Reality is that you do need to try to brush it off and try not let it get to you.While doing this also though, YOU need to keep in mind how much such comments bother you, how much you wish people would be more kind and understanding and not be such jerks... and generally act as you would wish to see others act.
So, part of me wants to say that you should brush it off and not let it get to you. Part of me wants to tell you to kick some asses (and help you do it even).
But...
Another part of me, the part who has had to deal with mean people her whole life, that part, the mean part of me, wants me to tell you to get over it.
I'm sure I'll reach a point when I think about it no longer.
Thank you to everyone for their comments and putting a smile back on my face.
Tomorrow, I'll go out but before I do I'll play a track by the 'Sick Puppies' - You're going down! just to give me a kick up the rear end. And to remind me that I'm not the sort of person who should hide away. I'm a smiley, happy person.
(Had trouble uploading the 'Sick Puppies' track with lyrics)
I don't know, dude. I've overindulged in the whiskey once or twice (okay round that up to the nearest hundred), but I've never spouted off xenophobic comments as a result . I think that alcohol just amplifies whatever you actually think. If you're a douche, you'll be a triple douche if hammered, that kind of thing.
Have to agree with Tearley on this one. I don't think alcohol changes the nature of people. I mean yes, they might act sillier or crazier than when sober, but the difference often is not that much. If someone is disrespectful and rude while drunk, more probably is the same without any alcohol.
Phoenix, I wouldn't worry much about these guys, as said before, I too believe they would probably not act like that if they were alone. Some people tend to be bolder and more courageous when they are in company of others. Then again, you never know...
I'm sorry you had such a bad experience... I know exactly what it feels like to be bullied because you are different. I was born and raised in Romania, but my mother tongue is Hungarian. Not a day went by without being called "bozgor" - which means "without country"- when I was a little girl. It was awful. I stilll remember the look on my dad's face when I asked him what does that word kids keep calling me and my friends mean. Fortunately they now (more or less) stopped using this hideous word, but every now and then I still come across people who really dislike us.
When I moved to Italy three years ago I got nasty looks when I said I'm from Romania... I wonder what it will be like in Switzerland (I moved here 2 days ago). Anyways, I now learned to ignore racist remarks, though I must say sometimes it is sooo difficult... I suggest you try to do the same, these people are worth nothing and what they think or say should never put you down. You should only care about what your family and friends think about you
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No, there's a difference between flying into a violent rage and lunging myself at a guy who's bigger than me. That wasn't kung-fu, that was seeing red at the time.
I always assume that men who try to wield power in this way are usually impotent in other areas. I know it's very judgmental but this mental image just pops up in my head. So your calling them wankers (whether mental or physical) may well be accurate.
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I always had the impression that having an Aryan appearance was less likely to be a target for racism.
I was intimidated/assaulted by an 'Asian appearance' man in Sydney, Australia, whilst working at the local library.
Our friend was intimidated/assaulted by an 'Indian appearance' man when we were travelling together in India.
I was insulted by a saleswoman in Italy when trying to purchase a souvenir, for not being able to speak Italian, and my first thought was 'well, if you tried to do it in English in Australia, we'd probably laugh at you too'...
My son had his hair pulled in Singapore (blond hair is considered 'good luck) and asked 14 times for photos in a 5 day holiday. He was 5 years old.
People judge others for appearance, the world over.
On the other hand, intimidation as a woman, is also something that I've experienced, and I'd forgotten living in Switzerland that when I am in Australia and walking down the road, alone, then people in cars will beep their horns just to get a reaction They don't do that in Switzerland as far as I can tell...
I also wanted to ask you to be very careful labelling a person as 'Aryan'. We would never do that in conversation in Australia, as it would be considered way too close to Nazi sentiments, and Nazism belongs only to a very small minority group who are kept under very tight police control (we had a racial attack at our high school and the police took complete photographs of all the graffiti and then it was removed within 24 hours).
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I also wanted to ask you to be very careful labelling a person as 'Aryan'. We would never do that in conversation in Australia,...
Yes, I agree with you with reference to the last paragraph. I used 'Aryan' in my description earlier, and did/do realise that it is a sensitive word to use in conversation.
Yes, I agree with you with reference to the last paragraph. I used 'Ayran' in my description earlier, and did/do realise that it is a sensitive word to use in conversation.
This type of Ayran is actually very good ...
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No, there's a difference between flying into a violent rage and lunging myself at a guy who's bigger than me. That wasn't kung-fu, that was seeing red at the time.
My tip for the next time: "Everybody underestimates the kick in the groin" (Bas Rutten)
The use of "Aryan" as a synonym for "Indo-European" or to a lesser extent for "Indo-Iranian", is regarded today by many as obsolete and politically incorrect, but may still occasionally appear in material based on older scholarship, or written by persons accustomed to older usage, such as in a 1989 article in Scientific American by Colin Renfrew in which he uses the word "Aryan" in its traditional meaning as a synonym for "Indo-European".[9]
In my experience, the racist folks realise that they wouldn't be able to survive in the world if it weren't for the borders that keep the hard-working foreigners out.
I've lived in three countries in my life: Iran, Canada and Switzerland.
Iran is the kind of country where unless you're either brilliant, extremely lucky, extremely hardworking or connected... you will essentially die young or be miserable from poverty, illness/malnutrition and lack of life choices. The people that get out are the ones that are lucky enough to be born with one of the above qualities. That's all it comes down to, LUCK. I'm oversimplifying things, but for people to be able to better their life situations to where they want to be, it takes a lot more effort than a random person just going through the motions of high school and university-- it takes a lot of luck and resilience-- even if it comes down to a choice between running for your life and being "disappeared" by a rogue regime, it's still hard.
Having said that, I still hear stories about the 1'000'000 Afghan refugees that settled in Iran in the 1980s from my relatives. About how they were so backwards and stole jobs from the citizens-- funny that these backwards people managed to steal jobs from the "less-than-backwards" people? They must have been doing *something* right.
When racist people (read: the ignorant ego-maniacal fools in a country) see that people from other countries are in fact better than them (not being lazy ego-maniacal fools) and not the scum of the earth as their ideology has led them to believe.. well, it's too much for them.. they need to mock someone's hair colour or jawbone. What else do such people have left to hold on to when they try to rationalise to themselves the higher quality of life they enjoy when those outsiders seem to be working even harder to get past all the discrimination? It's often too difficult for them to realise that they're not worth any more than other people on the planet, they just happen to have won the birth lottery and can't admit it to themselves.
p.s. I thought you might find this article interesting, it isn't about switzerland, but about immigration in general and some of the surprising effects it can have on the crime rate, they focus on Canada and the US, but mention the alienation of immigrants in Europe. Beware that it's also a self-aggrandizing puff piece for Canadian multiculturalism.
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When racist people (read: the ignorant ego-maniacal fools in a country) see that people from other countries are in fact better than them (not being lazy ego-maniacal fools) and not the scum of the earth as their ideology has led them to believe.. well, it's too much for them.. they need to mock someone's hair colour or jawbone. What else do such people have left to hold on to when they try to rationalise to themselves the higher quality of life they enjoy when those outsiders seem to be working even harder to get past all the discrimination? It's often too difficult for them to realise that they're not worth any more than other people on the planet, they just happen to have won the birth lottery and can't admit it to themselves.
I think there's a lot more to it than that.
Mockery is generally a way of getting even with those who are more succesful than you The poor man grandly says he wouldn't want the money of his rich neighbour, but deep down that isn't true. The rich man spends his vacations on the Azores and the poor man goes to Blackpool and conformts himself by saying that the rich man is too stupid to see what he's missing. We have to fool ourselves. The world is full of jealousy and fooling ousrelves is one way to deal with it, humour is another way. We make jokes about people who we percieve to be ahead of us in the rat race and we take pride if once in a while we can outsmart them. That means, by extension, that if you're at the bottom of the barrel, everybody must be fair game. A young lady who's got a good job and is doing it well is thus fair game for an ugly old guy who's failed and who's got no prospects of ever acheiveing half as much in life as you have already achieved in the first bit of it.
Overlaid with this is the question of taboos. Why do people laugh about dirty jokes, even when they're not funny. It's because we're breaking some sort of an invisible rule, a taboo, it's just something we shouldn't do. And that gives people some satisfaction, the illusion of having some freedom in a controlled and regulated society. It's like a prisoner rattling at the bars of his cell and imagining that he's a little bit more free because of it. Other taboo topics are religion. How many jokes about the pope have you heard? And how many of those were genuinely funny? And then another such topic is race. It gives people kicks to do it just because they know they shouldn't. As long as race continues to be a topic that peole take seriously, there will be people who cross lines for the sake of it. When did you last hear a joke about wndow tax or corn laws? It's because people don't care any more. But back in those days I'm pretty sure it was something they joked about when the sherriff's back was turned.
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Treverus? (Wollishofener was indeed correct with 156cm but I was exaggerating with my 156m, with reference earlier to small people over-compensating in other areas.)
Your heading says it all, they couldn't keep it up individually. Obviously their lives are so full, that such an event is all their entertainment in the world that
weekend.
Next time don't engage so emotionally, doing so grants them power they don't deserve. They probably secretly covet non-Swiss partners.
Besides they wouldn't be able to appreciate the ethical problem for a blackbelt to engage with the defenseless even when provoked.
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(I moved here 2 days ago). Anyways, I now learned to ignore racist remarks, though I must say sometimes it is sooo difficult... I suggest you try to do the same, these people are worth nothing and what they think or say should never put you down. You should only care about what your family and friends think about you 
No, there's a difference between flying into a violent rage and lunging myself at a guy who's bigger than me. That wasn't kung-fu, that was seeing red at the time.
They don't do that in Switzerland as far as I can tell...
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