So...I'm a racist now.

a reply to: WakeUpBeer

ever heard the origin story about the tune "yankee doodle"....the macaroni club in London (effeminate old world metro sexual club), feather in our hats (to imply we were unsophisticated and thought that sticking feathers into our hats would make us more fashionable and effeminate....the Brits were insulting our masculinity implying that we would go to the UK to frequent the gay clubs and would ride around on effeminate ponies, doodle meant "fool".......

LOL and we idiots sang that damn song for generations...LOL Its still the state anthem for Connecticut. Thats absurd!!

I dont take offense to being called a yankee. I think its all hilarious.

originally posted by: samerulesapply
So out steps she-hero...naturally she's white as she's a hero...and puts me firmly in my place. You can't say that, you're disgusting!

I know a couple of women like that. Mid 50's, white, and who are into being culturally diverse armchair experts. I seriously think they have cases of race-envy or something.

IF anyone called me a racist like that in a work environment, I'd take them to human resources. Seriously. Make I'd a complaint if I were in that situation. No one deserves that kind of abuse, especially from idiots like that.

a reply to: tadaman

LOL!

Oh man I had completely forgotten about the history of that song!

Actually it kind of amuses me how we took a song making us out to be fools then sang it with pride for generations! So much for being insulted. Tbh I was even singing it in my head when I wrote my previous post.

I was once following a car preparing to stop them and radioed that I was following "such and such vehicle, occupied twice, two male blacks." My lieutenant for the day came over the radio to correct me, coming up with some random BS question about "the two male African Americans." I then put out "two male blacks" again, conducted my stop, and went about my business.

Later that day, I was called in to an office with my LT and a Captain, where the LT explained to me in no uncertain terms that "male black" was a racist term and I couldn't use it over the radio or in reports. When I asked how I was supposed to know if these guys were Americans and not, say, Ugandan, I was told it "doesn't matter, you can't say BLACK, because it's RACIST."

We also weren't allowed to say "Middle Eastern." We had to say "olive complected." Because apparently it did matter that since somebody might be ME or Hispanic, and we didn't know until we made contact with them, we couldn't say ME but we had to call all black people African Americans, without knowing whether they were American or not.

That's all changed now, but not until after I got a couple unpaid days off and was informed that I was racist, and used racist language in a professional manner. I had no idea that I was such a racist until they cleared it up for me that one word was enough to make me racist through and through.

Amazing what you can learn about yourself from other people who don't really know a thing about you, isn't it?

Sorry I didn't respond for a while.

A lot of people had time off over the holidays including myself, so the days I have been in work were pretty quiet and not many people around.

I saw the guy the other day, either he knows nothing about the incident or doesn't care but I'm not going to bring it up. I don't really know him, he's just a guy at work but there's always a nod and a friendly hello between us and that hasn't changed, which is good.

I was reeling, you know? I haven't been in this job long and at first I quite liked her, I got the impression she wasn't one to be messed with she seems like quite a strong and assertive type, but I never expected that.

When I got home that night there was no-one to chat to about it, I was kinda rattled and wanted confirmation I suppose...confirmation that I wasn't going mad.

She's been in work the last week and conversations with her are now awkward as hell. I spoke to another girl who said that she once went insane on her because someone used her cup or something, she's apparently known for this sort of thing and from what I gather a few other people thought she more than over-reacted.

I was worried I'd really offended all of my co-workers but things are fine apart from the awkward tension...I still think there's more to it. Who knows, I'm reluctant to take it further as I don't want to be landing myself in bother when I haven't even been there for 6 months yet but I still feel there's something brewing...I'm not used to this sort of thing, bickering with crazy ladies at work. We're meant to be grown ups but I feel like I'm back at school...

I thank you all for responding and your honest and somewhat supportive comments, hope I didn't offend anyone here.

a reply to: CJCrawley

Sorry you find my claims so unbelievable, it is quite outlandish I agree, even for ATS - this should be moved to the HOAX forum.

I was going to tell y'all about that time when I got lynched by the extra-terrestrial equivalent of the KKK for referring to my captors as "grays" but I won't bother now.

I reckon 40 or so years ago I would have gotten away with saying a lot worse.