How to handle racism

When I moved to the US, one of my teachers gave me a hard time about not looking her in the eye when she is talking to me. She was definitely right that it’s seen as disrespectful and possible show youre hiding something in the US, but she went about it in a really negative way.

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One good thing about Taiwan is they seem to have a live and let live attitude towards people who they don’t know (as in outside of their family).

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This. You have to have a top of the range grey BMW and a five letter job title and not mind a team of sycophants kneeling behind you at all times to be respected in the UK. Of course all of that depends where your third or fourth holiday house is. Norfolk or Scotland, everywhere else you’re a low rate human being.

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I haven’t experienced this, Spain IME is the most racist of the European countries I’ve been to. Had a taxi driver going to a night club with my friends tell us that blacks are like monkeys, and when he realized I was in the car and said but asians are alright.

Not on the roads, they don’t.

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I know you said in your experience, but is that all you’re basing it on?

Ireland has an incredible racism problem. I would put it down as the most racist European country I’ve been to outside of Eastern Europe.

I also had a few experiences there of people doing the slantly eye thing towards me. It seems like something they do there when they see asian people.

The mens national team did this photo when they went to Beijing.

The women’s team also did it.

Black soccer players are constantly abused by racism in Spain. One guy was accused of having AIDS by the news for being sick and it was a thing every time he was ill.

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I haven’t been myself. I try to give people the benefit of the doubt, but Spain made me uncomfortable. Pick pockets also love to target Asian tourists. They think asians have money and won’t fight back.

Absolutely. Taiwan is quite racist but rarely is it severly oppressive. My post was talking about racism in Canada and the USA, however.

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Big mistake with you, no doubt. Although they never target people they are scared of. Every year (except this :disappointed_relieved:) we visit Europe I advise my wife and kid to always look confident.

Yup, don’t look lost. Europe has gotten really bad with this. I was just reading that Premier League players in the UK have been selling their luxury watch collections because so many have been targeted and robbed. I think one guy got stabbed in the butt. The police were of course useless and told people not to wear anything nice out instead of actually doing something.

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Their homes get targeted when the idiots put pictures of themselves on Instagram et al on vacation.

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Thats insanse! Is it really that common in Europe? Certain countries?

Makes sense in countries having financial issues, but what about rich europe, also the same?

Yeah, it’s an unfortunate part of fame and wealth. Hard to blame them, most of them are young men who are making more money than any of us will ever see. Many come from poor backgrounds as well.

In another universe they might be doing the robbing.

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Its everywhere. Especially in rich Europe since there are more rich people and tourists to rob.

Train stations are a common place to be pickpocketed and luggage stolen. Never let anyone help you with your luggage, or let it out of your sight on the train.

Partly so. But you can be sure that without the “right” ethnicity you will find it hard to make connections at the highest levels.

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Race and class are somewhat intertwined, although probably less so nowadays in the U.K. We stayed at a private club in Mayfair, and I didn’t see a single black person. I did see Indians and Arabs and few Chinese. I think it’s still difficult for blacks to get into high society in the UK.

London has many of these classist rules. It would be a major faux pas to wear brown shoes for example. Most people not from the upper class wouldn’t know that. It’s one way people get excluded. No brown in town is still a thing. But many people wouldn’t know it.

I worked for a British company for a few years. Great Craic, heavy drinkers but quite hierarchial and bullying culture too. Top execs all driving fancy cars new models no shame cost cutting year after year and loading the company with debt.

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