joke made by my examinations officer today....

If Paul Steak, Kevin Bacon, Claire Gammon, Franz Berger and Mr Bean were all names on a list I would expect a BBQ or mixed grill comment from the person reading it out.

The comment isn't about abusing the meaning of names or anything like that.

Exactly, those are food words. The link and association is right there in your face.

Except the list of names the teacher was reading has nothing to do with food. Yet she jumped to the Chinese Takeaway menu aspect of it.

It is the taking the micky of someone's name akin to a chinese take away menu. Get it?
 
I'm more surprised at some people actually finding that funny. I wouldn't say it was racist, a little ignorant perhaps, but funny? "LOL made my day!" Really? Do you also find those 'spoof' movies they churn out like Scary Movie hilarious? Would make sense if so.
 
Exactly, those are food words. The link and association is right there in your face.

Except the list of names the teacher was reading has nothing to do with food. Yet she jumped to the Chinese Takeaway menu aspect of it.

It is the taking the micky of someone's name akin to a chinese take away menu. Get it?

The food aspect of what the woman said is not the link. It's a list of Chinese words, a Chinese menu has a list of 'chinese' words.

She wasn't saying the pupils were Chinese food, she was saying that a list of chinese words was like another list of Chinese words.

Get it?
 
I'm more surprised at some people actually finding that funny. I wouldn't say it was racist, a little ignorant perhaps, but funny? "LOL made my day!" Really? Do you also find those 'spoof' movies they churn out like Scary Movie hilarious? Would make sense if so.

Wow, so funny is measured in 2 units; hilarious and unfunny?
 
If Paul Steak, Kevin Bacon, Claire Gammon, Franz Berger and Mr Bean were all names on a list I would expect a BBQ or mixed grill comment from the person reading it out.

The comment isn't about abusing the meaning of names or anything like that.

The food aspect of what the woman said is not the link. It's a list of Chinese words, a Chinese menu has a list of 'chinese' words.

She wasn't saying the pupils were Chinese food, she was saying that a list of chinese words was like another list of Chinese words.

Get it?

In that case, your example falls down. Your example would be more like this:

John Smith, Michael Jones, Susan Blake, David Cole

Cor it's like reading of a BBQ list!

In this case, all that's saying is one list of English names/words is like another.
 
I wouldn't say racist. Could have been considered offensive, but the Asians present in the room were okay with it. Certainly the wrong time and place though!

Were they? Or did they just laugh? Were they all okay with it? Or just a majority?

Exams are a particularly bad time to engage in such borderline-racism since there's plentiful evidence that priming people with stereotypes impairs their ability in exams.
 
Partly depends on how it was expressed, record of teacher generally etc. Would those that might be offended complain because of how they felt or possibly also how they are conditioned to think or feel?
 
Partly depends on how it was expressed, record of teacher generally etc. Would those that might be offended complain because of how they felt or possibly also how they are conditioned to think or feel?

pretty sure they wouldn't say anything...but if they told their parents, it would probably a completely different story...
 
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