• bearboiblake@pawb.social
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    7 days ago

    I’m picking up a vibe that their ethnicity might be something she mentions, am I right? Not being accusatory or anything here, just trying to have an honest conversation.

    • tetris11@feddit.uk
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      7 days ago

      She mentions their level of english, not their ethnicity. I think for her its more the contrast of how savvy they are navigating the system despite their seeming inability to converse with it

      • bearboiblake@pawb.social
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        7 days ago

        Does she spot problematic patterns more among people who have poor English than those who have fluent English? I’m sure your mum is lovely, really I do not mean any disrespect, but I really suspect that subconscious bias may be playing a major role, here - it’s easy for out-groups to stand out and to see a pattern which isn’t really there - it’s just how our brains function.

        In the full interests of fairness, I also do know that some people who speak ESL do sometimes weaponize their issues with English if they think it could benefit them, e.g. pretending not to understand something they actually do. In their defense I would probably do the same thing if I could get away with it tbh

        • tetris11@feddit.uk
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          7 days ago

          She definitely spots more problems in migrant families than native ones because the native ones have better support networks (family/grandparents, etc) to fall back on in hard times. These factors readily confound hand-in-hand.

          In terms of her own prejudice, she herself came to the UK as a migrant in the 80s from a third world country and more than understands their plight as well as their mindset.