Yep, the requirement for a minimum income is not racist , but something equally repugnant IE classism and moneyism, something the British among others excel at.
I am shocked that people are shocked with this racism. [/quote]
You are TOTALLY right. I think it’s a shame that people do not embrace racism like they did when America was first founded. We stopped short of killing off those “Native American” people and it was because we began to see it as wrong.
OK…not the point I agree with. It was me being sarcastic. But are you seriously shocked that people are anti-racism?
I can only speak for myself, but my shock with the Bade racism incident is based on two factors:
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It’s explicitness: actually coming out and saying that they want to ban dark skinned people from gathering in public places,
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The fact that this sentiment is coming from people in positions of power.
Explicit racism of this form from some yokel on the street is sad, but not shocking. Veiled racism from people in power is sad too, but also not shocking. Together, they are shocking.
Note that I’m talking about this being shocking (i.e. unexpected and out of left field). Racism, whether shocking or not, is always outrageous.
I am shocked that people are shocked with this racism. [/quote]
OK…not the point I agree with. It was me being sarcastic. But are you seriously shocked that people are anti-racism?[/quote]
Nah, he’s not seriously shocked. If nobody rose to his bait he wouldn’t be fishing here.
I’m shocked that anybody thinks he is really shocked instead of trolling his way into the usual… welfare sponging…union hating…English teacher …barista brewing diatribe that has nothing to do with the topic at hand.
Positions of power? She’s a city councillor in a taike neighbourhood for Christ’s sake! Do I think her positions represent a sizable minority in Taiwan? Sure, especially in the Hoklo chauvinist wing of the DPP.
But again, look at municipal politics in the EU or North American context–it attracts a lot of bottom feeders. Is Marion Barry any better than this woman? What about measures that favor local companies over foreign ones in many city jurisdictions in the US? Whether it is racism in the Barry context or a dislike of foreign companies in the business sense, such tribalism is hardly unique to Taiwan. So I am surprised that foreigners are criticizing a little nativism in Taiwan when their own more developed backyards back home are not entirely clean of such nativism. To me, it is slightly hypocritical.
This women is a low-class city politician and I despise what she has said. But considering all the stories on this forum (e.g., the Canadian being slapped in the police station by a politician), I am not surprised by nativist politicians. This is a page 65 story as far as I am concerned.
Chris, if you are surprised by the shitty actions of people in power in Taiwan (where in Chinese culture the best people don’t enter politics), then I think you are pretty naive. Let’s not think this solely happens in Taiwan. It happens on the left a lot in developed countries.
[quote=“Marion Barry”]
Mr. Barry used the occasion of a victory party Tuesday to make this ignorant observation: “We’ve got to do something about these Asians coming in, opening up businesses, those dirty shops. They ought to go, I’ll just say that right now, you know.” [/quote]
washingtonpost.com/opinions/ … story.html
Anything significant to add? 
No, as usual! 
[quote=“ChewDawg”][quote=“Chris”]
2. The fact that this sentiment is coming from people in positions of power.
[/quote]
Positions of power? She’s a city councillor in a taike neighbourhood for Christ’s sake![/quote]
Which is a position of power. She has the clout to make decisions that affect people’s lives. The small scope of her influence is irrelevant. People in such positions are supposed to be responsible and informed. Whether leftist or rightist; whether Taiwanese or American.
[quote=“Chris”][quote=“ChewDawg”][quote=“Chris”]
2. The fact that this sentiment is coming from people in positions of power.
[/quote]
Positions of power? She’s a city councillor in a taike neighbourhood for Christ’s sake![/quote]
Which is a position of power.[/quote]
Minor position of power at the lowest gutter level of politics in a country where the higher levels even attract clowns and Legislative Yuan brawlers! 
[quote]
People in such positions are supposed to be responsible and informed. [/quote]
Give me a break! At the lowest level of city politics in a suburb far away from central Taipei? Maybe you have a lot more faith in city politics than I do!
Irrelevant.
DEY TOOK YUR JOBS!
*love southpark so much
I assume you’re British by later posts. I was actually really scratching my head until later in the thread as to where you were from as I don’t know of a single Western nation that is dominated by right-wing political parties. I’d hardly say the U.K. is dominated by right-wing political parties. For more than a decade, it was run by a cente-left party. Now there’s a coalition between a cente-right party and a left party. In all likelihood, as crazy as it seems in light of how hated they were when they lost the last election, the centre-left party will regain office at the next election.
I actually don’t see a problem with it at all. The U.K. doesn’t need to import foreign labour from an economic perspective. There are masses of indigenous Britons who have been on welfare for generations who could, in theory, do low paying work. Polish workers, for instance, were so in demand until the GFC simply because, unlike a large section of the indigenous population (including those who could actually be arsed to get out of bed and go to work), they weren’t complete jobsworths, they had better diction (despite English not being their first language), better basic arithmetic skills, etc. When I lived in the U.K. I heard on a number of occasions (even from English themselves), that in the construction industry, you get Poles or Russians for the labouring and Antipodeans for the trade work because the local British are too lazy and incompetent. That’s a real indictment upon the native workforce, but it doesn’t have to be that way.
As for racism in the West, there are certainly ethnic communities where that’s really prevalent (against other ethnic communities, including white). Also, I noticed an odd phenomenon in the U.K. while I was there. If you’re born in the U.K., to Jamaican heritage, it’s socially acceptable to display a Jamaican flag (even if you’ve never set foot anywhere near Jamaica. For another person, also born in the U.K., to display a St George Cross (the English flag) is somewhat socially unacceptable.
GiT, just because they claim to be less odious than the Tories doesn’t make the Labour Party a centre-left party (in my opinion). A party that oversaw a consistent widening in eocnomic inequality throughout their tenure, in thrall to bankers and corporations, leaders who lied to the public to support a war for oil companies (I could go on) is undeserving of any connection with socialism, social justice or social democratic policies. Tories with red rosettes.
I told a fib earlier in the thread, I’m actually Scottish. Yes we have plenty of racists like anywhere else, but anyone telling foreigners to eff off back to their own country would be given short shrift by the majority.
It’s not about importing foreign labour, it’s about keeping out foreigners unless they can buy their way in like the Russian mafia or corrupt Chinese officials. It’s against the European rights convention as it prevents citizens rejoining family and that includes native born citizens of the UK.
But it’s exactly the kind of thing we must do more of to maintain the Han racial purity of our great land. Sod the bloody family reunionists: they’re probably all unionists anyway.
[quote=“tetentikov”]GiT, just because they claim to be less odious than the Tories doesn’t make the Labour Party a centre-left party (in my opinion). A party that oversaw a consistent widening in eocnomic inequality throughout their tenure, in thrall to bankers and corporations, leaders who lied to the public to support a war for oil companies (I could go on) is undeserving of any connection with socialism, social justice or social democratic policies. Tories with red rosettes.
I told a fib earlier in the thread, I’m actually Scottish. Yes we have plenty of racists like anywhere else, but anyone telling foreigners to eff off back to their own country would be given short shrift by the majority.[/quote]
U.K. politics seems to be in a curious state of affairs then because those on the left claim that Labour is hardly left, yet if you talk to those on the right, they’re very disappointed with the conservative credentials of the Tories. I wonder if anyone actually likes either of the two major parties. I frequent another forum that leans very right, and the majority (or main) posters are British. They are extremely unhappy with the Tories, and see David Cameron as Tony Blair-lite. Expect parties like UKIP or BFP to get a decent bump next election.
The thing I always find funny about politics is that people keep making the same mistakes supporting the same old crew. For all of the complaints about Labour and the Iraq War, people still voted them back in, and will vote them back in again. I don’t take voters seriously. I think they want to be screwed.
I think that being a foreigner heightens one’s sensitivity to such things.
In my home country, I have a good idea of the range of conversations that might occur in different households and among different groups of people after hearing about a story like this. In Taiwan, I don’t have a good idea of how this has been received. Obviously quite well among 1000 households in Taoyuan, but beyond that, I don’t know. Among my Taiwanese friends, there is universal disgust, but, then again, they are friends with a foreigner.
I think that because we do not have a local “barometer” for judging the community’s response to issues like this, we become more sensitive and the emotional reaction to the event is intensified. So a story we might dismiss out of hand at home, knowing that we are comfortably within the majority opinion, is, given our uncertainty about our surroundings, something that produces an intense reaction here. Hence the “surprise,” or outrage.
Perhaps this changes after one has been here for a long time?
It’s full blown open racism, not common in the West since the 1960s I would say.
Go watch a football (soccer) match in Europe… Open and full blown. Sadly.
Fair enough, in some countries it is probably still common, like Poland.