Worst Racism You've Encountered

[Painful illusion]

I was doing some volunteer work at an elderly home for my school and I was having a talk with this elderly woman and she asked me where I was from. I said I've lived in California most of my life but I was born in Belize. She nonchalantly looks at me and ask "oh what tribe are you from?" I guess because I am black she assumed Belize is in Africa (its next to mexico) and that I belonged in a tribe.I actually thought it was slightly funny simply because she was probably 70+. So I explained that to her and she laughed an apology.

 

[ChildofGallifrey]

Not really racist itself, but I thought it was funny: My best friend flew up to NYC to spend a week with me, and when I was taking him around Times Square a black guy advertising his comedy club tried to entice us into going by telling us "You'll like it guys, we tell lots of racist jokes!!"

Other than that, I think the standards that white people are held to are racist. Yes, we were the supermajority in the past, but now we're hardly outnumbering other races in the US by the billions. I guarantee if any openly white only colleges opened up, they would be crucified by the media, the NAACP, and Al Sharpton in a split second, but there's no problem with the 60+ openly black only colleges in this country.

Same with television. There exists the BET (Black Entertainment Television), but if a WET station came on the air, it would be racist.

I sincerely wish racism could just become an non-issue in this day and age, but, as a great musical once said, "Everyone's A Little Bit Racist".

 

[InnerRebellion]

My papa, who is 81, is pretty racist. I don't want any trouble, but I have to exactly quote our conversation.

Him: So, Chris, you're getting into politics like your dad?
Me: Well... a little. The state's governor sucks.
Him: Indeed he does! You know what he did once he got into office?
Me: No, sir.
Him: He went and bought a fancy car for himself. Typical ******! Has to spend all the money on himself, not his family. The state's going to hell, and so will the country!
Me: Papa, that was a bit rude.
Him: Rude, shmude, it's the truth boy, and you best know that!

I love the man, but fucking hell can he be racist.


Oh, and an old woman who lives across the street called my half white, half black best friend, "A half breed abomination that should be smited by the Lord!". Yeah.

 

[Grayjack]

In the sixth grade, I found a note written about myself. It said that I was a terrorist bomber from Iraq and that I should be shot. It didn't make sense because I'm Guatemalan, and I don't even look slightly Middle Eastern. Oh well, the kids were in sixth grade what would they know?

 

[Hollock]

For about 6 months I was a white waiter at an asian restuaraunt. A couple times when I would get an asshole black or asian kid in their 20s dressed to party they would talk like Wally Cleaver to me. "gee whiz sport could ya get me another sprite, really appreciate it champ/cheif." "ah golly, everythings just super." The pain, OH the pain.

Now to explain the area I live in. there are two towns that are incredibly liberal and full of hippies, and they're all in the valley. In the hills around them (actually my town which is kind of in the middle of the road is ironically, in between those two towns), nothing but rednecks. My brother hangs out with em'. They can talk about the one black guy who drove through the town of 1000 for a week. "d'ya see that damn Nagger pumping gas last tuesday? Fuggin hate Naggers".

 

[Purple Shrimp]

I've never really encountered any racism that would be serious enough to remember

I was walking down the street with my friends and some guy driving past on a motorbike yelled out "You guys look like Lord of the Rings!" because we were all wearing glasses.

YOU HAVE A PROBLEM WITH FANS OF TOLKIEN? I shouldn't have to put up with that kind of intolerance!

OK, in all seriousness, I've never encountered any racism beyond the normal high school joking bullshit. If you can even call that racism.

you can't

 

[Bobbity]

I hop onto a tram with my friend one time, and there was a seventy or so year old Jewish man sitting up the front. Some absolute fuckwit was sitting up the front with us, and he was literally steaming from the ears. He spent a whole ten minutes screaming - at the top of his lungs - at the jewish guy, telling him that he was going to hell and that - actually, I don't want to go into it. Anyway, the old man that was being abused was taking it really well, but we were getting sick of the racist ****, so when one passenger got up to challenge him, and was rudely dismissed, ten or so of us got up and literally threw the guy off the tram and onto the road.

 

[NoMansLand 666]

The worst public display of racism I've seen almost got me and my mate a fucking arse whooping. And we were not the ones making remarks.

Basically, me and a group of friends were at a Cannibal Corpse gig at the nearby universities music venue and this one drunk 40 year old slag was singing at full blast to Tina Turners 'Simply the Best' with my mate (never seen a metal head in camo's with a face full of piercings sing along to that, so was a laugh).

But then me and one mate decided to go for a cigarette, and the drunk slag followed us outside begging for a cigarette. Me being the 'kind soul' gave her a smoke, thinking, if nothing else, it might shut her up for 5 minutes. Nope, not even close. The three of us were stood on one side of the double doors and on the other side was two black guys who were built like brick shit houses. Me and my mate, not being racist, thought absolutely nothing of this. But not the drunk slag. She proceeded to go into a fucking hate speech which went, and I'm not making this up: 'Oh, those fucking blacks think there so fucking great, they come here trying to sleep with all the white women and rape the ones that say no' 'Oh, I wish they'd all fuck off back to where they came from and leave us all alone'.

At this point, me and my mate had our jaws on the floor, trying to work out what in the hell was going on, and then my mate in quick thinking got to persuading these guys that we did not know this racist slut, and had only met her 5 minutes ago. I'm glad he convinced them, because if not I imagine we had the mother of all beat downs coming for that gem.

 

[The Floating Nose]

One day, i was in a car coming back from a strip club with 2 of my friends. We were a total of 5 people in the car. One of my friends had the brilliant (sarcasm) idea to bring 2 of his job buddies with him and when we came back one of them said: "You know i love black girls...yeah all those black guys should go back to Africa and the black girls should stay for us to fuck them". I swear to god that is true if the car was mine i would've dumped that piece of shit on the side of the road.

 

[CM156_v1legacy]

Yes. I am 1/4th Irish, 1/4th Austrian, and a very small percentage French. I look like what you would see in "Hitler youth" posters.

I was once asked "Hey Hitler: You headed off to invade Poland?"

Also, my school had a large black population, and I was called a "Cracker" or "Nazi" more times then I could count.

 

[Nocturnal Gentleman]

but there's no problem with the 60+ openly black only colleges in this country.

Same with television. There exists the BET (Black Entertainment Television), but if a WET station came on the air, it would be racist.

Just so you know, "Black only colleges" don't exist anymore. Anyone can go to those schools. You just wouldn't want to. They were black only because black people weren't allowed anywhere else.

Also, BET is shit and hardly something you'd want to emulate.

 

[clipse15]

Well i've dealt with a lot of ignorance that I don't really have a problem with. For example i'm a light skinned Black guy and was debating with my Asian girlfriends parents about how one of my parents must be White.

However the most racist thing i've probably experienced is when I held the door open for an elderly White gentleman with a walker, as he passed through the door he said "I don't need your help ******." Even though it was pretty obvious he needed tons of help.

 

[AvsJoe]

Most of my ex-flatmates in Calgary were either slightly or full-blown racist, the worst of whom was mulatto himself. I can't stand racism, even if it's in jest, so at times that was a particularly difficult place to tolerate.

Calgary is pretty bad for it as Canadian urban centres go. (Grew up here myself.) The most acceptable targets seem to be Natives and "Pakis" (sloppily a term for Middle Easterners), about whom people will talk casually and derogatorily as though it was just a normal thing like saying the sun comes up. Always with the classic Canuck "I'm not a racist, but" caveat, of course.

Most of the most chilling incidents of racism I encountered -- aside from random incidents of being aggressively called "******" by total strangers or having so-called friends attempt to "joke" on the same lines -- involved the city's neo-Nazi element. The very worst: in junior year of HS I was friends with a bunch of kids who commonly partied at a place in Vic Park (scuzzy part of downtown). One time the landlord came up and drank with us (them, that is) and invited a group of people down to his apartment... which sported an enormous swastika flag on the wall and various charming pieces of army-surplus Nazi regalia. Turned out the basement apartment was a skin bin, a fact nobody'd seen fit to inform me of.

Last time I partied with that particular group.

Still better than growing up in rural Canada though. My sister jumped on that particular grenade and her stories are way worse than mine.

Yeah, small towns are a breeding ground for all kinds of negative shit like racism, nativism, xenophobia... When the rumour mill gets a-churning, there's little to stop it. Cities, even bad ones like Calgary, are just easier places to live, at least in that respect.

 

[kaveradeo]

You don't like the summer as much do you since you absorb more heat right?

 

[Nocturnal Gentleman]

*sigh*I god that was alot of typing

That's okay I hear ya. Black racism is some atrocious stuff.If there is anything held steadfast in a lot of black families it's borderline zealot religion and racism. I especially love the, 'you don't look, sound, or act black to me, so you can't understand how we feel and need to GTFO' crowd. That's why the crazy pop eye guy on Boondocks is so hilarious and painful at the same time. There is so much petty loathing that extremes aren't hard to find.

 

[CyprisVeil]

Oh so much of it in very subtle ways, or in ways that isn't directly aimed at me but I do have one that scarred me for quite some time as a child.

I was at a (white) friend's birthday party at a local skating rink and she introduced me to her lil friends and this one (white) girl says to me "I don't like black people" as her mode of greeting.

WHAT THE HELL?!

I felt like crap. I can't even describe how horrible little me felt. Her stomach sank, she felt like a freak, an outcast and all because her skin was a lovely light brown shade. The little ignorant racist-in-training came over to me later (attempting a figure skating move on roller skates and ran into a wall while she was at it) and asked me what my name was and stuff as if she was shamed of herself (or forced to talk to me).


I could add a lot more but...yeah I'm in the middle of writing a term paper (oh noes an educated black person?! I kid I kid...not really. A little bit. Maybe.)

And then there is self-racism....yeah I'm going to stop while I'm ahead.

 

[spectrenihlus]

Personally I don't have any but my uncles do. Their cousin (my uncle?, I honestly don't know what title to give) where in their 18-21 years and where drinking with aforementioned relative from the UK who was visiting the family here in SF. They were out drinking in the park and my uncles were not drunk at all as opposed to their cousin who was completely smashed. This is when a cop showed up to investigate what was going on. The cop, who was black, asked my uncles and cousin to get home when the cousin drunkenly says " I ain't listenen to no monkey". My uncles realizing that if they didn't do something they would probably be put in prison and or murdered jut told the cop it's ok officer we got this and began to wail on my cousin. The cop ten just says carry on and leaves. I know it's not that racist but I thought I should share it.

 

[CyprisVeil]

(I failed to quote this properly...)

"Old people are adorable.
Honestly I think racism is trumped up nowadays by modern society, like you a white kid being shocked by the word ******.
Sure it is still present today but its hardly as bad as the past.
I dont even think we should acknowledge "race" as we are all people.

but as I am white who cares what I think."

I care what you think honeybunny! I agree, I love asserting that the only race I am is "human" but people tend to get extremely angry when I say that because they don't understand what I mean. We're all humans who just happen to have some pretty neat physical differences. From pale skin to dark skin and from straight light colored hair to dark brown curly kinky hair it is all beautiful and should all be appreciated.

 

[Levethian]

I knew someone who said "I'm off to drown slaves" when he went to do number 2's. Not right.

 

[Hucket]

In the original example, you have to remember the era where this couple grew up. That word was thrown around casuality, both as a slur and as a descriptor. I'm not saying they were justified in saying it, but you have to get the context before you jump to shock and judgement.

I look white, but most people can tell I have some Asian in me. I've never really encountered racism against me personally, but my mom (she's Japanese) did. We were staying a hotel in Ann Arbour, MI and my dad and I had gome to get the luggage out of the car while my mom got the room keys. It tooks us five minutes max and when we got back my mom was PISSED off. Appearently some guy walked up to her and started to complain about the state of their room. Apparently they thought my mom (who was wearing NOTHING like the staff) was one of the maids...simply because she was ASIAN...