- cross-posted to:
- unitedkingdom@feddit.uk
- cross-posted to:
- unitedkingdom@feddit.uk
A man with a facial disfigurement says he was asked to leave a restaurant in south London because staff said he was “scaring the customers”.
Oliver Bromley has Neurofibromatosis Type 1, a genetic condition that causes non-cancerous tumours to grow on his nerves.
Speaking to the BBC, he said when he had gone to place an order at a restaurant in Camberwell, staff told him there had been complaints about him.
“It’s a horrible thing to happen. I took it very personally on the day,” he said.
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He said they had told him that although it was a hate crime, it was “unlikely” officers could pursue it further.
That’s messed up.
Welcome to British policing.
“We have determined that this was indeed a hate crime, and therefore we’ll be doing nothing. But if it happens two more times we’ll congratulate them on the hat trick and offer to enroll them in the police academy.”
The paragraph after is golden:
The Met confirmed to the BBC that officers had visited Mr Bromley about the incident and that although no arrests had been made, the force took “reports of hate crime seriously”.
I wouldn’t want to look at that while I was eating… SO I WOULD AVOID STARING AT HIM. Complaining about the guy is not the answer. Self control and respect are.
The article says he thinks there wasn’t enough time for someone to complain, the restaurant staff was using it as an excuse.
“He said: "After entering I noticed a cash-only sign, so went straight back outside to withdraw my money.
“I went back into the restaurant to place an order, and they told me to ‘please leave’, because in their words I was ‘scaring the customers’, and there had been complaints about me.”
He added: “There had not been enough time between the time I had been there first, and the time I went back, for anyone to have made a complaint about me so obviously the restaurant staff were not happy with the way I looked.” “
Yeah, I read the article. I was just imagining a hypothetical situation where he and I were eating in the same restaurant.
“at that”… If you don’t want to eat around other people that exist then just don’t go to restaurants.
Woosh
It’s pretty clear that they are saying your phrasing was pretty dehumanizing. They didn’t get wooshed, they were pointing out your well-intended micro aggression.
It looks dehumanizing because they cherry-picked my reply. I referred to him as a person in the very same sentence. When I said “that”, I was referring to the skin grafts and scabs. Those are things. They are not him.
The accusation was not made in good faith, and/or was made by someone with poor reading comprehension. They definitely got wooshed, and it’s pretty clear that you did, too.
They don’t want to look at that guy’s ugly face? I bet it looks nicer than their ugly minds.
Then don’t look at him? The man was just trying to eat. Poor guy.
I feel so bad for this guy. Imagine the shit he has to put up with all the time. I used to work with a lady who had a big tumor on her face. She was so sweet, but I’m sure she had to put up with all kinds of horrible shit. I honestly really liked her. I would have asked her out if I hadn’t been in a relationship because we got along really well. I don’t care if you have a big tumor on your face. I’ll get used to it after I’ve seen you for more than a minute or two.
It isn’t that simple. A worldwide measles outbreak is in the news, as is the fact UK is dealing with a surge in far-right BS. As a layman all I know about measles is it has spots as a glaring symptom and is dangerous for children.
This dude would have made me worried about a measles exposure, but a simple query assuring the proprietors it was not contagious would have resolved my concern. This dude has my sympathy because this is not the only hassle he has been forced to endure, as if the condition wasn’t enough suffering.
LOL this is a pretty common condition. You’re projecting your ignorance without taking a moment to look up the wikipedia article on this disease.
That’s not an excuse. No questions were asked, nor were there any follow-ups to clarify what was happening to him. People just didn’t want that sight while eating.
Didn’t say it was an excuse.
I know judging people on their appearances isn’t right, and he shouldn’t have been kicked out regardless of what he looked like.
… but it doesn’t even look that bad? Like, “I’ve got one eye and a skin condition”, is that really what the restaurant is willing to kick people out for?
Hope he gets some sort of justice out of this.
Some people are just determined to make it difficult to believe humanity is worth saving.
Whats the UKs disability rights laws look like? Hope he takes em to task for their discrimination.
On paper, the Equality Act 2010 is great in a bunch of ways. In practice, it’s exceedingly difficult for the average person to pursue justice through it. I imagine the barrier is similar to how it works in the US, except the UK has way less of a litigation culture.
Oh, you can sue for anything in the US and settle out of court. Coffee too hot? Sue. Coffee too cold? Believe it of not, sue.
Hey do you know what enforcement is written into the ADA? We’ll, I’ll just tell you. There isn’t any. It’s up to the individual who is denied access to sue the establishment to get them to comply with a law that’s now 30+ years old.
wait, in the article, why is his left eye removed in the first photo and his right eye in the next?
One of them is probably flipped.
Nah, I bet he’s faking it. Continuity error
Obviously he’s faking his condition for attention…
🤦It looks to me like the first one was taken with the front-facing camera of a phone, and those often have a horizontal flip option
That’s fucked.
just… put him on his good side.
/s
Turn the other cheeks
i mean, that’s one solution i guess.
It seems that some British hate handicapped/disfigured people. Just read this article about a kid in a wheelchair being excluded from the school photo. https://www.theguardian.com/education/2024/mar/29/aberdeenshire-pupils-with-complex-needs-erased-from-school-photo
https://www.theguardian.com/commentisfree/2024/apr/04/school-photos-disabled-children
or people complaining about seeing a tv host with a missing arm. https://www.theguardian.com/society/2011/feb/21/tv-presenter-cerrie-burnell
It’s just good old British Classism that never went away.
No, fuck off, that’s got nothing to do with nationality.
Nah… the british have a propensity for treating different people badly.
I’ll take a restaurant full of disfigured people over 1 misbehaving toddler.
As a parent of younger kids, we’re sorry. We come armed with as many activities as possible and will take our kids outside if they’re too excited until food gets to the table. That will help them focus on eating.
We very rarely went out to eat when they were toddlers due to fear of our kids bothering others and understand that our desire to experience some level of normalcy shouldn’t come at the expense of others.
All that said, if the parents are trying to keep their kids occupied, please extend some grace. Being a parent can be extremely isolating and we’re simply trying to pretend like we still get to do normal things once in a while.
This is fine, and we thank you for your efforts.
What were talking about here is a rogue crotch spawn running around or under tables, occupied or not, and generally acting like they’re in their own living room rather than a shared community space.
Honestly IMO if you can keep them at the table, I can put up with the noise. Sure, it’s annoying, but so are kids. It’s a package deal. And everyone was a kid at one point in time and therefore has no excuse to complain too loudly. That’s reserved for when I have to drag a screeching rug rodent out from under my chair and haul it back to the absentee sperm and egg donors.
