Come friendly bombs..and fall on me now
I have been thinking about ignorance recently. Linus describes a depressing and alarming scene from life in Dun Laoghaire over at Heavysigh. The gist of it being an Irish woman having a meltdown over buying some batteries and screaming at the Chinese shopkeeper to “fuck off back to your own country”. The Brother relates a tale of a Muslim neighbour who cheerfully admitted to him “I’m a homophobic. In my country we stone them.” and another neighbour this time an Englishman who was disgusted that “a fucking paki,” was seeking to buy something from his business and his utter astonishment that anyone would “pay a woman to do something, when they should be at home making the tea”. Three examples, one Irish, one Muslim, one English. Immigrant and native, Johnny foreigner and Paddy Irishwoman, it seems we make ‘em just as ignorant all over.
The tangled web of wrongheaded fears and hatreds is bewildering. The Muslim is afraid of the gay guy for liking guys, the Englishman is afraid of the Muslim for trying to give him money, the Englishman is also secretly terrified of the woman for having a vagina, the Muslim too is afraid of the woman for having a vagina, and would prefer that she dressed in a full length carpet, the Chinese guy is afraid of the woman for shouting racist abuse at him and the gay guy probably doesn’t fear the the woman, but would prefer one of the other guys. So, on average the woman is coming out worst off and the Chinese guy is the only one with a genuine reason to be pissed off, although perhaps he could work on his customer service skills. Shit, now I’m a racist too.
So the moral of the story is, women are evil, and once again I am at a loss as to how this planet of the muppets we live on will ever learn to get along. What do we have to do to reach a point where no one cares if the gay guy likes guys, the muslim wants to buy something from a shop, the Chinese guy can’t speak perfect english or that women have vaginas.
(I am of course exaggerating, slightly, in my hyperbole, the Burqa is not a carpet, it’s more like a cool, religious ninja outfit, one you’re allowed wear everyday!)
November 8th, 2006 at 11:55 pm
I need to get better at coming up with an appropriate reaction. Acting as though the person was joking is a start, but doesn’t do anything to show them that they’re an idiot. Sadly, kneeing the person in the privates probably wouldn’t quite get the right point across. Also, physical violence involves touching them. Ewww.
November 9th, 2006 at 1:40 am
I like that song Christy Moore used to sing in the 80’s, the chorus goes something like this:
Hey, Ronnie Reagan, I’m black and I’m pagan.
I’m gay and I’m left and I’m free.
I’m a unfundamentalist environmentalist.
Please don’t bother me.
Perhaps I will have that printed up on a card to hand to hate spewing strangers and on the other side in big red letters -NOW SHUT UP OR IT’S THE MANBEATER FOR YOU!
November 9th, 2006 at 2:07 pm
It makes much more sense written like this than as a drunken diatribe in the pub, although I worry about what a ‘manbeater’ could possibly be…
Anyway, my most remembered incident was the old man on the bus who sat beside me and started shouting abuse at the (black) bus driver.
‘Bloody Ns coming in taking our jobs! In my day they knew their place! Fucking N’s!’
I smiled at the beginning as he just seemed to be a general grumpy old man, but then when he started the racist shit I told him to ‘Fuck off’.
Which then of course meant that I was an N-lover.
November 13th, 2006 at 11:12 pm
I’ll never understand that mindset. I’m cool with everyone — as long as they’re not a Catholic.
November 14th, 2006 at 2:24 am
It gets even better when you’re a tall, pierced, long-haired, computer-programmer-ish white guy … married to a short, buxom black woman. You hear it all. The one I like best/least, and I’ve heard it more than once? That’d be the one I usually get from Eastern European men (well, I’ve gotten it twice, and they were both from Russian-esque guys). It involves questionable female plumbing, and performance. And this from total strangers who felt free enough and curious enough to ask!
November 14th, 2006 at 9:34 pm
Elimare: Oh yes ‘N’s I hate ‘N’s they come over here and take our vowels, never use proper grammar or punctuation. It’s the P’s and Q’s you have to mind though.
Chris: Hating Catholics is a proud and noble British tradition.
David: Perhaps eastern european women are no good at plumbing. Lord knows my eastern european male plumber was useless. It could be a racial trait, useless at plumbing. Few people realise the war in Kosovo was fought over the state of Serbian plumbing. You couldn’t take a crap in that country without half the population knowing about it. Before he became a noted war criminal and meglomaniac, Slobodan Milosovic was a plumber, and a bloody rubbish one at that.
November 17th, 2006 at 6:45 pm
I agree with your misogynistic concepts, but I must differ about religion. There is at least one true God who prefers that people not kill each other unless it is over something really important.
November 29th, 2006 at 6:18 pm
Is that?
“The First Unification Church of Knowledge (First Unichurck) is dedicated to his Rustiness.”
Welcome to the site OneEar
UPDATE: Racist Englishman has gone out of business. Maybe there is something to this Karma thing.