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Does This Make Me Racist?

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mrs_overall | 13:42 Sun 19th Apr 2015 | ChatterBank
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A question in another section has prompted me to stick my head above the parapet with this one.
I am a fairly frequent hospital in-patient and have encountered fellow patients of all races and colours. I accept their religious differences, dietary needs etc and get along with them all. The hospital I attend is in an area with a large Pakistani population
One thing that really gets my goat up is the preferential treatment often given to Pakistani women. Here are two examples. Read them and tell me if I am being racist or am I in the right to feel aggrieved? In both examples, the women in question could speak English.
1. Visiting is restricted to 2 persons and visiting time is 6pm - 8pm. I had two visitors, as did all other patients, except a Pakistani woman who had SIX visitors, not including a screaming baby. At 8pm, all the visitors left, apart from the Asians. At 9pm yet another one turned up bearing numerous foil cartons of curry which they proceeded to eat around the bed. When I had a quiet word with a nurse she told me SHE would be accused of racism if she asked them to leave. I was fuming. Half an hour later they were still all there and when I looked across, the baby was laid on the bed, in amidst the foil containers, having its rather smelly nappy changed. At this point I lost it, told the nurse in charge that if she wouldn't ask them to leave then she should find someone who would have the guts to do it or I would intervene myself. She did ask them to go and they looked very disgruntled.
2. A different Pakistani woman in the same ward as me was screaming and wailing so loudly I thought she must be in agony. This went on for hours and no one could sleep. Around 1am, 4 female friends/relatives turned up to sit with her. The screaming stopped and they spent the rest of the night keeping us awake with their laughing and joking. Later that day I asked her why she had been screaming and she said "I was bored and lonely. I knew they'd ring my family if I kept up the screaming."

What is your verdict?
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No you are not, I suffered the same thing in hospital several years ago. I had my two visitors but the next bed was surrounded by several Pakistani families, who changed shifts bringing the smelly food, the noise was unbearable, there were no nurses around to complain to and I was bedbound. The next time I went in hospital there was the same loudly wailing woman...
16:19 Sun 19th Apr 2015
No, you are not racist. Anyone would be annoyed. Rules are there for all. A shame you were left to make a fuss on your own. Had I been there I would have supported you.
It is not racist to ask anyone who is breaking visiting rules to leave.

it would apparently to be two cases of preferential treatment, with the staff afraid that the women themselves would play the race card if they were not attended to

(apparently to be???)

appear to be
Mrs outrage
You don't want to hear what I think.You say the Pakistani's spoke English. I wonder if they understand Old Anglo-Saxon expletives.Usually people of any language get the gist.
No you are not racist, a hospital, of all places, must be allowed to enforce rules on behalf of other patients.
No defo not racism on your part and don't let the all the years of nonsense spouted out by the fake anti-racist who have caused all this division make you fearful to raise such issues.
Rules are rules we all have to abide by them. Shame on the hospital staff for giving in to them.
I think in the first case the nurse is using accusations of racism as a wholly unfounded excuse for not doing her job.

As for No (2) I am not sure what your point is.
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I see this time and time again - it is almost as if it is reverse discrimination.

Another example occurred last week. I was patiently waiting my turn for treatment and after me was a young Pakistani woman (in her 20's), accompanied by her mother. I know them both quite well.
When it came to my turn, the mother jumped up and said "Can my daughter go in next...she wants to watch so and so on TV and she will miss it if we have to wait any longer."
The nurse knew I was next and without even looking at me or consulting me, she beckoned the pair to follow her.
I stood up, blocked their way and told the nurse that I was next and I made sure I took my rightful turn.
I stood up, blocked their way and told the nurse that I was next and I made sure I took my rightful turn.


To bloody right, mrs o.
"I think in the first case the nurse is using accusations of racism as a wholly unfounded excuse for not doing her job."

No, we see this time and time again especially in the public sector, poor people have been brainwashed & frightened.
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ichkeria - re point no. 2..... there have been many times I have been bored and lonely in hospital. I am sure if I demanded several of my relatives be allowed in at 1am to laugh and joke with me throughout the night to the detriment of all the other patients, I would either have been very firmly put in my place by the staff OR had my temperature taken for signs of delerium for making such a request
In both cases mrs O complain, its not racist to expect everyone to follow the same rules and to expect those rules to be enforced. When my DH was in hospital it was the white patients and visitors who were causing the noise/smelly takeaway problems.
not racist, but your anger should be towards the hospital staff.
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woofgang, don't get me wrong, I could relate some horror stories about white, English visitors (last time I was an in patient, another patients drunken daughter came to visit her and then came to each bed trying to sell clothes she had just shoplifted from Primark!) but they have always been put in their place/asked to leave sharpish
Definitely not racism but a good example of broken Britain. We are second class citizens in our country. Mrs O I would have spoken out also. For one, no consideration for other patients as the group were allowed to stay after visiting time is up. Two, for hygiene reasons that baby should not have even been in the ward, which I thought children under a certain age were not allowed, let alone having a dirty nappy changing. Three, the smell of that curry would make me throw up.

Bring Back Matron and Carbolic. I say.
in my opinion you have not been racist in any way.

It seems to me that increasingly some people seem to think that anything said against a person of differing ethnicity is racist. Stating facts is not racist. Recently at work...in a primary school....a young black child came to me and said that another child had made racist comments about him. When I asked what was said I was told that his friend had called him black. I asked the complaining child if he was black and he said he was. I explained that stating a fact is not racist . I asked him what colour I was and he said white. Spot on I said, and you have not been racist in saying so.

too often, it seems to me, that some people will play on the racist card if it suits their purpose. To me it does not matter whether you are white, black, purple or green with yellow spots. It is who you are that matters.

Racist....mmmmm

Grumpy......yes!
How very dare she, Primark !. Has to be Harvey Nichols at the very least.

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