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Is my dad racist?

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P.S. I also find the call centre personnel rather annoying because they are so irritatingly polite and they ring you at the most inappropriate of times e.g. naked out of the shower, "in bed", eating, watching football.

Don't these people know anything about everyday life!?

Reply 61

Clubber Lang

Gilliwoo

"You are all animals!"

"Reverse racism then?"

"Fine, we are all animals".

put it into context then :wink:

Reply 62

*Joanna*

Warrior King

Don't these people know anything about everyday life!?

Nope.

Carphone Warehouse: Hello, can I speak to Mr **** please?
Me: I'm his daughter and the user of this phone, can you speak to me instead?
CW: No, it has to be Mr ****.
Me: He's on holiday at the moment, and won't be back for a week.
CW: Ok, we'll ring back then. Bye.

They rang back every day, sometimes more than once, for a week. Stupid.

OP If this was just a fly away comment about the calls, and not a regular occurence, then no, your dad isn't racist and your friend just sounds a bit PC. Use your common sense! I get peed off with most call centres, whether the person on the other end is Indian, Scotish, Cockney...you get the gist. If I can't understand them, there's not a chance I'm gonna listen to them.

Reply 63

Bluelight

I wouldnt say it was racist, I can understand why your friend would be a bit uncomfortable. Once me and some friends were watching Texas Chainsaw Massacre and one of my friends dad walke in a said this would be bloody terrific if they did this in a middle eastern country. We were like :s-smilie:

Reply 64

I B.S.

Shreerac27

He sounds like he could be the next Hitler. If he asks you to start raising your right arm when you see him DON'T DO IT.

oh lord! ROFL.

to the op, well it sounds like your dad is understandably frustrated at these annoying salespeople phoning and interrupting and just in general bothering you guys. his anger just translated to him referring to their foreigness. i guess he finds their accents offputting too

Reply 65

Nogueira

How you can even contemplate that as racism is beyond me. Is it merely because of the addition of the word Asian, if so thats bull****.

Anyway your father is correct and has a right to be pissed. I for one also detest having to answer the phone to people of an Asian background who don't seem to have a decent grasp of English. But I don't like call centre folk in general and I couldn't really care less what colour, creed or race they are.

Reply 66

Anonymous #2

Of course it's racist. If he had said, "those damn call centre workers, never leaving us alone" or whatever, fine, but he specifically based his reasoning and issues with a race. Erm, so that's racism. I don't see why people here have a hard time understanding it.

I think it's a sign of how terrible this country is educated on race issues; instead of going through it properly in a guided curriculum (for example, in Germany where it is taught very young), we have to go by an unwritten ruleset - don't say this or that, etc. It means that brits don't really have a clue on what racism is, as is evident from the OP.

janemansfield

She's the one making this about race, your dad was just pissed off like everyone else is because they're so difficult to understand, it would have been the same reaction if they'd have been Swedish.

Silly me, and I thought it was his dad... and having the same reaction if they were Swedish? hahaha, he would've more likely had said "it's my brother, but his english is a bit off" not "them *******ing Swedes".

Reply 67

Meliae

My dad always complains that people with strong asian accents ring and claim their name is something like Tom Smith or John Brown.

Edit - Why is the above post anonymous?

Reply 68

b1tter

I don't think it's racist at all - he's probably just complaining because it is Asians who call.

Reply 69

Duran Duran

Hmm. I don't think it's racist, but it's avoidable. Some of the arguements here aren't very good imo. If the call centre guys were black, would it be acceptable to say "those black call centre b******s" ?

Then you get into the "are Asians a race?" arguement.

Reply 70

34253

Its not really racism because when a telesalesman rings you the most annoying part of it is the inability to understand anything the other persons saying, which is due to them being Asian.

Reply 71

Duran Duran

Elipsis

Its not really racism because when a telesalesman rings you the most annoying part of it is the inability to understand anything the other persons saying, which is due to them being Asian.

In the OP's case the dad wasn't angry because he wasn't able to decipher what the call centre bloke was saying.

Reply 72

Meliae

I think the fact companies are shipping call centres out to India or China or wherever for cheap labour is annoying when you can't understand them (and sometimes vice versa) and they feel the need to blatantly lie to pretend the call centre is really in England :rolleyes:

. To Adarshter, it would make no difference if the call centres were in Africa. It isn't the fault of the workers in the call centres though, the blame lies with the company execs who decided to ship the centres to the other side of the world in the first place. Plus call centres are inherently annoying anyway.

Reply 73

Schmokie Dragon

My dad says things like that . . . well, he calls people "thieving arabs" etc. And enjoys ranting about Indian call centres.

He isn't a racist. He doesn't think that he is any better than a coloured person, nor does he think being coloured makes your flawed. He is just fairly colourful with his language, and doesn't shy away from describing someone as they are or using stereotypes in informal conversation.

Reply 74

tyrone95

aite
ur dad needs 2 meet me n ma boyz. we'd make sure we'd sort it

n for those ppl who keep sayin im gna get blckd for txt talk...

Your Father should meet my friends and I, we'd try and resolve your Father's problem in the quickest way possible.

Reply 75

gunshot_glitter

Hell yeh its annoying when bloody Asian people from call centres ring you trying to sell them ****. I dont feel racist moaning about them. Im sure if we rang them at all hours they probably wouldnt understand what we where saying and moan "Bloody English People, Bloody Scots" You get the picture.
Its really frustrating though. Especially when you ring up somewhere for information about your flights and you have no idea what their saying and your flights in a week :mad:

grr

Reply 76

Rutter knows best!

Anonymous

that comment is complete tosh.

Reply 77

Rutter knows best!

tyrone95

what are you suggesting? violence? a culturul awareness cource?

Reply 78

kidintheriot

My brother once answered the phone to a call centre and the conversation went something like this:

CC: Hello can I speak to Mrs *****?
Bro: No sorry she's not here, can I take a message?
CC: We want to speak to her about our new [can't remember what they were offering]. Is she there?
Bro: No she's out. I think we're fine for [said product] though. Thanks.
CC: I don't think you are. Can I speak to her?
Bro: She's dead.

And then he hung up. :biggrin:

I don't know if the call centre person was Asian or not but we weren't called again.

In response to the OP, no I don't think it's racism at all. It's describing people by their race which does not mean insulting them on those grounds.

Reply 79

Rutter knows best!

gunshot_glitter

grr

i was speakin to some lad in greece he's lived there his whole life and they even refer to irish as dumb (he did'nt touch on the english)and the scots to be pennywise .

jus mad how some stereotype's are universal.