No smoke without flamewar

[j4]

You may recall a bit of a debate recently about whether Christians should be forced to let gay people stay in their bed-and-breakfasts, in which people invented various analogous situations (as people are wont to do) as aids to debate. Here's one we didn't need to invent, from The Times' News in Brief on Monday:

Smoker put out

A smoker was denied cigarettes at a store because the assistant, a Muslim, said it was against her religion to sell tobacco. The woman smoker, 31, had tried to buy cigarettes at W. H. Smith in Cambridge. The company said that the customer should have realised the assistant was Muslim and would not sell tobacco.

How did the Times know that the woman was a smoker? She might have just been buying cigarettes for a friend. ... No, wait. Should smokers be allowed to refuse to be served by a Muslim? ... No, that's not it either. Hang on, I've got it: How can you tell if the checkout assistant is a Muslim? There isn't a punchline, but there probably would be if you started making assumptions like that based on, ooh, I don't know, the c*l**r of someone's sk*n, or their h**dg**r.

I would say "it's not just me, is it?" but a friend recently said (in an entirely other context) "I too spend a lot of time in culture shock at what's supposed to be my own culture." I think that sums it up, really.

Comments

[naranek.livejournal.com]

I'm not so sure this is culture shock so much as WH Smith having a wierd corporate policy and then giving a kack-handed explanation of it. There's nothing to stop shopkeepers being wierd.

I must admit I find all this anti-discrimination legislation a bit disquieting; there's a clear case for it where the market is obviously failing - disabled access being the obvious example - but elsewhere it sounds much like legislation for legislation's sake.

Interesting question: if the customer had taken WH Smith's advice and not attempted to buy cigarettes, presuming the assistant to be Muslim, would the store have a case for racial discrimination? I think they probably would (corollary: should the police now investigate WH Smith for promoting racial discrimination against themselves?)

[j4.livejournal.com]

if the customer had taken WH Smith's advice and not attempted to buy cigarettes, presuming the assistant to be Muslim, would the store have a case for racial discrimination?

Well, yes, that's kind of the point, isn't it: any attempt on the cigarette-buying customer's part to avoid an assistant they supposed to be a Muslim would probably be classed as racial discrimination, unless they just sort of hung around and waited to join the queue at the moment when the funny foreign-looking assistant was obviously busy, and so got away with just looking odd rather than looking like a racist.

I must admit I find all this anti-discrimination legislation a bit disquieting

It's the implications about what people think other people "should" do and where people think rights/responsibilities lie that frequently give me culture-shock; this is just today's example. Someone on my flist said recently that "should" was the most dangerous word in the English language; I'm not sure I'd go that far, but it's certainly one of the most insidious.

wierd

WEIRD! Please! I before E, except in weird, which is weird. Sorry, pet hate.

[vatine]

"When making an I sound, I before E, except after C"

I guess that means wierd should be pronounced like "wird" or "wyrd" and there's some POSSIBLE etomology supporting that.