Forget about a harmless remark - let’s deal with the racists who assault immigrants
The phrase that she used - “working like blacks” - would have been used as recently as a decade or two ago as a purely descriptive term for earnest endeavour.
It neither expressed nor incited racial hatred then and it does not do so now, even if times have changed.
Real racism is hideously ugly, and can be terrifying to witness. Recently, Dublin Labour councillor Aodhán Ó Riordáin highlighted real racism when he told of immigrant takeaway delivery men being deliberately called out to false addresses in parts of the city only to be beaten up in racially motivated attacks.
We were told the story of one delivery man who was left crying and bleeding from his eye after being attacked.
There were six such attacks over the Christmas period alone (Irish Examiner, January 5).
The victims of such racist beatings, even if they do not tell the gardaí, will certainly tell their friends and relatives back home what happens to immigrants in Ireland. This is likely to deter them from coming here. Suddenly, you have unofficial immigration control.
This needs to be stamped out. Given that many victims of such beatings are afraid to tell the gardaí because of fears that their immigrant status will be investigated by the authorities here, this obstacle to reporting racist crimes needs to be removed. Also, since this is happening so often, consideration should be given to implementing either covert or overt Garda operations to deal with the situation.
Mary O’Rourke’s allegedly racist remark was a non-event.
All this criticism of it is actually counter-productive since it distracts our attention from genuine racist problems such as the delivery men experienced.
Joseph Barry
123 Morehampton Road
Donnybrook
Dublin 4
