Recently on a mailing list of which I am a member, the following comment was posted:

We pay cash at restaurants especially ones of certain
nationalities.

The context of this quote is a discussion on credit/debit card usage, and this statement came at the tail end of how care must be taken to ensure that one is not subjected to fraudulent charges (nevermind the fact that banks in the U.S. mostly do zero-liability these days). This has spawned a rather heated discussion, which apparently resulted in the person who made that comment leaving the mailing list.  The whole idea that we continue to change our behavior depending on the ethnicity of the person(s) we are around is nothing short of infuriating. It is like we fail to understand that qualities like honesty and trustworthiness are markers of an individual.

What does the above statement say? It says that the poster of that statement feels that he cannot trust “certain nationalities”. This person later made the claim that it was sad that people could find racism in nearly any remark—but the thing is, it is right there, not even hidden from view. It’s blatant.

Even worse, when the poster of the comment above was called out on it, most of the people on the mailing list jumped to this person’s aid to defend them. Honestly, I do not know what is worse: the fact that this person said this in the first place, or the fact that the majority of the mailing list’s members rallied up on the side of that person. Quite possibly, I think the latter, because that shows that we still have in society the notion that racism is somehow acceptable, and that the more veiled or subtle it is, the more okay and polite it is. I find that downright offensive.

It is certainly enough to make me consider dropping the mailing list and participation in the group altogether. It is difficult to be in a group when you cannot even look at its members—your peers—with respect, even if they are some of the smartest minds you know in a particular field. Why be part of it at all?