Explaining why a member no longer turns up for meetings
J: You know she's married to Greek... She can no longer go out without him.
It wasn't much but it alluded to a whole discourse around mediterranean men. Two others at the table were instantly enthralled by this possessive Greek but I stopped the conversation. Firstly, the whole tone of the conversation would have been different had his ethnicity not been refered to... in fact the conversation might have turned around ideas of love and no longer wanting to go to tedious meetings in her spare time now that she is in a loving relationship. Also to my mind, it's really lovely that they want to be together. That's pretty much how it is with me and my partner. I don't read that as ethnically-specific. But somehow when an ethnicity is stated, a minority ethnicity, opinions become part of maintaining stereotypes. I guess that's why they're stated.