Maybe he was trying to hand a note to the poster about how his uncle died leaving $50 squillion in the bank and he needs help in the form of bank details to get it out.

Cheers,
Nick

Perhaps if he was the only one then your post would have validation. But he is far from being that. His groans came some time after my own posts.

As far as myself, three groans hardly constitutes every disagreement. There are levels. If you think I am going to clap happily while you and others malign my character, displaying a glad sort of attitude of assuming and attacking, then you are mistaken. You got groaned at not because you disagreed with me. You got groaned at because of the knee jerk reaction, and the idiocy behind making such quick assumptions off of three words.

More so I hardly consider such a disagreement. A disagreement is something two adults have, after a discussion, or debate. It would be differing opinions. Calling someone a racist out of the blue, is not a disagreement. That is an attack. If your disagreements and discussions constitute nothing but surface scanning and random attacks, then civility is already lost on you.

Yall is colloquial, if I desire to be such from time to time, that is my decision. If you are inclined to use it as a measure of my intelligence, well, with the past paragraphs at the forefront, I would hardly be surprised.

The only reason why I described him, is because I have a habit of being descriptive and wordy. Three words was being extremely short for me.

Canadian_dude's post was groaned at in October 2009. I know that because his post is dated 19 October 2009 and Thanks and Groans remain accessible on posts for only two weeks. Canadian_dude was banned permanently a month later -- years before you joined EF -- for persistent trolling and abusive comments -- an indication of the measure of how receptive we are of such behaviour. Please, keep digging.

In any case, I wasn't talking about anyone's behaviour or apparent racism other than yours. You assumed (your word) a large, black man with criminal intent to be Nigerian. Putting together his appearance and actions, you categorized him as Nigerian. There are no grounds for making such an assumption in Switzerland, where Nigerians are probably outnumbered by Maldivians (or virtually any other nationality).* You rashly jumped to a conclusion, later tried to jusify it by adding a detail about the man's accent (are you some sort of linguistic expert? Perhaps you know a lot of Nigerians in Alabama?), then refused to acknowledge that what you wrote sounded decidedly racist -- even if, perhaps, that had not been your intention.

I made no comment or judgement about your intelligence. Your use of the colloquial "yall" (more commonly rendered "y'all") is simply stereotypically Southern and in keeping with another well-known stereotype, the racist Alabaman redneck. If you choose to perpetuate stereotypes, that's your choice.

* This is an example of hyperbole, used for literary effect. Just so that's clear.

If you think that someone originates from a certain country but they don't, that hardly constitutes racism. I might consider a Lederhosen wearing beer swilling rotund person to come from Bavaria, if it so happens that they are actually Russian for example, I have simply jumped to a visual conclusion, no racism intended.

Racism from my perspective is when you would purposefully and with intent, mistreat, slur or handle someone in a lesser or negative way based on their background, color of skin or ethnic origin. And that would include someone perceived to be a redneck by the way.

Clearly the trains being derailed. All because or the gentleman that looks like the one on the SVP poster. The one with the coloured sheep, not the minarets.

It was only decidedly racist to you, and another. Last time I checked it is a description. The large black man had criminal intent, beyond that it doesn't matter, it is merely more a defined description. It could have been a large white man, and if he had a certain accent, I would have likely tried to place him.

But I would bet if It had been a large white man, and I called him Romanian, this conversation would never had happened. I find in my travels, it really is only those who are themselves, closet racists, that make a big deal out of such things.

The difference is if the guy would have been white, you wouldn't have felt necessary to mention it. If you had called him Romanian, Turkish or any others, you would certainly had the exact same reaction

Oh really? You seem awfully adept at reading minds - or even second-guessing the intentions of complete strangers, for that matter.

Incredible.

Or, more likely, you're simply inferring what you would do (after all, as Shakespeare once wrote, the lady doth protest too much, methinks) - in which case, now would be an excellent opportunity to desist.

By the way, with regard to the original post, I recently wrote on the Toytown Germany forum about an incident where a thief made off with my laptop bag while I was buying tickets for my wife on the ticket machine. An accomplice managed to distract my wife, who was watching over our bags - and they made off with a lot of stuff that was very expensive to replace.

From what I've been told about other incidents, these people work in teams of four - one watches out for potential marks - if you arrive in a taxi and are carrying a lot of baggage, that immediately marks you as a prime target: Try to arrive by strassenbahn, S-bahn or U-bahn. Another comes and distracts you, while a third steals your baggage - and a fourth helps in getting away. They are very clever, very creative - and will even cut the strap of your bag while you think you're got a hold on it.

Railway stations could do more good by highlighting the kind of tactics these people use, rather than simply saying "Caution! Thieves operate in this area."

I'm a psychic.

Fixed that for you.

Are you certain about that? Doesn't appear to be so. I just don't see the issue. I am not technically white, and if someone referred to me as a big Asian fellow, I would hardly find it offensive.

Because I am a big Asian fellow. I would be absolutely fine by that. Now if they called me something derogatory, like a slur, that would be different. But even then I have thick skin, I don't need to be coddled, nor have an intrinsic care that everyone should love me.

So if you want to go by just differences, by that logic I would have called him a big white guy. All in all though, I think some people are just being really overly sensitive. Almost as if they are so paranoid and on a hunt for possible racism, they see it everywhere.

For the record, Heck I refer to my grandmother's friends as sweet old Japanese ladies. I am not absolutely positive that they are all Japanese.

Eh, I explained to you the why of the reaction.

It's interesting, sad, ironic, and amusing for me on a boring Saturday night that there are some on here within a single sentence or two reprimanding Wisescarab for being a bigot and within a few words later ripping on the entire state of Alabama. I'd mention the whole pot and kettle thing, but the kettle is black and may or may not be from Nigeria, I'm afraid to guess.

"Kindness is the beginning of cruelty."
- Frank Herbert

Very good quote, and author.

I think it's pretty rasist to say that, don't you?

To say that Frank Herbert is a good author? Probably not racist, no.

Had to go down to Genève by train last week. Traveled First Class, because I could.

I didn't get robbed, raped or abused. Shame really, it would have gotten this thread back on track. The washrooms were an embarrassment to the Swiss Confederation however; can't say that the rules about compulsory firearms target shooting is helping anyone with their aim when it really matters in the public domain.