Am I Going Mad?

[New Judge]

http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/uk-england-oxfordshire-39742670

Apparently, according to an Oxford University “equality and diversity” newsletter, not making eye-contact can be construed as “everyday racism” and was included in a list of "racial micro-aggressions". Alas the University has had to apologise because its guidance, it seems, discriminates against autistic people who, by all accounts, struggle to make eye contact.

Oh what a tangled web they weave! Last time I heard looking at a black person in the High Street was a sign of disrespect. Now it seems I must do so or I am a racist (unless, of course, I am autistic). Have these people completely lost the plot, or have I?

[Mamyalynne]

This did get a mention a while back, crazy isn't it?


http://www.theanswerbank.co.uk/News/Question1549218.html

[Jackdaw33]

If this had come from some back street poly I might have understood, but Oxford? Please don't try to explain to me what a 'racial micro-aggression' is.

[Garaman]

//Oh what a tangled web they weave! Last time I heard looking at a black person in the High Street was a sign of disrespect. Now it seems I must do so or I am a racist (unless, of course, I am autistic).//

Slight difference between looking at someone in the High Street and looking at someone when you are talking to them though, wouldn't you say?

[sp1814]

You're not going mad.

But you are going tardy.

[Prudie]

Ahh so the myriads of men who have looked at a woman's boobs while talking to her are in actual fact racists. Should I be thus relieved?

[Jackdaw33]

"Look at me when I'm talking to you" was a common expression when I was a child, being told off and staring at one's shoes.

[Khandro]

And yet this can happen;
An acquaintance says how last Saturday in a busy Hampstead street a young man could be seen walking along wearing a tee shirt on which was emblazoned, "(the f word) God! Believe in Yourself" and under was a picture of the cross.

I wonder how many devout (or agnostic) souls he managed to offend in the course of the day, taking advantage of the libertarian environment in which he lives. He wouldn't have strolled through a Middle Eastern city wearing an obscene message about the prophet Muhammad - come to think about it, he wouldn't have got far with that in London either.

[cassa333]

Well that's the trouble with deciding what is racist.

Everything is racist to someone and those same things are not to someone else.

It's getting to the stage of the infant school playground when one of the little darlings complains because some of the others won't play with them. Well they don't have to if they don't want to. Go and find something else to do.

Eye contact is an individual thing. Some people do it some people don't. My OH rarely makes eye contact. In fact I had to train him to do it when we first met.

[Old_Geezer]

You lookin' at me ? You lookin' at me ? You lookin' at me ? Well, who the heck else are you lookin' at ? You lookin' at me ? Well, I'm the only one here. Who the heck do you think you're lookin' at ?

[Togo]

What happens if you are cross eyed? Reminds me of the girl who binned her cross eyed boyfriend............for eying other women up. :))

[david small]

Not mad, but sick of every Tom Dick and Mary spouting cranial rubbish and assuming they are correctly interpreting the true path through life.

[whiskeryron]

///Ahh so the myriads of men who have looked at a woman's boobs while talking to her are in actual fact racists. Should I be thus relieved?/// I think the correct terminology is not racist but Tittist .

[andy-hughes]

This is not rubbish because it failed to consider autistic people - it is just rubbish anyway.

[emmie]

you haven't lost the plot, its another barking mad idea from people who should know better.