Old people!!

[petes_dragon]

Why do some old people feel that it is ok to be soooo racist - my great aunt and uncle (but mostly aunt) is causing loads of problems in the family with her racist attitude.

My sister's partner is black, carribean and muslim - and my aunt is constantly making digs about it ie don't believe anything they say - they're all liars and thieves....they're all the same etc etc etc.

I know it is a generational thing (they're in their late 60's) but really, it's getting ridiculous!!! They lived in South Africa for about 10yrs in the 70's/80's and still have the same view as when they lived there - they don't understand that times have changed and it is a completely different culture now!!

My sister is currently 5mths pregnant and this is really getting to her - it is making here feel like the black sheep of the family (*no pun intended* ), as she is the youngest, unmarried, pregnant and with a black guy and she is starting to get really upset about the coments and finds it really hard to just rise above it and ignore them

A xXx

[B00]

Ahhhhhh, you gotta love old crotchety people- ya just can't eat a full 'un!

Seriously though, I have found that our elderly generation can be the rudest most obnoxious generation we have! Yes they fought a war for us, but that does not give them the right to treat every other generation with utter disdain.

Right, well i've said my piece, think I'll scarper before the lynch mob come for me for daring to criticise our most 'precious' of people!!!

[wonderwoman1]

i agree with you b00...my gran is a bit like that to be honest. i love her but she can be very very rude to people's faces and doesnt hold back with what she is thinking. my life wouldnt be worth living if i brought a carribean guy home, which is a shame because they do it for me!! lol

[raysparx]

Well the South Africa bit says it all, they may never change, I am only 10 years or so younger than them,but no way would I insult anybody regarding colour or religion, just tell him they are both loopy, they will come round a bit in time,but it will take time, A few years ago I had an apprentice (an indian lad) smashing kid, we knocked on the door to a flat,the bloke came out and said you can come in leave the caffer (spelling) outside I said pardon ?
he replied, him the ****, blackie there I don't want him in my flat, Where was he from yep SA he could see no wrong at all in what he said, I hope it gets better,time will tell, Ray xx

[saxy_jag]

My mum-in-law, at 89, is as bad. She says she's not racist, but it's funny how, if there's ever a carer at her home whom she doesn't trust, they're usually black or asian. Funnily enough, the Spanish and French staff are 'lovely' according to her.

I'm terrible. MiL is right snob, so when she's trying to disguise her racism, she says things like, "she's a coloured girl", and so I say, "Really? What colour? Green, Purple, what?" Usually shuts her up.

Unfortunately, it's not just the older generation. I could have cheerfully punched my sister the other week, and I doubt my hubby would have stopped me, either. She's 52 and has grown up in the same, very multi-cultural city (Leicester) as me. So tell me why she complained when she got home from a trip to Sainsburys because there was, quote (and I'm really very sorry, folks) "a family of nig-nogs at the checkout, holding everything up".

I mean, why? She's supposed to be educated, for crying out loud. Works in customer service for a very well-known chain of car dealerships. I wonder, does she talk about her Asian customers that way?

Your sister is lucky to have you, Petes Dragon. Give her lots of support, tell her she's got some long-distance support here, and ignore the family. If they don't come round, then I'm sorry, but they don't matter.

[dot.hawkes]

In the towns and cities of the UK, as children and
when they were growing up they did not have the multi-racial communities that we have grown up with. To the older generation, there was no need for a word such as racism as there was noone about to be racist towards. Of course in other Countries, like South Africa and the USA, the issue of race and colour was far more prominent.

[petes_dragon]

I know exactly what you mean - I work for a telecoms company (the main one!) but all of our broadband helpdesks are now overseas - you wouldn't believe the amount of abuse that we get about it. And I can't imagine the amount of abuse that the other advisors put up with and they've got to just take it!......it's horrible really!

I think my aunt is under the impression that every black person has just come over on the last boat, prefers living in a mud hut and wearing a loin cloth...but doesn't realise that the majority of people are perfectly civilised!!!...he's got a good job, he has no fundamentalist views, not claiming benefits, not an illegal immigrant etc...most importantly he loves my sister and she loves him, he is kind and he makes her happy!!

A xXx

[raysparx]

Your last sentence says it all " he loves her he makes her happy" sorry, but sod everybody who don't like it !!!!

[Dee Sa]

Dont sat we are all the same, I am 68 white British and have been married to a Goan chap for 20yrs, my family welcomed him to the family, especially my old dad who would come and stay with us in Dubai for 3 months per year.
My son is married to a Zambian girl and they adopted her sisters child so my grandaughter is black, we get some funny looks when she calls me grandma in the street but we dont care, we are happy and love one another. My great grandson Reece is of mixed race and we are all happy together, our family must have a modern outlook
We dont give a monkeys if people dont like.it.
In time these "biased" relations will see it doesnt matter what they think, life goes on quite happily.

[peachy3]

my granddad was brilliant and I loved him to bits but he was always on about 'packis in thier toyotas' and how much council tax he had to pay to cover all the money spent on housing immigrants who get everything when they arrive here and he was paying over �100 council tax a month when he was 80. he was very out spoken my grandad.

[chongalolo]

The cleaner (aged 71) where i work said to me that someone looked like a n***** when that person had just come back from a beach holiday. When I pointed out to her that this word is offensive and isn't used these days she looked at me as if I was some kind of weirdo and has not spoken to me for about 6 months now! Unbelievable!
By the way I am white and was born and raised in Southern Africa. The only racists I ever met there were stupid, ignorant, uneducated or fearful people. I came to England in the late 70's and was shocked at the racist comments I heard here, from the same type of people as in SA.

[Rock'n'Roll]

Yes I know. You can't move when the BNP have a rally for all the old folk charging ahead, Stupid generalisation.
Racism is shared by all age groups and all races,unfortunately.
As for the great aunt/uncle,Im afraid someone should tell them their comments aren't welcome,and if they persist,neither will they be

[shaneystar2]

What's with the "old people " bit ?
My uncle who is long since gone married a lady from SA..in the 1930's ..she was what we call in these PC days ..a half caste.Loveliest of ladies .i only met her as a child ..but she was lovely.
I cannot understand this racial predujice.
As a child i lived in a seaside resort and my Mum used to do bed and breakfast....this is in the 1950's.
We had a lovely chap who stayed with us all summer who used to play in the band on the seafront.He was black.So what. My dear old Dad used to take him to the pub for a drink ..and woe betide anyone who made a remark.He adored my parents and kept in touch with them for years until his death.
I suppose your relations having lived in SA thought that these people were only fit to be treated as servants .
The British Empire has a lot to answer for.

[Booldawg]

how ironic - a thread complaining about racist attitudes that indicates ALL SA's are racist. My gf and her family are all South African born and bred and none of them ar racist in any way,shape or form.

[Ethel]

What's with the ageism, petes_dragon?

Do not lump all older people together in one group - we are as individual and different as everybody else.

There are racists in every class, society, community and age group.
Equally there are people who fight racism with passion, energy and belief in every society, class and community.

[lady_p_gold]

I can see your point about the racism but I just had to say something about the overseas helpdesk, sometimes it can be frustrating, if through no fault of their own, they do not have the language expertise to understand a difficult problem. I think that is when people get frustrated and I did have a very serious problem recently and unfortunately was not able to resolve it with the overseas help. Anyway nothing to do with the question really, and hopefully as those older generation fade away we can all live together with mutual respect.

[saintjohnny]

We have to try to be as objective as possible when dealing with thorny matters such as this, because otherwise the answers get lost in a morass of argument and counter argument. The way I see it, people trying to make a go of their lives after the austerity and hardship of WW2 probably weren't prepared mentally or culturally for the sudden influx of Asians and Afro Caribbeans in the '50's and '60's. It would have been all too easy to use these newcomers as scapegoats for the inevitable economic and social problems suffered by any society after a devastating war. The fact is, successive governments more or less dumped immigrants in the country and told them to get on with it - there was no attempt at integrating the new arrivals or explaining to the indigenous population the sound and important reasons why there were so many black and brown faces appearing in the UK. It is true that certain communities (in my view the Pakistani and other Muslim peoples) failed to make the necessary gestures of integration, a trend that I think continues today, but by and large, the ghettoisation of incoming ethnic groups was inevitable. I hasten to add that this is not an excuse for racism from elderly people - as I say, those people who would have been in their 20's and 30's in 1950 are now oyr elderly generation, and they have had more than enough time to get used to the idea that the UK is multicultural. Do let's try and see things from both points of view however. Imagine being a white working class person in a town like Luton or Leicester at the time of mass immigration. Then imagine being a young working class black or Asian person setting foot in a strange country. Mutual suspicion, mutual mistrust and mutual insecurity all would have added up to the problems we still see today.

[petes_dragon]

Apologies to those who feel I was being 'ageist' with this post - it certainly wasn't intended........notice the use of the word SOME!...I am only speaking from my own experience and am not trying to imply that EVERYONE over a certain age has a racist attitude!!

Within my own family, I have noticed that the older generations still have this opinion of ALL black people - before they get to know any one! This ranges from my Grandparents through great aunts/uncles, my in-laws and to a lesser extent even my parents!!.(so from 80+ down to 55yr olds) Although my parents are of the opinion that if they love each other and make each other happy then nothing else really matters!!

A xXx

[dummkopf]

As a 'middle ager' I understand how some of the older people appear (or are) racist. "Their" England is not what it used to be and they cannot adapt, nothing you can do to change attitudes.
People have a right to seek a better life and standard of living. I don't have any problems with pink, green, black or yellow people BUT what does worry me is not colour , but the sheer number of people now balancing on this little island. How can the schools, health service, housing departments etc cope with this mass migration to the UK mainly from eastern europe. ? what is the answer ?

[Backdrifter]

I'm not sure I completely agree with that, dummkopf. As someone already said, some of the people being referred to here were young during the immigration of the 50s and, in theory, have had plenty of time and opportunity to accept multiculturalism. This "you can't change attitudes" notion isn't strictly true and in some ways is an easy get-out clause but the fact is attitudes can and DO change, if you're open to it. If you're not, you will allow your prejudices to set in hard.

But I'd also suggest we think about where these attitudes can come from. Yes, there are racists of all ages but bear in mind some of them - SOME - have those attitudes because they've been drummed into them from day 1 by racist parents and grandparents. And so the grim cycle continues.

It isn't helped when idiots on local councils breed resentment by taking PC to ludicrous extremes, banning xmas lights or renaming them "winter lights" etc because they think muslims and hindus will be offended - despite the protestations of muslims and hindus who insist they're not in the least offended and would prefer their christian neighbours to celebrate xmas as normal!

One further bit of nitpicking dummkopff - I challenge your "mass immigration" and "mainly from eastern europe" claims - my understanding is that despite what the tabloid media would have us believe, immigration to the UK is mainly from white americans and white south africans, and far from being "mass immigration" the actual number is far less than this emotive term suggests, and is in fact less than the number of emigrants.