Irish Independent article on racism against Irish

seachto7

purcela wrote: »

Just back from a meeting with a colleague who is of Asian heritage. I mentioned I am going back to Ireland for a visit shortly and she asked am I going to load up on Guinness and potatoes while I'm there, because all Irish people eat is potatoes and potatoes and potatoes, while her colleague sitting nearby who is also of Asian descent laughed away at her "joke".

I don't think there would have been any laughter had I asked them if they only eat noodles and rice.

You should have turned the tables on them and said it. "How would you like it...."

pa_

If you get slagged in Australia it's usually by someone with an inferiority complex. If you get wound up about it you might have an inferiority complex too. The best thing to do to an idiot is ignore them. The fact is that the Irish accent is generally accepted as being pretty appealing by most English speakers.

If it's a good natured or teasing slag - even if poorly executed or a bad joke then it means that they probably like you. If you get upset you are saying that you aren't comfortable with that person. Which is fair enough if they regularly make embarrasing jokes.

jackbhoy

Racism certainly exists here (as it does most places) but never felt I was racially abused tbh.

Imo most of this is about Aussies thinking we don't take ourselves too seriously and can take a bit of slagging, in vast majority of cases I doubt there is any real racist thought behind it.

I used to work with a Dutch guy in Dublin and lads I worked with always asked him to say "toight like a toiger", same with Kiwi guy who they used to call "fush and chups". It was funny first time but then just got old and annoying pretty quickly. Seems similar to me, no racist intent just immaturity and lack of wit.

Also, I work for a large Aussie company with 50k+ employees and there are loads of Irish people in senior leadership positions throughout the company. I was in a conference call today with Directors and GMs and 3 out of 5 of them were Irish. I think if we really had an ingrained racism towards Irish people here we wouldn't be allowed to excel in as many areas as we do. (Using the royal "we" there )

seachto7

Would like to hear experiences of "minorities" (Irish included) working in the media in Aus.

res ipsa

seachto7 wrote: »

Would like to hear experiences of "minorities" (Irish included) working in the media in Aus.

Jill Meager worked for ABC.

The Aussie

res ipsa wrote: »

Jill Meager worked for ABC.

Ah now come here, what level of stupidity are you even attempting with a moronic comment like that, seriously come back and explain it...

Dats_rite

res ipsa wrote: »

Jill Meager worked for ABC.

Crazy comment

mandrake04

Idiotic comment

Zambia

res ipsa wrote: »

Jill Meager worked for ABC.

banned for a week, seriously wtf. Seek help

Diamondmaker

People need to see Bogan Hunters, Fat Pizza, Housos and some of the other crap TV. The latter 2 take the piss out of Wogs, Kiwis and Asians..and all 3 the Ocker Bogan Ozzie. These shows are on SBS too, not the other crap commercial stations.

Its just in the nature to do this, we would have no problem making shows taking the piss out of ourselves, in fact we do this quite well, and perhaps this is why we get these jibes, cos we sure as hell export a lot of content that takes the mick out of ourselves. But I dont recall an Irish TV show where we play on "racist" foriegn sterotypes, we would only take this out of ourselves like Ms Brown ****e and Fr Ted..correct me if Im wrong.

however you expect more in the "proper" newspapers, the Age is not the COurier Mail and the headline very disappointing...

In Exile

I see news.com.au don't want to be left out of the fun either this week.

A report in the adelaide advertiser about an Irishman in court is linked to the news.com site.

Someone must have decided this was a funny sub heading for the site:

"DID you hear the one about the drunken semi-naked Irishman and the police horse? It's no joke - in fact, it ended up in court, to be sure, to be sure."

catbear

Prepare for ultimate cringe!

Christian Bigotry? Check

Sexism? Check

Victorian Era Anti Irish bigotry Check
(I won't call that racism as it's nothing to the treatment aboriginals get)

Crassness? Check

Ladies and Gentlemen, behold the one the Australian Public elected as their leader!

At the same time as Dunnes Stores workers were striking against handling South African Apartheid produce Lang Hancot (Gina Rhinehart's dad) was proposing a final solution for the "Aboriginal Problem"

If you've got a few hours to spare then Utopia is worth a view.

The Aussie

In Exile wrote: »

I see news.com.au don't want to be left out of the fun either this week.

A report in the adelaide advertiser about an Irishman in court is linked to the news.com site.

Someone must have decided this was a funny sub heading for the site:

"DID you hear the one about the drunken semi-naked Irishman and the police horse? It's no joke - in fact, it ended up in court, to be sure, to be sure."

LOL...

FURET

Being devil's advocate here, it's a fact of life that many people are wan kers and enjoy mocking others who are different. This type of thing is very common especially in blue collar jobs. It's to be expected.

So to be honest, if someone actually speaks with a turty-tree-and-a-turd accent, they had best ditch it and learn to speak in a clearer, more neutral way. Even in Ireland it marks someone out as unsophisticated. Patrick Kavanagh bemoaned his own "thick-tongued mumble".

I'm not saying it's right that people should have to change their accents, but you have to adjust somewhat to new environments, and if you're a walking stereotype in terms of accent and drink and what have you, then unfortunately you give thick people in the host country plenty of rods to beat you with.

catbear

FURET wrote: »

So to be honest, if someone actually speaks with a turty-tree-and-a-turd accent, they had best ditch it and learn to speak in a clearer, more neutral way. Even in Ireland it marks someone out as unsophisticated. Patrick Kavanagh bemoaned his own "thick-tongued mumble".

If someone understands you perfectly but mocks you for your accent then they are seeking to denigrate. Anyway the ones I've met here who do that are generally social outcasts amongst their own already.

FURET

catbear wrote: »

If someone understands you perfectly but mocks you for your accent then they are seeking to denigrate. Anyway the ones I've met here who do that are generally social outcasts amongst their own already.

I know, you're right. It's complete asshattery. But it's going to happen.

catbear

FURET wrote: »

I know, you're right. It's complete asshattery. But it's going to happen.

If someone understands perfectly but has a problem with my accent then that's their problem. Changing yourself to suit a bigot only encourages that persons bigotry towards you.
I generally take the piss out of people who mock my accent, I tell I'm here because so few of them can read and write.

old_aussie

Gaffney said .........."I’ve spent 10 years in Australia trying to better myself and in the space of one night everything can be taken away from you.”

Who took what away from him?

catbear

old_aussie wrote: »

Gaffney said .........."I’ve spent 10 years in Australia trying to better myself and in the space of one night everything can be taken away from you.”

Who took what away from him?

Charming. I suppose you think the media has no responsibilies.

Do you think the recriminations about the pranked nurse who killed herself are unjustified?

No wonder australia has a huge suicide culture, winning silver at the olypics gets headlines like "what went wrong".

The Aussie

catbear wrote: »

No wonder australia has a huge suicide culture, winning silver at the olypics gets headlines like "what went wrong".

Congratulations on reaching a new low, do you want to just flop out your Mickey and measure it FFS....

Using personal tragedy to win a interweb argument.

seachto7

In Exile wrote: »

"DID you hear the one about the drunken semi-naked Irishman and the police horse? It's no joke - in fact, it ended up in court, to be sure, to be sure."

"To be sure" is not even funny anymore. I'd nearly give them some credit if they used some intelligence in their attempt at wit.
It's not even that it's that offensive, it's just the constant low level stuff that would pi55 me off.

Happened me years ago working abroad, with an English bloke. I can take a joke as much as the next person, and would poke fun at myself, but I had to complain the guy to my boss (a Scottish Rangers fan ironically) eventually. I just said, "look, I can take a joke, but it's annoying at this stage, it's gone beyond a joke, can you tell him to shut the f*ck up, as my efforts aren't working."

I don't think the English media have put the boot into the Irish in a while, but I could be wrong. "Shur I'm only having a laugh" seems to be the Aussie approach, as if there is an innocence about it all. Maybe there is.

Kind of reminds me of 10 year old kids making jokes about Chinese people.

Theresalwaysone

That oul lad at the end of the Abbott video is exactly why I like Australians.

In Exile

seachto7 wrote: »

It's not even that it's that offensive, it's just the constant low level stuff that would pi55 me off.

This is what annoys me as much as anything. It seems to be fine doing it constantly aiming it at certain groups. (Even today, one of the headlines on the news.com from page starts with "Dumb Americans")

jank

catbear wrote: »

Charming. I suppose you think the media has no responsibilies.

Do you think the recriminations about the pranked nurse who killed herself are unjustified?

No wonder australia has a huge suicide culture, winning silver at the olypics gets headlines like "what went wrong".

Australia had a huge suicide culture? I don't it is more of a problem here than most other countries to be honest.

catbear

The Aussie wrote: »

Congratulations on reaching a new low, do you want to just flop out your Mickey and measure it FFS....

Using personal tragedy to win a interweb argument.

Nobody "wins" when suicide is involved.

AngryHippie

jank wrote: »

Australia had a huge suicide culture? I don't it is more of a problem here than most other countries to be honest.

The rates in IRL and AUS are almost exactly the same per 100,000 population.
The youth ratio in Ireland is sadly much higher than AUS.
Don't ask me why I know that, as its pretty recent, and pretty sad, but the statistics are easily available through Google. Yes it is too high regardless of the number or statistic.

Nobody "wins" when suicide is involved.

So why did you bring it into the discussion ?



Can we get back to Racism now ?
Or at least something related?

If we can return to the "Olympic Silver" point that was also raised,
The reason that Silver is deemed a non-success at the Olympics was largely based around the swimming events, and the reason that they get slammed for it is that they perform really well in Oz, train their butts off, set PB's shake world records, then they go overseas, lose focus, get caught out doing silly things by the media, and under-perform. Keep in mind that they are basically state funded athletes, their training is paid for through the various state sport academies, their travel is paid for, they get all of this for being good enough, by .0001 of a second (sometimes leaving an alternate that is every bit as good sat in their club back home) and then they can't keep their sh!t together on the road.
For Semi-pro athletes, they need to be able to take the criticism, and construct something from it.

On the other hand, the way Liesel Jones was spoken about by some completely out-of-line commentators was very disrespectful, considering the portion of her life that she has dedicated to training and competing for her country, that was sickening.

catbear

AngryHippie wrote: »

The rates in IRL and AUS are almost exactly the same per 100,000 population.
The youth ratio in Ireland is sadly much higher than AUS.
Don't ask me why I know that, as its pretty recent, and pretty sad, but the statistics are easily available through Google. Yest it is too high regardless of the number.


Can we get back to Racism now ?
Or at least something related?

Well since you insist suicide rates amongst aboriginal communities is 4 times higher than the urban average.

The youth rate in ireland has dropped a quarter in the last two years, whereas if what I'm hearing is true the rate is rapidly rising here in WA, can't say about the rest of OZ but the mining contraction is being blamed.

jank

So Australia doesn't have a high suicide rate when compared to other similar OECD countries.....

catbear

To respond to your expanded post:

AngryHippie wrote: »

So why did you bring it into the discussion ?

Read back and you'll see it was in response in to Old Aussies insensitivity towards someone expressing their anguish and regret.

When Ireland has won Olympic medals it is has always been a joyous occasion and not to be snared at as I've seen in Australian media.

catbear

jank wrote: »

So Australia doesn't have a high suicide rate when compared to other similar OECD countries.....

Check any rate and it will tell you it's similar. However how it's reported and registered may not be similar.