5 Pride, Prejudice and the ugly face of racism

The flare up of racist or race related incidents aren't surprising- race tensions have never gone away and post 9/11 tensions just added fuel to the fire . Just because you don't talk about it doesn't mean the issue won't plague society

The author has encountered some racism over the years, the odd yelling of 'chink' , the throwing of banana peel , the amusing/irritating habit of people speaking english reallyy sl...ow...ly. Yet, none of that was bothersome, only one incident jarred. That was at a college drinks party where the dean had posed the question about the future direction of language in an increasingly globalised world. Whilst most speculated that English would continue its supremacy, the author thought that a multilingual world would be more likely as the world developed and nationalistic pride demanded the safeguarding of languages from an all encompassing domination by English. - Bad, bad idea - a classmate actually retorted (via a loud whisper to another) "why is she here then?" Whilst it wasn't racist, the lack of open-minded attitudes amongst the finer minds of the country was jarring, that this individual is currently working for his government probably warrants a chuckle from some of you. Mebbe it's a public school attitude problem - watched the 7up series and sorry, but there were eerie echoes of sentiments - that , of course is a form of prejudice too! affirmative discrimation?!