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Racism and Language Learning | ||
Tags: Discrimination | ||
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 Language Learning Forum : General discussion |  | |
| Tyr Senior Member Sweden Joined 5788 days ago 316 posts - 384 votes  Speaks: English* Studies: Swedish | Message 9 of 90 16 April 2009 at 3:03pm | IP Logged | |||||
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Couldn't go to France because of fears of racism?
Blacks are very accepted in France. They're seen almost like orientals in the US. French racism (what of it there is) tends to be squarely turned against muslims.
I must disagree massivly there. I come from a small town and we have no racism (well...except vs gypsies but....thats not grown out of race). There was only one black guy in my town and he had a position as the village black guy. Everyone knew him and since he was a nice guy everyone was friendly with him. The only racism I can think of getting is grown out of ignorance not hate- I'll never forget when my asian girlfriend met my grandad and he commented "So where are you two going tonight? Off for a curry?"....but then thats also due to him being of a older generation and slightly crazy. Edited by Tyr on 16 April 2009 at 3:07pm 1 person has voted this message useful | ||||||
| Jimmymac Senior Member United Kingdom strange-lands.com/le Joined 6159 days ago 276 posts - 362 votes Studies: Spanish, Mandarin, French | Message 10 of 90 16 April 2009 at 3:19pm | IP Logged | |||||
Lets not allow this to become an 'I'm not racist' thread please. People clearly have different thresholds of racist tolerance. There were a few comments you made that people could consider racist if they were nit-picking and I doubt there is NO racism in your small town. The important thing here is that we keep the topic related to the original question. 1 person has voted this message useful | ||||||
| brozman Bilingual Tetraglot Groupie Spain Joined 6062 days ago 87 posts - 106 votes Speaks: Spanish*, Catalan*, English, Japanese Studies: Russian, Indonesian | Message 11 of 90 16 April 2009 at 3:21pm | IP Logged | |||||
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You'll find racist people almost everywhere, unfortunately... But maybe, as some people here said, a big and cosmopolitan city would be better to avoid it.
I spent 6 months in Japan with a host family 3 years ago, and even though they happened very few times, I also had some bad experiences. Once I ended up hitting a classmate, who just felt scared and ran away. And the first time I went to my host-grandmother's house she asked to my host-mother: "What's this American doing here?" She answered: "He's not American, he's Spanish, and he speaks Japanese." The nice thing is that, in the end, she liked me so much that she always wanted to sing with me in karaoke. :) 1 person has voted this message useful | ||||||
| Jar-ptitsa Triglot Senior Member Belgium Joined 5904 days ago 980 posts - 1006 votes Speaks: French*, Dutch, German | Message 12 of 90 16 April 2009 at 3:58pm | IP Logged | |||||
In Belgium the people think that the french (not all of course) are racist and intolerant. About 3 years ago it was in Paris a very bad situation, for example. I don't know about orientals in the US, but for sure in France there are racists who don't like the africans or muslims. The riots in Paris and some other cities were serious and little bit was in Belgium also, but the people told that it was not much here because the social system is not like in France therefore the opportunities for the africans and muslims are better (in Paris those people can't find a job and live in a very poor suburb).
stereotyping can be very nasty as well, it can be hurtful. Many of people are in a category, which get some stereotyping, and sometimes the people hate the others because they think that those people will kill them, for exmaple, or that those people are dangerous. Maybe your girlfriend was upset that your grandad thought that she eats curry all the time I don't know. Persoanlly, I'm very upset when the people believe stupid stereotyping. I agree, mostly it's ignorance, but the result is hate. When you're in one of those category, which the people hate/have ignroance it's not easy I think. I hope that the person who wrote this thread (I've forgotten your nick, sorry) will have a nice exchange with some people who aren't racist. 1 person has voted this message useful | ||||||
| Maximus Senior Member United Kingdom Joined 6755 days ago 417 posts - 427 votes Studies: Spanish, Japanese, Thai | Message 13 of 90 16 April 2009 at 3:59pm | IP Logged | |||||
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If you ever wanted to learn Japanese, maybe the city of Nagoya would be OK.
There are so many non-Japanese. The are many Brazilians, including Black Brazilians. So if you were in these kind of places in Nagoya, nobody would make anything of it because there are already so many Black people there already. You might feel quite comfortable in such a multicultural city like Nagoya. However, I have still never had any problems in countryside Japan. In my opinion it is the better place. I found that the Japanese country folk didn't make anything out of the fact that I was a foreigner. People just spoke to me casually and friendlily in the street or in small bars and restaurants. It seemed that they had forgotten that I even was a foreigner and they just spoke to me as if I was another Japanese person. I even forgot that I was an outsider and was almost always made to feel welcome. In contrast to this, it was in the larger cities where people would refuse to speak to me. It was the people from the cities who had the "Japanese is too hard for foreigners" view. For me, country people aren't always more ignorant and inherantly more rascist. I generally find country people to be good people. 1 person has voted this message useful | ||||||
| Ashley_Victrola Senior Member United States Joined 5712 days ago 416 posts - 429 votes Speaks: English* Studies: French, Romanian | Message 14 of 90 16 April 2009 at 4:04pm | IP Logged | |||||
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JUST A REMINDER: We know everyone on this board is open to other cultures. Please do not get too personal with this. If it doesn't immediately help to answer the question or if you have a rebuttal please don't post here just continue the conversation via PM. I don't want this thread to be killed off. Edited by Ashley_Victrola on 16 April 2009 at 4:08pm 1 person has voted this message useful | ||||||
| Alkeides Senior Member Bhutan Joined 6154 days ago 636 posts - 644 votes | Message 15 of 90 16 April 2009 at 4:26pm | IP Logged | |||||
1 person has voted this message useful | ||||||
| Chung Diglot Senior Member Joined 7162 days ago 4228 posts - 8259 votes 20 sounds Speaks: English*, French Studies: Polish, Slovak, Uzbek, Turkish, Korean, Finnish | Message 16 of 90 16 April 2009 at 4:31pm | IP Logged | |||||
Russian is the de facto language in Belorussia and most of eastern and far southern Ukraine is dominated by Russophones. You don't need to go to Russia for the immersion aspect if it would bother you that much. On the skin colour thing, I wouldn't go nuts over it. I'm inclined to take both sides in that you should exercise some caution, but as Vai pointed out, not behave in a way that signals that you feel like a victim or inferior because of your skin colour. Some more nasty people could seize on that perceived vulnerability. Most native speakers of my target languages are pleasantly surprised that I've been learning their languages out of my own will, and have cut a LOT of slack for me. I've run across a few parochial idiots, but they didn't know that I could speak their language (it was only because I knew their language that I could tell that they were talking $#it about me). The worst reaction that I've got when some Eastern European found out that I could communicate in his or her native language is mildly nasty shock (or so it seemed). But that passes and nothing bad happens. Anyway a population is approximately normally distributed and there will always be people on the left tail of the curve. It'd seem strange for me to allow the known existence of these types to dictate your plans to that large of an extent. 1 person has voted this message useful |
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