by any other name?
I used to work for Birmingham council on a very insular housing estate that was 99.8% white, I was one of the few not in that percentage. Thankfully in my 3 years on the job there I was only exposed to prejudice once and actually I'm not even sure about that.

Getting the bus into work one morning I was forced to sit behind a big group of school kids. It seems they didn't take kindly to my presence.

They started to discuss the merits of chinese food, how chinese people were dirty and ate dogs. How chinese men had small dicks and the women all had tiny feet so they could fist each other with their feet, (probably). This continued until they reached their destination and as a passing shot they all turned to me pulling their eyes into a squint and mumbling "wing woo" at me as they got off. It seemed to give them some satisfaction so I didn't interrupt. Frankly I was baffled why this seemed to be aimed at me.

You see I'm not chinese.
I'm not Korean, Japanese or anything that vaguely looks chinese.
My background is Indian, I'm well tanned, round eyed, sometimes get confused as being greek, but I've never been mistaken for being chinese. So I stepped off the bus unsure about how offended to be.

I told my coworker when I got in and he presented this anthropological theory:

The local chinese takeaway was called "Wing Wu". Therefore the only non white people the kids interact with are the workers in the chinese takeaway. Their racism training having been severly curbed due to the lack of different ethnicities to practice on, these mini bigots had somehow come to the conclusion that the racial slurs they normally used (aimed at the chinese) are infact universal insults and can be used on all ethnicities.

My theory was either they were retards or that to racists all "forrins" do look the same. More research is pending if I can find an estate that has only one Thai takeaway and nothing else.
(Bo Nidle Coming back in from the cold., Thu 1 Apr 2010, 22:32, Reply)