think in ireland we are either too pc or too racist there doesn’t seem to be a middle ground i’m not condoning what yerman said in case ye think i am.
October 16th, 2008 at 5:05 pm
In similar situations I tend to use “My boyfriend is black”.
Makes them shut up pretty sharpish – and antagonises the homophobic side that is also likely to exist in such people.
October 16th, 2008 at 5:53 pm
Any “ism” is wrong.
Racism,
Sexism,
Ageism,
Lesbianism.
Wait, that’s not right.
It is incredibly typical that a lot of Irish people are racist considering our emigration record and that the racists among us can’t see the painful irony and ignorance.. However, you have to ask yourself how some have come to have this kind of opinion, they obviously haven’t been challenged on it enough.
Not speaking up to a racist puts you in as bad a category as them.
I could go on, but …
October 16th, 2008 at 6:09 pm
I’ve got to say – this is one of the reasons I’m not crying about the loss of Twenty Major to the Irish blogosphere. He had his own insipid brand of racism that crept into his posts every so often and it always reminded me of the xenophobic taxi drivers I’ve occasionally met. Sometimes it was breathtaking stuff, I often had to sit back and say: “I’m I just being uber sensitive here? Does no-one else see this?!”
It astounded me how the guy was lamented as Ireland’s best blogger on a yearly basis at the blog awards.
October 16th, 2008 at 11:41 pm
The good news is that his kid and the black fella’s kid are going to same school, mitching off together for a smoke, pulling the piss out of one another and being boisterous and annoying just like all the other kids – but they’re doing it together and these kids are the new Ireland. Every time I walk past the local primary and secondary schools, there it is. Kids being kids together. That’s the reality that make these “casual racists’ ” nonsense pretty irrelevant. Tomorrow doesn’t belong to them anymore.
(PS: CLASS (and classy) response Bad Ambassador)
October 17th, 2008 at 12:07 am
GRRRRRRRRRRR! Makes my boil fucking boil. Well done you for putting him right. I hate the way some people assume that we all think the same and we all share their fucked up views on things.
October 17th, 2008 at 5:50 pm
@daddy or chips – i think your view of the future might be a bit romantic, in my opinion, at least. of course it heps that kids mix at school but it’s not going to change people’s attitudes much.
it’s not exactly worked in other countries so why would it here.. not to mention that the irish education system doesn’t exactly encourage integration, quite opposite, it keeps divides people. also, kids get a lot of their attitudes from their parents, so the change really has to come from the parents…
i think what’s more shocking is that no one does nothing about this. there’s no media campaigns, nothing. recently there was an extremely racist comment printed in the dubliner, it was so hateful that i really couldn’t believe anyone would say it and that a magazine would print it, i’d never seen anything like it anywhere else and everyone i know was really shocked by it too. not to mention the claim was entirely made up and untrue, but some stupid people would no doubt take it as a fact. i emailed them to complain and to say i found them to be irresponsible etc etc, they said they’d print my letter, but they never did
what i found really strange, though, was that no one picked up on it. not one newspaper mentioned it and i googled several times and couldn’t find mentioned of the incident anywhere online, not even on the indy media website. i thought it was shocking that the magazine got away with it just like that and i doubt it would’ve been allowed to happened in many other countries.
October 17th, 2008 at 7:15 pm
@Jo – Stock phrase is a good idea. Like the litter campaign phrase “filth”. Actually that’s a good all-rounder.
@Andrew – In fairness you made a disparaging remark while I just sat there with my mouth open. It’s my fear of confrontation that stops me from responding – that and I only ever think of a good put down two days late.
@B’Dum- prove it!
@Bad Ambassador –
Clever!
@Daddy of Chips =- They say don’t blame the parents – but perhaps give the parents some credit for raising decent children.
October 17th, 2008 at 9:51 pm
Well Dublin in particular has always been the same if you ask me. I remember walking down grafton street with my cousin when she was just a kid – she must have been 10 or 11. The looks she got and the comments as wel when we were going back home in the bus. I was shocked as I had never seen anything like it before. I was so innocent at the time I didnt even realise it was becasue she was black!
October 17th, 2008 at 10:07 pm
@tina “@daddy or chips – i think your view of the future might be a bit romantic, in my opinion, at least. of course it heps that kids mix at school but it’s not going to change people’s attitudes much.”
Apart from the fact that these kids are people, and are tomorrow’s parents. There will always be racism, but I’m very optimistic about this country. Call it romantic if you wish, but there’s no reason why we have to follow the experience of other countries. Immigration to this country happened at a fortuitous time when the economy was strong and we needed workers. This resulted in not as much ‘resentment’ as might have been the case in some of our European neighbours.
Remember that our country is very small, especially rural Ireland. Ghettos that happened in other places have not happened here. People generally have to mix. Now the adults may not – there are very different cultural/linguistic/religious factors there, but the kids gotta get along.
They don’t have our baggage.
October 20th, 2008 at 11:01 am
…just the facts… the confidential
This case, this case, this case that i…
i’ve been workin’ on so long…
first you creep
then you leap
up about a hundred feet
yet you’re in so deep
you could write the Book.
Chirpchirp
the birds
they’re giving you the words
The world is just a feeling
you undertook.
Remember?