We see bigotry every day. Most days I turn a blind eye, which doesn’t help the problem. I hear people at work making racist jokes and I ignore them. I’m not proud of myself.
Today, I had the most disturbing conversation of my life.
We have two muslims working for us. Both are from two different countries. (One from Morocco, one from Egypt)
I have gotten along wonderfully with both of them and I have even gone drinking with them. Their cultures fascinate me, so I ask them questions all of the time. Somehow, the topic of the Middle East came up. I have never heard anyone talk about a group of people like this. Both began spouting obscenities and claiming that all Jews should be killed.
Finally, I’ld had enough. I wasn’t going to let this kind of bullshit just slip by. I told them that despite the on going conflict over there, no one deserves to die. Not over this. Not over anything. They truly had genocidal hopes for the entire Jewish race. (Shudder) I was disgusted.
Then, they proceed to tell me that I don’t know a damn thing because I’m an American. All Americans are ignorant, I guess. The conversation somehow moved to how evil Americans are the cause of all the problems over there. They yelled at me for my governments actions.
I am not trying to say these people are bad because they are Muslim. I am just appalled. Plain old fucking disgusted by the way they spoke about other human beings.
I’m not too cool about going into work and having to deal with these guys again. I mean if they try to be buddy-buddy with me on Friday(thank God I have the next two days off) I don’t think I’ll be able to get past the nasty things they have said. I tired of turning a blind eye. On the other hand, this is not the topic we should be disgussing at work to begin with. I’ld rather not bring it up again.
I don’t know if you wanted a response or just to vent. But here. I’ll tell you another reason I hate everybody. I work for the newspaper. Not some important job. I just deliver copies to businesses and racks. So there’s this one gas station I deliver to. A guy named Lester works there. Now I got along perfectly with this guy. He flirted, I flirted back. We talked of our meager lives, bands we liked and sctuff, all in the few minutes I was in the store everyday. One time I even came and visited him after work. Just to talk. So one day(night) I came waltzing in with my stack of papers and lo’ and behold there he is with his head shaved. I’m like …Okay…He then begins spouting about American History X is the best movie ever and shows off his nifty WHITE shoelaces. Now if nobody knows about them, its a sign of white supremacy. He then tells me he’s married, but failed to mention it, and that his wife is in prison for attempted murder. Nice. A car full of mexicans drives up to the store. And out of his mouth came the reason I lost all respect for him. “Aww…Fuck…i hate serving Spics”. Nice. He knows I’m mexican. And i’m standing there just looking at him in disbelief. I left really pissed off and haven’t uttered more than “later” to him since.
It’s been going on since the beginning of time. Any little thing that we can do to stop it helps, believe it or not. My new hubby thinks it is ok to be friends with other races, just not socialize with them. Screw that. When we got married I asked several black friends from work and their families to a social event that we held. Course none of them came, but I extended the offer and I explained to hubby that I expected the upmost respect and courtesy to be extended to them or anyone else I invite to our home.
I think that showed great integrity that you spoke against murder and human suffering. It worries me a little that these guys are so openly vitrolic. How long have they worked with you? Do you work in a large city? Are these fairly young men?
////arachnid love\\, my significant other, imthjckaz (Bob), is a Mexican American. He moved here to lily-white St. Cloud, Minnesota, in the late eighties after having been born and raised in California. It was somewhat of a shock to him.
Even my dad (whom I had previously thought to be enlightened and liberal) when he first met Bob, asked if he was an American citizen. Bob’s so American, his dad fought in WWII and was a POW in a German camp. With the Nazi’s philosophy, it’s amazing he survived.
There was my dear old great grandfather. I thought he was just the sweetest, kindest man. Then my mother told me he had a saying he liked to use. “The cutest things in the world are kittens and little black babies. Problem is they grow up to cats and n*****s.”
I struggle with this a lot, though the older I get, the better it gets. I come from a family in which bigots and xenophobes run rampant. My grandmother is the WORST. The N-word rolls off her tongue as easily as “would you like another cookie, dear?” And her brand of discrimination really IS closer to xenophobia than bigotry. She’s an equal opportunity hater.
And Italian immigrant herself, she has something to say about African-Americans, Native Americans, Jews, Hispanics, homosexuals, the Irish, the Dutch, Germans, people who drink beer, you name it.
I firmly believe that if you listen to this stuff, it’s as bad as saying it yourself. The problem in this case, is…well…she’s my grandmother. She’d do anything for me. She’s a sweet, caring person where I’m concerned, and I’ve grown up fairly close to her. Her xenophobia is such a small part of our relationship that I’m forced to still love her for the GOOD things she does.
I get up and leave the table if a conversation about race begins at family gatherings. I ask her not to use those words in front of me. I say things like, “Grandma, at your age you should know better!” I try very much to make it clear that I object to such things. And I feel very badly that there comes a point in which you simply have to accept this as someone’s faulty personality and move on from there. That’s not to say I don’t cringe in disgust when she makes a rude comment, or that I’ve stopped trying to make her be more open-minded. But there’s only so much you can do to change a person who you love in spite of their flaws.
I know how you feel, frock (are you an “enterprising frock?”). There is a clever, witty fellow at my office. We chat and laugh and have a good time on our free moments. Then, once, the name of Nathan Lane came up in conversation. “What a fucking faggot!” this guy says. I have not socialized with him since. You never know; they look and act like perfectly normal people, then you notice they have no thumbs, and eyes in the back of their heads . . .
I have worked with both for about 3 months. They are both very hard working people and easy to get along with. We work in Philly. And both are about 30, I beleive.
I’m not so much shocked by their bigotry, I’m used to it. I’m the oldest son of an Italian immigrant. I’ve seen my father treated as a second class citizen, because of his poor english. For some reason people equate foriegn accent with stupid and treat him accordingly.
That being said, I’ve never met anyone who has such a violent hatred for any one group of people. I say “but they are human beings, just like you and me” and they say “I don’t care, kil them all”.
My philosophy is we should all start fucking each other until there is only one culture.
Goodness, my Yia-yia (off the boat from Greece) was the most xenophobic individual. She had something nasty to say about everyone. When my parents found out that they couldn’t conceive, they used to torture her by telling her they were going to adopt a Black Puerto-Rican Mexican Asian Turkish baby just to watch her eyes grow big.
My parents brought me up to believe that race doesn’t matter, but now I see how much my Yia-yia’s way of thinking influenced my dad. He mostly keeps it to himself, but every once in a while he and I have a blow-up when he shoots his mouth off. Last year around Christmas we were driving somewhere and he started bitching about being stuck behind a “Puerto Rican” car, which turned into a rant about Puerto Ricans in general - their supposed work habits, driving skills, and purported refusal to learn English. When I pointed out that his parents also came from a non-English-speaking area and that they must have been greeted with much the same sentiments when they first arrived here, veins popped out in his forehead. “It’s DIFFERENT!” he shouted.
Yeah, right dad. :rolleyes:
I still love my dad to pieces and think he’s a great dad, and I still love my (now dead) grandmother.
My girlfriend’s family is full-blooded south-side Chicago Irish Catholic, and while my sweetie is un-biased (if she is racist, she keeps it to herself), her kinfolk use racial slurs quite frequently (to my disgust).
She frequently apologises for her family’s bigoted behavior, but one of these days I’m going to have to say something. I’m trying to figure out a way to make my point without alienating her whole family. I could care less about offending them, but I don’t want to hurt my soulmate at the same time.
How do they reconcile thier racism with the teachings of the church they attend every Sunday??
I was lucky enough to be blessed with an extremely enlightened family. But occasionally my father will use something he thinks is perfectly fine slang/jargon and I have to correct him, but that’s a different kind of ignorance, he didn’t know that [word] was offensive to some… so I correct him.
this is more about my grandmother-in-law… this woman still holds the belief that Germany won WWII, she hates the jewish people that much… I really want to buy a reprint of the VG-day NYT and have it delivered to her…
I just don’t talk to her, not worth my time… she’ll be gone soon enough… one less racist.
I don’t debate race issues any more, ever since I faced off with a skinhead. I mean, I was climbing on his lap, screaming in his face, and all he did was make a wak-wak-wak motion with his hand. I can’t tell you what he said to provoke me, because I’m shaking just thinking about it.
At any rate, my reasoning now is that anyone who is as vicious as frock’s cow-orkers either was indoctrinated so thoroughly in their youth that they’re not capable of thinking differently, or simply isn’t thinking at all. People like that have already heard everything I might say, and more, so my response is to act as if they’re not there at all. Let them find out what it’s like to talk to a brick wall.