Did anyone see that Stephen Fry programme recently where, amongst other set-ups, an actor played the (convincing) part of a racist waiter in a genuine restaurant, to see how many would object to his behaviour?
Although unscientific, it seemed to show that, whilst most people didn't like the racism and would murmur disapproval to each other, not many were prepared to speak up and challenge it immediately.
A lesson for us all there.
Silent or repressed disapproval is simply not good enough.

[url=http://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/politics/9221047/Black-people-cannot-be-racist-says-former-Ken-Livingstone-aide.htmlIndeed[/url

I'm intrigued by your call for positive discrimination in the job market, re sexuality and gender. Perhaps you could expand your thoughts on how you would judge the merits of a one legged Nigerian lesbian with a limited grasp of the English language, to be a better fit in the workplace, rather than say, an overly flamboyant Anglo Saxon transvestite chappie in the John Inman stylee. Extra points awarded for post op rather than simply a Friday night Freda?

And at the second interview, would pictures of the candidate on all fours wearing a gimp mask, and being enthusiastically rogered by large strap on wearing female, possibly trump the NVQ qualifications of a more "normal" applicant?

In this bold new world are there any lines in the sand? Would peadophilia or necrophobia simply be considered as an expression of a persons sexuality, and not in anyway an impediment to a full and fruitful career at Codhead PLC?

I think you're letting your fantasies get in the way of a simple attitude of inclusive recruiting, sometimes SOME businesses need to just step back and ask themselves some very simple questions as to how their staff at the varying levels of their organisation represent a mix of society, especially organisations who's primary business is to provide a service to that society - its something that (for instance) large retailers usually do very well with their public facing staff, unfortunately its not always reflected in the back office and especially as you climb further up the management tree - its good sometimes to take a reflective view and ask why.

You'll never see full equality while wits like this are able to breed.

How do they know 1) That the complaint was from a white person 2) That race was the reason they didn't want them seated near them.

They were asked to leave when one of them whipped out their cell phone and started recording. Would you have accepted someone sticking a camera in your face and recording you?

It's like Oprah Winfrey's recent call that she was racially discriminated against because a Swiss sales assistant didn't think she could afford to buy their stupidly expensive handbags. But the fact is that very few people are that rich to be able to waste so much money on crap. Part of the woman's job would have been to not let poor people handle $35,000 hand bags.

So the woman wrongly thought Winfrey couldn't afford to waste that much money. She was clearly wrong. Winfrey could have easily and bitchily pointed that out, but instead she chose to go on TV to whine about it. It MIGHT have been racism, but it could have had nothing to do with race.

It's said in the report.

It says that someone started videoing it, that is not necessarily the same as your assertion about "sticking a camera in your face".
You have assumed aggression by the videoing person but the report does not mention or imply it.

Are you sure she didn't?

No it didn't.



Which became "waited 2hrs, patiently and were refused service because another customer (White) felt threatened by us" on Mike London's Facebook post.

Quote ="Lord God Jose Mourinho"... It's like Oprah Winfrey's recent call that she was racially discriminated against because a Swiss sales assistant didn't think she could afford to buy their stupidly expensive handbags. But the fact is that very few people are that rich to be able to waste so much money on crap. Part of the woman's job would have been to not let poor people handle $35,000 hand bags. So the woman wrongly thought Winfrey couldn't afford to waste that much money. She was clearly wrong. Winfrey could have easily and bitchily pointed that out, but instead she chose to go on TV to whine about it. It MIGHT have been racism, but it could have had nothing to do with race.'" Except the actual assistant denies she did any such, and says Oprah made it up. www.mirror.co.uk/tv/tv-news/opra ... ow-2157350

Quote ="Lord God Jose Mourinho"... It's like Oprah Winfrey's recent call that she was racially discriminated against because a Swiss sales assistant didn't think she could afford to buy their stupidly expensive handbags. But the fact is that very few people are that rich to be able to waste so much money on crap. Part of the woman's job would have been to not let poor people handle $35,000 hand bags. So the woman wrongly thought Winfrey couldn't afford to waste that much money. She was clearly wrong. Winfrey could have easily and bitchily pointed that out, but instead she chose to go on TV to whine about it. It MIGHT have been racism, but it could have had nothing to do with race.'" Except the actual assistant denies she did any such, and says Oprah made it up. www.mirror.co.uk/tv/tv-news/opra ... ow-2157350

Quote ="Ferocious Aardvark"Except the actual assistant denies she did any such, and says Oprah made it up. www.mirror.co.uk/tv/tv-news/opra ... ow-2157350'" I was just writing from seeing a clip of Winfrey. Winfrey claimed that as an example of clear racism, to me it COULD have been racism, but could have just as easily have been a misunderstanding. The shop assistant has a completely different version of events. No one apart from those two know what happened. The shop assistant is probably going to deny doing anything wrong, even if she did. But Winfrey could have easily complained to a manager about the store assistant and chose not to. Did Winfrey cause this storm on purpose, to campaign about racism, or was her comment an unguarded comment to a journo that happened to be followed up by media around the world? I haven't followed this story, but I knew of Winfrey's interview and I later saw a Sky reporter interviewing a male assistant at the store who was explaining that she didn't work there any more.

Quote ="Ferocious Aardvark"Except the actual assistant denies she did any such, and says Oprah made it up. www.mirror.co.uk/tv/tv-news/opra ... ow-2157350'" I was just writing from seeing a clip of Winfrey. Winfrey claimed that as an example of clear racism, to me it COULD have been racism, but could have just as easily have been a misunderstanding. The shop assistant has a completely different version of events. No one apart from those two know what happened. The shop assistant is probably going to deny doing anything wrong, even if she did. But Winfrey could have easily complained to a manager about the store assistant and chose not to. Did Winfrey cause this storm on purpose, to campaign about racism, or was her comment an unguarded comment to a journo that happened to be followed up by media around the world? I haven't followed this story, but I knew of Winfrey's interview and I later saw a Sky reporter interviewing a male assistant at the store who was explaining that she didn't work there any more.

Fortunately I was not the one who received the complaint, but if I did I no doubt wouldn't have a job on the grounds of being disrespectful to customers...

Whatever the true facts of what happened, Winfrey has jumped to a totally unwarranted conclusion, that the only reason anyone would think she wouldn't be interested in a £30K handbag must be coz she's black innit.

If I worked in such a shop, to me the worse thing would be to get the 30K bag to show someone, they examine it and really like it, but are then humiliated when asking the price since it is way out of their league, as it would be for 99% of the population.

Why couldn't the conversation go
"Can i see that bag?"
I don't think you could afford it"
"Yes, I could, actually"
"Really? Well, if you're sure. I didn't want to embarrass you."

I might continue:

" Honestly you're the first person I ever met who is so crassly dumb and insensitive as to even consider trashing such an unconscionable amount of good money on a piece of pretentious crap just because they can. "

Why couldn't the conversation just go
"Can I see that bag?"
"Certainly"

Presumably, part of the the sales assistant's role is to stop time wasters handling the £30k bag, and as such they have to make sure that the person can actually afford it before they man-handle it.

I guess the conversation actually started:

"Can I see that bag?"
"Are you sure you can afford it, it is £30k?"

Throw in a bit of cross-lingual confusion, and results in Oprah storming off in a huff, probably with a "don't you know who I am"

You are Gerald Ratner and I claim my piece of tat

My wife was very upset at the look the shop assistant gave her when she admitted that she couldn't actually afford the 400 euro handbag she'd fallen in love with.

My sympathies were entirely with the shop assistant.

So it does then.

Why are you asking me a question I already answered?

It's called a rhetorical question.

It doesn't say that the customer felt threatened because they were black though.

White person complaining about a group of black people is racism? How?

No it isn't! For a start, the question suggested: "Can I see that bag" is not a rhetorical question; even if it was, or could be, the post provided the answer to the question, whereas the whole point of a rhetorical question is it implies its own answer. So it fails on every count It's about as far away from being a rhetorical question as Eric Pickles is from svelte!

I never said it did.

Not that question.
The question that asks "Why couldn't it be ...." is the rhetorical one because it seems obvious to me that answer to "Can I see that bag" could just as easily have been "Certainly".

Happy to clear that up.

I don't think we've travelled very far yet. All that has happened is that people are more familiar with non-white people because there are now many more of them (there were virtually none 50 years ago outside of a few small areas in big cities / sea ports) and they have been around for a couple of generations. Accordingly, the worst excesses of fear-driven racism have all but vanished. However, I think it will be another few decades before racism both inherent and 'institutional' in the UK will fade