Re: Too many restaurants in Dubai?
 

My old boss used to say... you choose your mood.

We choose when to be offended.

I have a gay colleague who I have absolutely no issue with. I accidentally offended him this week (his choice) when I said something along the lines of (when talking about a common friend with depression), "well I'm not going to judge his behavior, when men are down you medicate with either women or beer"

His choice to be offended by my accidental choice word of "women" vs. "sex". He could have equally taken it as a positive spin of me treating him a a total equal in my eyes.

Re: Too many restaurants in Dubai?
 

I agree with you generally, however what most people are pointing out is that you are being offended on behalf of others who are well equipped to fight back. You don't need to bat for the Chinese, there are literally a billion of them.

Who all look the same :lol:

Re: Too many restaurants in Dubai?
 

That 'i have a gay colleague' I have assumed is you. Are you gay? Just asking for a friend :lol:

Re: Too many restaurants in Dubai?
 

I'm like a budgie talking to a mirror sometimes.

Re: Too many restaurants in Dubai?
 

You'd think he'd be more offended by living in a state which deems his sexual orientation as illegal .;)

Re: Too many restaurants in Dubai?
 

Well I never. :huh:

That's definitely choosing to be offended, going out of one's way to be offended.

If you'd said: "well I'm not going to judge his behavior, when men are down you medicate with either women - because men only **** women and anything else is plain wrong, or beer"

Then I could see someone being a bit upset at the lengths you went to make them feel uncomfortable. But you didn't do that and I know you wouldn't have meant any offense.

BUT

I will say that I don't know what it's like being a 'minority' whether race, LBGT, disabled etc. So maybe things I don't think would be offensive, would be, etc.

Re: Too many restaurants in Dubai?
 

Nobody's taken the bait yet ...

Re: Too many restaurants in Dubai?
 

Was never acceptable; total POS record not even rescued by backup singers beautifully crooning "f**k all that" gospel style.

Re: Too many restaurants in Dubai?
 

Or the unions? :scarper:

Re: Too many restaurants in Dubai?
 

Well here's nobody now and I am refusing.

I agree that as Millhouse's anecdote is recounted, there is no reasonable basis for taking offence. But I've heard far too many of such alibi tales not to suspect there is something more behind it, whether Millhouse recognises it or not. And, in his current avatar as provocateur, I know he will not acknowledge that anyway even though I strongly suspect he does recognise that.

And to address some other comments: I repeat, I am not offended. I am just pointing out speech that can be fairly and reasonably considered offensive. I could have let it go and avoided what I knew would become this tiresome argument full of straw men and dissembling (the British were the rulers in HK - not an oppressed minority ffs). But I think it's worth making a point and trying to get people to think a bit more even if I appear - this time - to be in a minority of one. Meanwhile is it any surprise this forum has become so utterly monotone?

By the way, you know that the harder you fight to justify and sustain this casual low-level "soft prejudice", the easier you make it for people to take frivolous offence at everything?

To paraphrase some judge: I can't necessarily describe bigotry but I know it when I see it and hear it, however many craven excuses and distractions people want to throw up to confuse the issue and justify their participation.

Re: Too many restaurants in Dubai?
 

nah, seriously, there is nothing more behind it. He's actually quite a good friend and we have a very open discussion most of the time about everything - he thanked me once for really accepting him as he assumed I wouldn't. Dunno why he got pissy on this one.

Funny as about 30mins later, someone else said something almost identical to him on the same subject. She was quicker to reword the sentence though.

Re: Too many restaurants in Dubai?
 

to be honest when me and my desi friends are chatting we tend to refer to the 'white' folks as gora or gori - are many 'white' folks aware of that terminology?

Re: Too many restaurants in Dubai?
 

Yes , Gora is a very common term here .

Re: Too many restaurants in Dubai?
 

Almost every language or society has more or less disparaging words for foreigners, often particularly for colonial Europeans who were usually pretty unwelcome when they showed up. Gweilo, Gora, Oyibo, Faranji, Nasrani (the khaleeji one - literally meaning "Nazarene" i.e. Christian) etc etc.

In Gaelic the term "Sasanach" just means Englishman (Saxon literally) though it can be used as an insult similar to Pom, mainly by the Scots not so much in Ireland. We have another Gaelic word for "returned yanks": Poncanach (pron. punk-AW-nock) which even sounds insulting. There is a whole school of early 20th century Gaelic literature about Poncanaigh (the plural) who returned to the auld sod on holiday or to pursue some wild-goose chase business opportunity. They were invariably portrayed as arrogant show-off buffoons who were no match for the crafty local stay-at-homes.

While this may all be less than polite, it is no way equivalent to using words which were specifically used to keep minorities in our place. Instead of a chinky, anyone fancy going for a wog?

I didn't think so.

Re: Too many restaurants in Dubai?
 

Cue endless posts about how "wog" actually just means "westernised oriental gentleman" and therefore how dare anyone take offence, ad infinitum...