I resent the implication in this question
that just because someone is old, they will automatically have been racist. This is an offensive stereotype of a generation of good, solid, decent people. Take my grandparents, for instance, not a racist bone in their bodies. I know this because they treated their slaves every bit as well as they treated all the other animals that slept in their barn.
( scarpe We Stole Bikes, Thu 27 Oct 2011, 15:25, 3 replies)

My somewhat deaf Grandma in her final years spent a lot of time in and out of hospital.
On her first admission for the condition which would ultimately finish her myself and my sister went to visit her.

After initial greetings and 'how are you today's conversation settled down until she gave a conspiratorial look round and said in a whisper(read: top of the voice for a normal person) 'THEY 'AVE BLACK DOCTORS TODAY YOU KNOW'.
We cast an embarrassed look around only to see a junior doctor of (I believe)Pakistani extraction speaking to a patient at the end of the bay. He appeared not to have noticed us.
Grandma continued 'ONLY THIS ONE WHAT SAW ME THIS MORNING' indicating said junior doctor 'HE WEREN'T SO MUCH BLACK AS MUCKY LOOKING'.
Again a glance round, this time to meet the eye of the doc.
'It's alright folks, I like the lively ones' he said.
( Amorous Badger NAKED BEA ARTHUR PHOTOS 4U, Thu 27 Oct 2011, 15:23, 4 replies)

My ex... (who is a grandmother, hence tenuously fits the question)
...refers to all black people as Jamaican.
(Professor Kenny Martin Hmm? What?, Thu 27 Oct 2011, 15:22, 2 replies)

Big bucks
I worked at a computer centre that had been built in the grounds of a Victorian mental hospital. Going through the gates one day, I was accosted by a patient. He was young, about 6', 18 stone and of afro-caribbean descent. Luckily, he was also medicated to the gills, so I could easily avoid his assaults until the nurses arrived to lead him away.

A few weeks later I went home for Xmas to visit the aged parents, and happened to mention the incident to my father.

The next day, I overheard him talking to a neighbour: "And then this big buck nigger, high on drugs..."

Did I take him to task? Did I buggery.
(Prokrastin8, Thu 27 Oct 2011, 15:18, 2 replies)

Way back when my mom was young, in the 50's.
There used to be metal crossing guards statue-like things in front of schools.

One night, my grandmother was driving home and hit one. She got home all flustered and panicky, and when asked what was wrong, replied, "I just ran over a niglet!"
(CactusZack Shaved his coin purse on, Thu 27 Oct 2011, 15:08, 2 replies)

Oh god, where to begin...
Granny 1 (now departed): [Said of a black nurse who was looking after her in hospital] It's clever how she's able to eat with those big lips without any food falling out.

Granny 2 (also departed) [Said of blacks, Asians, Chinese probably, martians, etc.] They breed more than we do, it's a known fact.

Granny 2 [When I pointed out that she was one of seven siblings] That's NOT the same at all!

My mother [Having discovered that a grandparent (?) on my father's side had put 'Tinker' as his profession on an old census form. I.e. a tinsmith, who repairs metal utensils] So you're descended from an Irishman. [Me: Er, no, not an Irish traveller, surely it means...] Mother: Still, it could have been worse; at least he wasn't Turkish! [Me: ??!!??]

Also numerous references to 'Chinamen', 'our coloured cousins' but for some bizarre reason any male Asian is referred to as 'an Indian gentlemen'.

It is a wonder I'm not a card carrying member of the BNP. Probably too left wing for my grandparents...
(Cheeselog is mostly water, Thu 27 Oct 2011, 15:08, Reply)

Fans will remember that I taught EFL in the depths of Romania in the early 1990s, just after Cheuchesku fell.
Being English was very nearly as good as being American, and so was my credit card to pretty well everything; socially people fell over themselves to invite me to their gatherings and parties.

I quickly learned that some of the Romanians, and some of the Hungarians living in Romania, are rather like a much quieter version of Israel and Palestine - they've been squabbling over the same patch of land forever, and absolutely loathe each other. These battles have been vicious, including one Romanian general who, apparently, on capturing a bunch of Hungarian officers, systematically slit each of their throats, toasting each one with a glass of red wine, claiming to be drinking their blood.

One family I stayed with were Hungarian, and on my first evening there I was invited to cheap old pub to celebrate something. The pub was packed, loud, and as I was led through, pretty girls smiled invitingly at me, people blew smoke and laughed with each other, and I think somewhere people were singing a folk song. I was led to a long wooden table, at which were seated about 20 of the (predominantly male) extended family, and after a brief introduction in Hungarian, was greeted to cheers, a space at the table was made, and I was invited to sit next to the grandfatherly head of the family.

I don't speak any Hungarian, and my host's English was pigeon at the very best. They were a convivial lot, however, and conversation flowed around and over me, and as the wine flowed I was able to somehow converse in that sort of pleasantly vulgar combination of alluding to sexual imagery by indicating body parts and nodding towards the various women in the pub, and shouting seemingly random words (true - at one point I did convey that a girl had a lovely arse by pointing to the top of a table leg).

As the evening wore on predictably the mood became more mellow and quiet, conversations clearly turning to matters of the heart, and of loss. Cigarettes were now being chain smoked, quiet moans escaped, and more wine was poured, increasingly inaccurately.

My host, to lighten the mood, stood, and made a little speech in English. "This (pointing at me) my England friend *hic* (crowd picks up, laughs). He my friend, and my grandson is to his teach. My grandson make teach, and in England beoomes a work! (applause, cheers). When my grandson is work England, I am thanks (cheers), and ... one day ... to a girl for me? (laughter, son goes crimson). So my England friend Vagabond, I am thank! (MASSIVE cheers)"

I smile gratefully, and it's clear that I must return the sentiment.

"Well" I say, "You are all very kind! (cheers, applause, clapping on backs) When I first came here, I was alone, and you have made me feel like a family member! (cheers, welcomes, lewd implications towards the women at the table) So, for making me feel welcome, here is to all of YOU!" I said, raising my glass of red wine.

Silence. As in, the whole pub went silent.

Anger.

My host stands up "He England" he says smiling, diplomatically, "Is thank." and puts his hand on my shoulder to seat me.

I had, it seems, in essence, just toasted the violent death of their officers.
( Je suis un vagabond is an unfunny, up your own arse middle class knob, Thu 27 Oct 2011, 15:00, Reply)

little black sambo
I've lived in Leicester for 20 years now, a wonderful vibrant, multicultural city with a 30% asian population, a smattering of black folk and even less Chinese, my grandparents were 30 miles up the road in Nottingham.

They've both now shuffled off to the great M&S in the sky, which is a bit of a relief to many that knew them, the old guy was a cantankerous fucker but my gran was a kindly salt of the earth type which always made her ingrained racism a little hard to stomach.
One of the highlights of my childhood was being allowed to get the matches for the cigarettes from 'little black sambo' as he was affectionately named, the 3' high wooden 'statue' in their lounge which held matchbox and ashtray in a subservient manner - it was the closest to a domestic they were likely to get.

www.stonegateantiques.net/items/964506/picture2.jpg

I don't remember finding this hideous thing offensive at the time but then I grew up in an age of Enid Blyton and gollywogs, what I did object to was that every single time I enquired whether they would like to visit me I was met with my grans contorted face announcing 'oooh no, I'll not go there - it's full of darkies'
(AndySpanners not working too hard on, Thu 27 Oct 2011, 14:46, 1 reply)

The song
My Granny on my Mum's side once got pissed on sherry after Christmas dinner and decided to sing what is referred to in our house only as 'the song'

I don't know the words but the song recounts the tale of a young boy who gets covered in soot and then carted off. The last line is etched into my memory

"young boys be sure to wash yourself with vigor, or else you may be taken for a..."

I'll let you fill in the gaps.
( WormuIus, Thu 27 Oct 2011, 14:31, 6 replies)

Not Douglas Bader but...
My Grandad was a real salt of the earth working class hero who lost an ear at Gallipoli. He never once made an overtly or casual racist remark that I can remember, but he did have a dog called N****r.

Its easier to talk about my other Grandad, he was a conshie.
(J H Christ began in Afrika ka ka ka ka, Thu 27 Oct 2011, 14:29, 6 replies)

Ten Pin Bowling
My Grandad (who was a Sailor) used to tell me about a time he went ten pin bowling in New York back in the 50's.
His favourite part of the story was that back then, there was no machinery to re-stack the pins.
Instead it was a "little black fella" who would run out between throws and manually stack them.
My Grandad used to say how you have never seen anyone do it as fast and the game of bowling came second place to the game of "So who can hit the black kid with the bowling ball before he can stack the pins"
They never managed to hit him thankfully, just too damn fast.
( Kris Fucking Kristofferson, Thu 27 Oct 2011, 14:27, Reply)

Not mine, but an old schoolmates.
According to his gran, the reason black guys did so well in athletics, was because they have to run away from the lions and tigers in the jungle.
(Bear Pookie The Frankly Challenged. Halloween is coming to town., Thu 27 Oct 2011, 14:24, 8 replies)

Of vans, horns and cover ups.
A couple of tales involving places to the south of these parts.

My parents retired to south west France some years ago, and a French friend of theirs was stone cold certain that North Africans were smuggled into France and dispersed about the country in police vans, and that the state was covering it up. Her husband, a retired cop, would nod in agreement.

A Spanish friend, when a child, was told by an elderly relative that Jews have horns.
(Jack of Diamonds, Thu 27 Oct 2011, 14:13, 1 reply)

What about the house prices?
My grandmother went in to kennels a little while before she died; at the time, I happened to be in need of somewhere to live, so house-sat. Eventually, though, it was time for me to move on, and the house was put up for sale.

One of the neighbours - who was old enough to be someone's grandparent, and so is fair game here - was worried by this development. He came around especially to ensure that the house wouldn't be sold to any black people.

I wish I could have seen his reaction when he discovered that it had, in fact, been sold to a gay couple.
( Enzyme is powered by sunlight, Thu 27 Oct 2011, 14:01, Reply)

Arabs especially Turks
My Dad has a strong dislike for Turks after he saw one stab a guy in the back in the cinema in the 50's.

It was a movie.
(Adaminho, Thu 27 Oct 2011, 14:00, Reply)

Sammi would have loved this question.

|¦:¬(|
( mike woz ere 7442200 & 7696970 getter, Thu 27 Oct 2011, 13:58, 5 replies)

IS HATRED OF IRISH CATHOLICS RACISM?
My father was a strange character - a fence for gangsters in Birmingham back in the 60s and far from the most of progressive of people when it came to black people, travellers or Irish catholics.

Now there are other tales to tell of how badly he took it that my very first best friend was a black Jamaican kid called Winston (yes named after Churchill!) but the one memory I have to relate here is of one of the few serious conversations with my father about his dislike of Irish Catholics.

(And here was one of the strangest things about him and others who exhibit such casual racism - he actually got on well with lots of Catholics and black guys when he met them personally - all of his hatred was in the abstract. Go figure!)

Anyhow - my old man ran a very very big pub in Birmingham during the 60s and this was a period of Irish Republican violence in the name of home rule. One of those outrages was what was known as the Birmingham bombings when on 21 November 1974, 21 innocent people were blown up by the Provisional IRA in two separate blasts in pubs.

Now living in a pub at the time obviously this had some impact on my father's psyche and he followed the events thereafter somewhat closely including the police "capture" of the Birmingham Six - a group of Irish men who later it was shown were fitted up by the cops and sent to jail innocent of at least that particular crime. One of those six people was Patrick Joseph Hill also known as Paddy Hill.

Years later I discussed this with my father in one of our few discussions that didn't quickly decend into verbal abuse of each other. I was somewhat amazed at his response given he stated dislike of "taigs" which was fuelled by the typical protestant Scottish working class upbringing that he had had and the fact his father had been at one point a "Black and Tan".

Here was the conversation probably spurred by some TV programme about it all if I remember correctly:

Father: "I knew him. I knew Paddy Hill...."

Me: "Really! You never said."

Father: "Yeah I knew him. I knew he hadn't done it even then. I knew it wasn't him when they nicked him for it."

Me - in astonishment at my father's new found liberal views particularly on this subject: "Really!!!! How did you know that?"

Father: "Paddy Hill! He was too much of a fucking poof to do it, it wasn't him. Poofs don't have the balls."

So there you have it - homophobia tops casual racism in the pantheon of hatred. Could be an interesting set of Top Trump Cards there for the EDL special edition.

Sorry for length: it was the only good thing I got from my father. Hellloooo ladiezz.
(beaverwastemanagement a real company. I want to work for them!, Thu 27 Oct 2011, 13:55, Reply)

Blood Capsules
I grew up down south but my family hail from Preston. So it was that on a yearly visit to the grandparents in Bury, I was allowed to buy some blood capsules for hilairous schoolboy japes.

That was until my Granddad Ted saw them, he wouldn't let me put them in my mouth because "Paki's made them over bins in their garages".

Not sure how profitable the company would be if every blood capsule was lovingly put together over a bin in a garage, but there you go.

(This is the same granddad who insisted not to go to the corner shop for bread because the 'colour rubbed off from their hands')
( Wildyles is back to rimming chimps, Thu 27 Oct 2011, 13:55, Reply)

Not a relative
but a tough (super-rich) old bitch (I'll call her Laura Horton, because that was her name (she's probably dead now)) at the dance club I taught at a looooooooooong time ago, who wasn't one of my students, but on occasion I was forced to dance with her anyway, came out in a loud voice with this succinct little gem, having been asked by a lovely middle-aged doctor of Indian descent (well-spoken, beautifully dressed etc.) if she would give him the pleasure of the next dance:
"Cheeky wog."
His calm, smiling response - "Forgive me - is that a 'yes' or a 'no'?"
( blyerkit e k trilby, Thu 27 Oct 2011, 13:54, Reply)

Trevor McDonald.
Whenever he was reading the news my gran would say "He speaks English ever so well" and "Look at him dressed all smart".
(oneinthepink is at your cervix m'lady, Thu 27 Oct 2011, 13:48, Reply)

My Grandad's not racist.
He's just from a different era. A very, very racist era.
In all seriousness, I doubt he hates any member of another race. He's just got the habit of putting his foot in his mouth whenever he speaks to someone who's not white. Or, as he's got older, just anyone in general.

Imagine the family horror, therefore, when we realised Grandad was going to be in town whilst we met his favourite granddaughter Louise's new Chinese-Australian fiance, Hobart Xiao.*
We make small talk in the pub, while we wait for Grandad's inevitable arrival. Hobart's there with Louise, and he's getting on with everyone well enough.

But...everyone knows what's going to happen when Grandad arrives.
This means there's a little current of terror in the air, and nobody's really at their ease apart from the blissfully oblivious groom-to-be.

Cometh the hour of doom, and in saunters my Grandfather. He clocks Hobart. Hobart smiles back.
You can see Grandad's cogs turning. Grand-daughter? Check. Asian Fiance? Check. Ashen-faced family? Check. All present and correct. Initiating small-talk mode.

"So, you're Hobart, are you?"
"Yes, I am."
"You're Australian then?"
"Yes."
"Do you eat a lot of Chinese food at home?"

Oh God, here we go...

"Only every bloody day, mate, only every bloody day."

And they clicked! Perfectly! They bonded over cricket! Fuck me, they actually had spirited banter about cricket! If Grandad had given the bloke more of his blessing, he'd have married him himself!
But to cap it all, I overheard this conversation while they were both at the bar:
Hobart: "I like you Wilf. You're not uneasy around Asian people. Not like the rest of these bastards."

*Not his real name. His real name's even more ridiculous. And I'm not talking about the Xiao part.
(universalpsykopath loves what you've done with your hair., Thu 27 Oct 2011, 13:47, 6 replies)

Not quite realising the irony...
...or just plain madness of it, my 90 year old grandmother refuses to fly from Luton airport 'because of all the Asians that live there'.
(scum_monkey fucking hates your guts, Thu 27 Oct 2011, 13:42, 2 replies)

I went to my Mums house to catch up with her and get some good food.
I ask at the dinner table if the house next door which had been up for sale, had been sold. She said in a whisper "yes it has" I said "Oh thats good news what are your new neighbours like." Again in a whisper "They're black" Me "Oh are they nice, have you met them and why are you whispering mum? black people don't have extra sensitive hearing" my mum "you don't know that".
( BindiBaji, Thu 27 Oct 2011, 13:37, Reply)

My senile grandpa has been left behind a little bit in his old age.
I constantly enjoy asking questions of him and wonder in amazement as he makes up an answer almost on the spot. He has the strangest disposition of thanking no-one at all at the end of the stories he often makes up too and I'm beginning to worry about him.

For a time now he's held this belief that where someone comes from somehow defines them and that they are all exactly the same. I believe his fear is beginning to manifest itself in irrational hatred. Where once his stories were a somewhat pleasant distraction, his racism has recently infected them to the point of mild obsession. Just the other day he embarrassed me in public by making some wild, unfounded and wholly irrelevant claim about another race. I'm thinking of cancelling his Daily Mail subscription.

Cheers.
( mike woz ere 7442200 & 7696970 getter, Thu 27 Oct 2011, 13:36, 3 replies)

My late Grandfather hailed from Belfast, but moved to South London after the war.
He was surprisingly open minded when it came to the 'local coloured chaps', never had a bad word to say about them, and would often cook us exotic 'Caribbean' food, and he was the only relative not to talk to Mrs Quackblast, who is Korean, as if she was retarded upon being introduced to her.
Not very racist so far, eh?
However, get him going on Catholics and all sorts of 'not to be used in front of Children of our age' words would be used, causing Mum to roll her eyes and change the subject. Hopefully not on to Germans though.
'Uncultured Savages. Always hated 'em, even before the war. That's why I volunteered to man the anti aircraft guns at the shipyard. So I could shoot them'.
All this pales into insignificance compared to his hatred of the Portuguese. I'm not sure why, it was never explained. He even went as far as to tell me to 'Fuck off' when I told him I knew the Portuguese for 'Parrot'.
(FartThroughAWalkieTalkie wished you were dead in ditch on, Thu 27 Oct 2011, 13:35, 1 reply)

My lovely, dear departed grandmother
She was born in 1897, and I can remember her from when I was a wee lad - she would have been in her 60's.

One famous line, when I was given a 50 cent coin, and was about to put it in my mouth "Don't put that in your mouth, some dirty chinaman may have touched it."

She also had a hatred of anyone and anything Japanese - somewhat understandable as two of her cousins were killed by Japanese soldiers in the Second World War (rather gruesomely as I recall).
(Maclir, Thu 27 Oct 2011, 13:28, 3 replies)