My sister and her boyfriend returned locally recently, after being away for one year interstate.

He works in hospitality, and with a cooking show on television, he started talking about Indian people and how their cooking skills are poor, kitchens not kept clean and how Indians are very demanding people, plus a lot of other things I thought were disgusting, about Indian people.

I had other family members, simply taking his comments like they were the bible. My mum even lectured me about not paying him enough attention.

I go to an Indian restaurant myself, and it is perfectly fine. The people there are very nice. I was disgusted by his comments and wanted to say something about the issue, but he is on a working visa from France. My parents have been annoyed he hasn't been allowed full citizenship into Australia - and I don't want to cause any family disruption - but I've felt like I need to say something about his comments and attitude.

Dear Nathan,

You do realise that it is all about your sister's boyfriend own low self-esteem!

He feels the need to prove, essentially to himself, that he is not the worst.

I don't know whether you can help him, but you can help yourself by walking out whenever the subject comes up, in fact whenever the conversation turns about denigrating people. In time, your family may learn that they don't get points for talking badly about others.

And by the way, if you like the food in Indian restaurants, you have still tasted nothing compared with the food that Indian people prepare at home.

Well said Yuyutsu.

Nathan, I too argue with some family members re the ignorant mistake of lumping all people from one religion/ race/ country/ colour into one basket and saying they all think/ act the same.
I speak up and just call them what they are...racist! Eventually they are shamed into silence.

It is one thing to have an opinion about something, but quite another to denigrate whole groups of other people without even knowing one of them.
Racists are just sad people who need to put down others to feel better about themselves.

//I was disgusted by his comments and wanted to say something about the issue, but he is on a working visa from France.//

Well, there's your answer right there: fight fire with fire.

Frenchmen are lazy, rude, arrogant, alcoholic, cowardly, foul-smelling, gluttonous perverts*. I'm sure you can think up some other insults for yourself. Whenever Kermit the Racist Frog starts banging on about Indians, you can throw a spanner in his diatribe by pointing out how much worse the French are before launching into your own little racist diatribe against the accordion-loving-surrender-monkeys.

This should at least shut him up about Indians, as he leaps to the defence of his own nationality and then probably starts having a go at Aussies in retaliation. Eventually, he may come to comprehend that it isn't very nice being on the receiving end of racism and that he should treat others the way he would like to be treated.

Or just poke him in his stupid froggy eye.

* I don't really believe this and you don't have to either; just pretend you do.

Well, I have no opinion either way, but to call him racist, a favourite
put down designed to shut people up these days, does not take into
account that he might be right.

After all he works in commercial kitchens so perhaps he has more
experience that yourself.
Argue on facts not prejudice.

And of course Bazz he is right.

Any culture that wipes it's butt with a finger, then wipes that finger "clean" on the wall of a public toilet, where millions have wiped before, could not be described as anything but filthy.

Deli belly is not some blight bequeathed by the gods, but a result of Indian sanitary habits.

The cap fits, so where's the racism.