You have no idea how wrong you are. Firstly, there is no "brown", everybody here has a range of skin colours. Your American ideas about race do not apply to this situation.

Secondly, in fact this is an Arabic speaking country. I personally speak Arabic, I learn from my Arab friends and neighbours. So everything that I'm mentioning is from the actual experience of living here and understanding both Western culture and the Arab culture (for the most part).

Thirdly, these people are going to have a dozen babies per wife no matter where the wives come from. And with the modern healthcare that everybody receives, all those babies will grow to be adults - something that was not the case when their culture developed the need to have a dozen babies per wife.

I don't blame you for not understanding, the media reports on the situation with no lies but eliminating perspective. If we had the same race issues as the US, and if "marriage" meant the same here as US audiences expect, then your rage would be justified. The task of mentioning these differences would fall on the body "reporting" the situation if the reporting goal were to spread information. But the spread of information is not the goal of the reporting - as evidenced by what information they include and what information they eliminate.

I don't personally have a problem with Arabs so take what I say with a grain of salt.

However, isn't what you're describing colonization? If the US or the UK announced a program of attempting to colonize 3rd-world countries, those countries would reflexively ban US immigration. Why the double standard?

Yes I would be okay in the hypothetical situation you've constructed, with loaded language and fear tactics.

I would also be fine with publicly shaming view points like yours and getting you fired from your job for being completely xenophobic. I can't imagine how you view your middle eastern coworkers who you've decided hate women and shit?

So you'd get me fired for my views, which by the way I extend to all nations regardless of race, but be totally welcoming to child abusers in your midst, because it's their culture? There's something very wrong with this fashionable double standard. And there's nothing hypothetical about my scenario, this has been playing out for decades in Europe and East Asia while legitimate concern from those who speak out is shallowly dismissed as xenophobia.

>fired from your job for being completely xenophobic.

Disapproving of very real cultural differences is not "xenophobia". Forcing women to cover themselves, limiting their independence, practicing arranged marriages and condoning physical abuse, my opposition to these practices stems from my western liberal ideals, not any sort of "phobia".

>I can't imagine how you view your middle eastern coworkers who you've decided hate women and shit?

That's because you are apparently unable to discern individuals from groups. A sane person can acknowledge that cultures have sets of typical practices/beliefs, but individuals may or may not share them.

The middle eastern coworkers decided it by following Islam. Islam is not an abstract theory, it is a very detailed book. It would be good to read it. Among other things, it explicitly demands to accept the whole of it to be a true Muslim. No cherry picking what fits our spiritual needs.

Arabs are not "brown". GJ on unintentional racism

I don't see the profit in trying to catch them on a small and clearly not meaningful technicality in their phrasing.

Genuine question, do you truly feel the commenter is a racist, and you just stepped in and called them out successfully?

What seems much more likely is that they, in their sarcasm, were doing an imitation of an ignorant conservative stereotype by focusing on skin color and grouping all middle easterners into a group. This seems fairly obvious to me - is that not how you're interpreting this?

This "brown people" phrase is commonly used to disparage concerns about incompatible values and cultural norms. And this is probably only context where I see middle easterners grouped like this.

Not GP, but I do consider this to be low-key racist and aaomidi to be somewhat racist, but maybe for different reason than GP.

I tried to explain why I decided to call out the use of that phrase, however my words failed me. So I’m editing my original (and inadequate) explanation to just say that the “brown people” thing is, to me, indicative of a deeper societal issue with racism and otherizing people that exists on both sides of the political spectrum.

Bingo. Esp considering I'm middle eastern.