Witness to Discrimination: What Would You Do?

[sanfranguy 0]

I would say something for sure.. not sure but I can give an example.. I was just telling my husband about this incedent:

I was in a store and the clerk was arabic.. the lady in front of me asked for something, he said Im sorry we dont carry _______ (cant remember) She said "WHY DONT YA'LL LEARN ENGLISH!"

I said, excuse me.. I understood perfectly what he said, maybe you dont understand english because you are a hick with bad grammer" She groaned and left.... the clerk and I laughed.

It is VERY hard for me to keep me mouth shut in these instances. Maybe thats not the safest,smartest route.. but oh well.

hahaha nice

[JaEnglishGirl 34]

Absolutely nothing unless it concerned a group I belonged to....

[almaty 19]

spoken like a true american .....

[Carlawarla 1]

I'd be right in that store owners face, as well as those standing by and saying nothing. That's just me. If a gun was pulled on me because of this ( and really, why would it???) then so be it. If these types of incidents aren't addressed immediately, they will continue. This is disgusting.

[almaty 19]

of course i do something, and have done it prior...for a african-american female friend who got hassled in a small kansas town when she tried to return something....and they told her that could not refund it..i took the same item in and returned it later that day and she and i confronted the store clerk and manager....

in america, the rights of all is everyone's repsonsiblity...not your peer or ethic/race group

Edited February 28, 2008 by almaty

[pedroh 21]

of course i do something, and have done it prior...for a african-american female friend who got hassled in a small kansas town when she tried to return something....and they told her that could not refund it..i took the same item in and returned it later that day and she and i confronted the store clerk and manager....

in america, the rights of all is everyone's repsonsiblity...not your peer or ethic/race group

agree hermano..

[eau_xplain 2]

of course i do something, and have done it prior...for a african-american female friend who got hassled in a small kansas town when she tried to return something....and they told her that could not refund it..i took the same item in and returned it later that day and she and i confronted the store clerk and manager....

in america, the rights of all is everyone's repsonsiblity...not your peer or ethic/race group

:thumbs:

You are so right brother Dean!

I would probably say something too even though I might not have as much credibility as someone who is "white'.

[HLM 1]

Its one of the major things that worry me about moving to the states!! i dont think i will ever go out without my husband!!

[simple_male 1]

The best thing to do is ask for the manager of the store and complain, if you can find the manager. It happened to one of my friends and his wife. One store associate were avoiding them because of their look and skin colors. They immediately found the manager, complained, the manager listened to them, later had the store associate apologize to them.

[w¡n9Nµ7 §£@¥€r 123]

Its one of the major things that worry me about moving to the states!! i dont think i will ever go out without my husband!!

As long as you're not moving to a more rural area where people are more ignorant, you should be fine.

[pedroh 21]

Its one of the major things that worry me about moving to the states!! i dont think i will ever go out without my husband!!

As long as you're not moving to a more rural area where people are more ignorant, you should be fine.

or moving to a place where people don't give a sh!t if you're not part of their cultural/racial group

[chri'stina 190]

I don't like confrontation but I hope that I'd say something. I've done it before in those type of situations. At one of my old jobs I worked with a bunch of prejuidiced ppl, and after 9/11 one guy(who I was stuck in the same room as, he was from the North BTW, Mass) made stupid remarks generalizing a whole ppl to which I said, "Hey! I'm part Afghanistani..." or something like that. His face got all red and he was like, "ohhh. ummm. uhh." A few mins later I said I am not part Afghanistani I just wanted you to feel stupid for those remarks.

confused-it matters where you live, you don't have to be scared of America.

[AnewKINDofFEELIN 0]

I don't like confrontation but I hope that I'd say something. I've done it before in those type of situations. At one of my old jobs I worked with a bunch of prejuidiced ppl, and after 9/11 one guy(who I was stuck in the same room as, he was from the North BTW, Mass) made stupid remarks generalizing a whole ppl to which I said, "Hey! I'm part Afghanistani..." or something like that. His face got all red and he was like, "ohhh. ummm. uhh." A few mins later I said I am not part Afghanistani I just wanted you to feel stupid for those remarks.

confused-it matters where you live, you don't have to be scared of America.

I'm like you, I have serious issues with conflict. Although I think I probably would stand up for him. It's childish that those people still resort to picking on people. I worked with a Palestinian for several years. On 9/11 I felt SO bad for him. His first reaction when hearing the news was to drop everything and get his kids out of school. It's a shame that people are forced to live with that kind of unjustified fear in the "land of the free."

[Kathryn41 3,205]

I would definitely have done something - I would have approached the woman and asked her if I could put her order in for her and then paid for it myself as a type of apology for the clerk's ignorance, or if I wasn't allowed to do that, would have walked out of the store in support of the woman after letting the clerk know why.

[Amby 490]

I would say something for sure.. not sure but I can give an example.. I was just telling my husband about this incedent:

I was in a store and the clerk was arabic.. the lady in front of me asked for something, he said Im sorry we dont carry _______ (cant remember) She said "WHY DONT YA'LL LEARN ENGLISH!"

I said, excuse me.. I understood perfectly what he said, maybe you dont understand english because you are a hick with bad grammer" She groaned and left.... the clerk and I laughed.

It is VERY hard for me to keep me mouth shut in these instances. Maybe thats not the safest,smartest route.. but oh well.

That sounds just like something I would do.I work at a college and some of my co-workers are these little 80 year old men who can be quite bigoted at times.They don't even try to hide it.When they make silly comments like "Hey look,that person might be a terrorist." I make sure I tell them off right away.

Senior citizens acting bigoted is a little different, in my opinion, than those of other age groups. The reason I say this is because they grew up in a time period when the rules, manners, customs and ideas were different. It wasn't "bad" to call an African American a certain racial slur that begins with "N" and the entire concept of being politically correct wasn't even in the lexicon.

I'm not going to go ahead and say that this behavior is necessarily "okay," but you have to take older folks for who and what they are. Some may have adapted to the way life is today and others haven't and we just need to deal with it. An 80 year-old man or woman who has strong antagonistic feelings towards any group will simply not change because someone less than half their age attempts to bite their head off.

The best approach, for people this old, is to just ignore them. A different tactic should be used with those much younger (since it's far more likely their mindset can be changed and that they can have a greater effect on society at that point), but with someone getting near the end of their lifespan, it's just not worth it to put up the fuss.

I agree! My dad's parents use the "N" word all the time and I'm so embarrassed. Thank god I don't see them very often. I noticed last week that my mom's dad uses really "bad" words for homosexuals even if he just sees them on tv. I was actually really shocked. That's just how old people are though they grew up in a different time.

eta: I would have been too shocked to do something! I can't believe people can be so ignorant. I would have just left.

Edited February 28, 2008 by Amber&Neil