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Challenging stereotypes

Discussion in 'Norwich City' started by GozoCanary, Feb 3, 2021.

  1. GozoCanary

    GozoCanary Well-Known Member

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    I know some people won't agree and say that football shouldn't get involved in this kind of social politics, but personally I'm proud of my club. Discrimination and hatred should have no place in life or in football.

    (Except for Ipswich, of course.)
     
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  2. mike555

    mike555 Well-Known Member

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  3. 1950canary

    1950canary Well-Known Member

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    I am disappointed, but not surprised, at the lack of support for this post. Why is that? It is because I feel that English people generally maintain they are not racist but very often are because they do not accept what the term means and even more often have an incredible tolerance of people who are racist. Excuse the approaching rant but I do have a vested interest. As some of you may know I now live permanently in France. My wife is French although she lived in England for over 50 years but in addition one set of her grandparents were White and Black and the other set Tunisian and Asian. This means that her skin is dark - about the same as the average Brit achieves after two weeks of summer sun in Spain - and her facial features are not standard European. She has spoken English all her life as her Father was English and she moved to England when she was 20. Despite this she speaks English with a definite French accent which is inevitable. I speak French fluently - from when the kids were born we only spoke French in the house three days a week and English for the other four - but as soon as I speak to a French person they know I am English. You cannot lose the accent you were brought up with.
    In France they do not worry that I am English or that my wife does not look standard European - as long as you are nice to them they are nice to you. Unfortunately, despite living in England for over 50 years and being a successful Businesswoman in her own right, she was not really accepted by a proportion of the population who seem to somehow adopt a position of ' I am not racist but I don't like anybody who isn't white and British ' Really? My wife was the victim of such remarks at least monthly and also had to accept the tolerance of such remarks by the wider population who heard them and eventually this became one of the reasons we moved to France. I could give you hundreds of examples but will restrict myself to two which occurred in the final year of of our life in England. I had used a certain Pub regularly for about three years and, I will use a false name, an elderly chap Sid used to come in for about an hour every night at about 6. My wife does not drink and would came to the Pub with me about once a week but always later on in the evening. One night she came in early when Sid was there to tell me that she had been called away and might not be home when I returned. I was standing at the bar and after she had left Sid shouted for all to hear ' weren't there any proper women about when you wanted to marry' The landlord told him to shut up and apologise to which Sid replied that he was not going to apologise as she was not white or British. The Landlord asked him to leave and barred him. Over the next week I had several other regulars approach me to ask the Landlord to let Sid back as, in their words ' he mean't no harm ' or ' he is old school and doesn't understand modern attitudes ' but, interestingly, not one condemned what he said. A couple of weeks later Sid was back and I left never to return.
    My wife ran her own business which she handed over to our youngest son when we moved to France. She used a supplier for a lot of her materials and one day a new Rep for that company walked in to introduce himself. It just so happened that my wife was standing near the entrance talking to one of her employees and turned to the Rep and asked is she could help him and he looked past her to the employee and said who he was, that he doesn't speak to ' offensive racist word beginning with W' and could he tell the boss that he was here. When the employee told him my wife was the boss he just walked out. My wife spoke to the owner of the supplier and complained but when she found out a couple of months later the Rep was still in his job she took her business to another supplier. Obviously the supplier tolerated such behaviour.
    One of the things that has given me hope for a change in attitude is the players still taking the knee in support of BLM and kick racism out and the support given to that campaign by Sky. Imagine my disappointment at the comment on the Millwall match thread regarding Captain Tom and players taking the knee which, to me, clearly either misrepresents why the players are taking the knee or is an unfortunate stereotype of people who are not ' white English' but as a general point when will people generally accept that we are all the same equal human beings with the same brain, heart and everything else. Our skin colour is dependent on the sun exposure of our ancestors and our facial features, language and religion depend on where you were born. Fortunately the younger generation are far more tolerant and seem to accept that we are all on one earth and if people treat you with fairness,respect and friendliness then you should treat them the same irrespective of their colour and creed.
     
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  4. 1950canary

    1950canary Well-Known Member

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    I understand that a report has been written claiming that Britain is not racist and is in fact a model for others to aspire to. And there was me thinking that fairy tales were a thing of the past!!
     
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  5. Hairy Mary Quite Canary

    Hairy Mary Quite Canary Well-Known Member

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  6. Golden Eadie 2

    Golden Eadie 2 Well-Known Member

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    My wife is a Filipina, and we have now retired to the Philippines to live. On arriving back in the UK from the Philippines with a baby (now a Squadron Leader in the RAF) in 1984 we settled in London for several years. She suffered many forms of racial abuse, but not just from the white community. We moved to Lincolnshire in '91 but racism exists there also, though to a much lesser degree.She found it hard to hold a job as she was sensitive to the workforce feelings of racism.
     
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  7. GozoCanary

    GozoCanary Well-Known Member

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    Sorry, 1950s, I have only just read this since I thought my thread had simply died a death. I understand prejudice, since we are all limited by our experience and prejudiced to some extent, but I don't understand denial of prejudice or lack of attempt to get rid of it.
     
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