It sounds like you handled it exactly right- most of the time the ignorant when "called out" by your sincere questioning of their rude behavior will shut them up. Bringing in others usually would make the situation worse - or at least more confusing - I would have and have done the same in a similar circumstance (I stop/interfere with strangers (or even aquaintances) who are rudely commenting or are otherwise picking on others - I don't tolerate it. Half the time I think "they" do it out of habit - (also they have nothing better to do or say, how sad!) and because no one told them what they were doing was wrong. I have found that some are just so roboticly programmed they walk around not thinking even for a second about others feelings - You wanna bet they can dish it out, but they themselves can't take it!? Leaving your emotions out of it is usually the best tact - ooze intelligence and sincerity and let them be pathetic.
Anyway BRAVO!
AS far as you not being sure if you are being harrassed - I dare to say this - Ignorance is bliss - I would rather not know and give people the benefit of the doubt- it is not as if you could change them anyway. As long as someone isn't interfering with your work, smearing your good name or physically interfering with you I would just leave it be.
Good for you! I once scolded a coworker with "Did your mother raise you that way??" because he was bragging about cheating the vending machine in the lunch room. How splendid of you to publicly shame the mother on the poor example she was teaching.
I think that my ds is always (at school) in the "scanning for danger" mode. I think that he thinks that there is more to fear then there actually is. (not a big surpirse that his perceptions can be wrong). I ask you M, are you Hyper alert to danger in generallly not dangerous places? (when you think about it later unemotionally without all the sensory overload) If so, I wouldn't worry that you will "miss" the real cue when actual danger is more possibly imminent. (like your instinct was right about the swastika pin guy).
I've no doubt that your moral compass will tell you when it is right to interve on someones else's behalf, when it really counts - like for a child or when someone is physically harming another.
Choose your fights carefully.
Very true Ivar
Where was this? The cheek of those people.
Harrasment: What is it?
I think that I am harrassed quite often but I don't realize it all the time. It could be bullying at work or in public places. By people I know or by strangers. What acts verbal or physical are harrasment?
How can I recognize it?
What should I do about it? I know I can talk to the supervisor at work. What about in public places? If I am in a store and people start going on about the way I dress or walk or stim -- what should I do?
I have had a few things happen to me that were bad and I do think that I had a right to do something about it.
example: I was in Walmart. I wear rather long old-fashioned looking clothes and sometimes small bonnet things (like Mennonite) on my head. A woman and her teenager daughter (strangers to me, I have face blindness but I was sure I didn't know them) came very close to me and started saying "Do you smell goat?" "Do you smell pig?" I started getting confused because I couldn't smell anything. Then the girl asked me "Do you live on a farm?" I said I did not but I didn't understand why they were talking to me. I asked her why she wanted to know and then she went on about how weird my clothes were etc how I looked so bad and that "other people had to look at me". I told her that my faith required me to wear modest dress and they would not go up to a Muslim person and say such things. I asked the mother why she taught her daughter to be such a bigot? Maybe by then there were other people watching.
Should I have asked for help from the store staff? Am I protected against any laws from this type of bullying? Is it harrasment?
Fight or flight. Not fun - it takes the brain right out of the equation and your body gets all buggered up by energy draining - emotion.
That is how I think my son spends his time - he does feel harrassed, (and worse) I think he perseverates on how horribly off course he keeps getting thrown - by people who want something from him that he doesn't want to give. It is Battle for Respect Timelord, thank you for the phrase - that and "Perceived Interference" I will let my son know about the terms, he may like one or both of them. (I do). Respect and Freedom is what he wants most.
ah, that dreaded legal word 'reasonable' - wide open to interpretation... Of course, once you explicitly tell your harasser that you find their behaviour vexatious, they ought reasonably to know.
M, I find the amount of harassment you claim to have received in this thread to be appalling.
With my oversensitivity to everything, I know I wouldn't be able to cope, and I would have quit the jobs where things of this magnitude (as you explained) happened.
If the "workforce" is really like this--my experience with work is very limited, but I've rarely ever received verbal abuse--I fear I must be living under a rock, right now, because I'm not prepared for any of the things you've mentioned.
What do you suppose makes you "stand-out" so much? Could it perhaps be down to your living area...? I guess I don't see too much happen in the affluent suburbs over here...
M,
That is just awful what they did.
Good for you for saying something to the mother.
example: I was in Walmart. I wear rather long old-fashioned looking clothes and sometimes small bonnet things (like Mennonite) on my head. A woman and her teenager daughter (strangers to me, I have face blindness but I was sure I didn't know them) came very close to me and started saying "Do you smell goat?" "Do you smell pig?" I started getting confused because I couldn't smell anything. Then the girl asked me "Do you live on a farm?" I said I did not but I didn't understand why they were talking to me. I asked her why she wanted to know and then she went on about how weird my clothes were etc how I looked so bad and that "other people had to look at me". I told her that my faith required me to wear modest dress and they would not go up to a Muslim person and say such things. I asked the mother why she taught her daughter to be such a bigot? Maybe by then there were other people watching.
Should I have asked for help from the store staff? Am I protected against any laws from this type of bullying? Is it harrasment?