AndrewOW Posted March 19, 2009 Share Posted March 19, 2009 http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/england/nottinghamshire/7951778.stm Something in this news article didn't sit right with me, and I can't quite put my finger on it. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
juanchan Posted March 19, 2009 Share Posted March 19, 2009 I struggle to understand French and Polish people I deal with at work who speak English, let alone those who can't speak English, so I can kinda see where he's coming from Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Mike Posted March 19, 2009 Share Posted March 19, 2009 Mr Kumarasiri said he could not serve people if he did not understand what they were asking for. That would seem a sensible policy to me Are you getting at him being from Sri Lanka and has been in this country 18 years? Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
AndrewOW Posted March 19, 2009 Author Share Posted March 19, 2009 That would seem a sensible policy to me Are you getting at him being from Sri Lanka and has been in this country 18 years? Is he being racist or isn't he being racist? That is the question. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
benkei Posted March 19, 2009 Share Posted March 19, 2009 "I'm sorry, I don't speak foreign" Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Gaz6002 Posted March 19, 2009 Share Posted March 19, 2009 Is he being racist or isn't he being racist? That is the question. If you have to even ask that question there's no hope. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
JustGav Posted March 19, 2009 Share Posted March 19, 2009 Meh, the primary language of this country is English, learn to speak it, that is my view... (popular or not) Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Mike Posted March 19, 2009 Share Posted March 19, 2009 How can you help someone if you can't understand what they want? I don't think this is a race issue. Nice try though Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Al Massey Posted March 19, 2009 Share Posted March 19, 2009 This guy deserves respect. He learnt english to get by, he says he respects our country and culture and thinks other foreigners should too. Damn right Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
tony tt Posted March 19, 2009 Share Posted March 19, 2009 This guy deserves respect. He learnt english to get by, he says he respects our country and culture and thinks other foreigners should too. Damn right Spot on!! Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Lbm Posted March 19, 2009 Share Posted March 19, 2009 Imagine if this shopkeeper was a driving instructor instead and his foreign students/customers couldn't quite grasp the lingo. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Havard Posted March 19, 2009 Share Posted March 19, 2009 Je ne comprend pas..... Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Al Massey Posted March 19, 2009 Share Posted March 19, 2009 Je ne comprend pas..... You never understand anything:d Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Havard Posted March 19, 2009 Share Posted March 19, 2009 You never understand anything:d Only you Al..... Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Max Headroom Posted March 19, 2009 Share Posted March 19, 2009 There doesn't seem to be any "he's a racist" comments from the PC brigade. Funny that! Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
RiceRocket Posted March 19, 2009 Share Posted March 19, 2009 Something in this news article didn't sit right with me, and I can't quite put my finger on it. Are you trying to incite something? Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Guigsy Posted March 19, 2009 Share Posted March 19, 2009 This guy deserves respect. He learnt english to get by, he says he respects our country and culture and thinks other foreigners should too. Damn right Exactly. And also from a customer service point of view. How do you serve someone that you cannot understand and that doesnt understand you? Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Gaz6002 Posted March 19, 2009 Share Posted March 19, 2009 Exactly. And also from a customer service point of view. How do you serve someone that you cannot understand and that doesnt understand you? http://www.thepredictors.com/images/signals.jpg Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
AndrewOW Posted March 19, 2009 Author Share Posted March 19, 2009 Are you trying to incite something? No, not at all, but if it was a 'white' person saying that, then he'd be thrown out of that place as soon as it hit the press. IMO of course. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Guigsy Posted March 19, 2009 Share Posted March 19, 2009 http://www.thepredictors.com/images/signals.jpg huh? Am i missing something? Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Gaz6002 Posted March 19, 2009 Share Posted March 19, 2009 huh? Am i missing something? Smoke signals... the ironic way of saying you're right. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
benkei Posted March 19, 2009 Share Posted March 19, 2009 No, not at all, but if it was a 'white' person saying that, then he'd be thrown out of that place as soon as it hit the press. IMO of course. These white people are bloody racists! Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Carl_S Posted March 19, 2009 Share Posted March 19, 2009 It does not sit right with me either Andrew, and I feel the BBC article brought this potential sense of unease out with great adeptness. I feel it is not necessarily racism here, that would depend on how the behaviour is percieved by those that get turned away and perhaps the postmaster's deeper motivations. Being brown means that the postmaster can espouse a more publicly right wing standpoint with impunity and without fear of leftwing detractors. Examining the language he uses, the word "obey" gives us a guess as to his mentality. It is possible that he has elevated "the British" onto a pedestal. Coming to this country he may have felt he needed to "obey" to fit in. Now that he has reached postmaster status, he feels he needs to be obeyed, and indentifies fully with his internal picture of what the British are like. An anomaly, say a spainard, coming to the post office and speaking only a few words of English, might trigger a feeling of what he used to be, and he will reject them. As after all, someone who does not understand him cannot obey him; hence he will serve the next customer. One wonders what help he got in learning English, and how sympathetic people were to him when he first came to this country, and whether he is just simply inflicting the pain he once felt on current customers who remind him of how he used to be. A past feeling he may rather like to forget. So if his attitude is not racist, it may simply be described as unhelpful, in a faultly towers kind of way. The test about his consistency in this matter would be for someone brown like myself to go up to him and speak either Sinhala or Tamil (which ever of these Sri-Lankan languages he knows and understands) and see if they can apologetically buy a pack of first class stamps saying that they don't actually speak any English yet, but thought he would understand them because of his Sri-Lankan name. The word postmaster is also an interesting word, with the "master" in it. Master and slave; he who must be obeyed, and he who must obey. Sri-lanka was of course an ex-British colony, and gained its independence from the British a year after India did. Maybe in the Sri-Lankan collective conciousness they were seen as "British Masters". I believe that even words such as schoolmaster and other anacronisms are still in daily use there. That would hint at a colonial past that Sri-lanka may remember more than Britian, Anecdotally, Sri-Lanka was easier to colonise than India by the British due to its size, and the swiftness of this colonisation maybe have resulted in the production of many human coconuts. I.e. brown on the outiside and white on the inside, of which this gentleman may be one. Or perhaps it is me that is the coconut here. But like M45sey says, respect for hard work, language learning is in order. Who knows he may be one of the few British subjects loyal to the Queen, and what she stands for. Just another angle on this, and as always I reserve my right to be completely wrong. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Paul Posted March 19, 2009 Share Posted March 19, 2009 Is he being racist or isn't he being racist? That is the question. Mike never fails to appear in this type of thread fighting for the cause:) Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Gordon F Posted March 19, 2009 Share Posted March 19, 2009 It does not sit right with me either Andrew, and I feel the BBC article brought this potential sense of unease out with great adeptness. I feel it is not necessarily racism here, that would depend on how the behaviour is percieved by those that get turned away and perhaps the postmaster's deeper motivations. Being brown means that the postmaster can espouse a more publicly right wing standpoint with impunity and without fear of leftwing detractors. Examining the language he uses, the word "obey" gives us a guess as to his mentality. It is possible that he has elevated "the British" onto a pedestal. Coming to this country he may have felt he needed to "obey" to fit in. Now that he has reached postmaster status, he feels he needs to be obeyed, and indentifies fully with his internal picture of what the British are like. An anomaly, say a spainard, coming to the post office and speaking only a few words of English, might trigger a feeling of what he used to be, and he will reject them. As after all, someone who does not understand him cannot obey him; hence he will serve the next customer. One wonders what help he got in learning English, and how sympathetic people were to him when he first came to this country, and whether he is just simply inflicting the pain he once felt on current customers who remind him of how he used to be. A past feeling he may rather like to forget. So if his attitude is not racist, it may simply be described as unhelpful, in a faultly towers kind of way. The test about his consistency in this matter would be for someone brown like myself to go up to him and speak either Sinhala or Tamil (which ever of these Sri-Lankan languages he knows and understands) and see if they can apologetically buy a pack of first class stamps saying that they don't actually speak any English yet, but thought he would understand them because of his Sri-Lankan name. The word postmaster is also an interesting word, with the "master" in it. Master and slave; he who must be obeyed, and he who must obey. Sri-lanka was of course an ex-British colony, and gained its independence from the British a year after India did. Maybe in the Sri-Lankan collective conciousness they were seen as "British Masters". I believe that even words such as schoolmaster and other anacronisms are still in daily use there. That would hint at a colonial past that Sri-lanka may remember more than Britian, Anecdotally, Sri-Lanka was easier to colonise than India by the British due to its size, and the swiftness of this colonisation maybe have resulted in the production of many human coconuts. I.e. brown on the outiside and white on the inside, of which this gentleman may be one. Or perhaps it is me that is the coconut here. But like M45sey says, respect for hard work, language learning is in order. Who knows he may be one of the few British subjects loyal to the Queen, and what she stands for. Just another angle on this, and as always I reserve my right to be completely wrong. Shite Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
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