This is a sort of response to this thread and, specifically (in a roundabout way), this post. There’s a big-ass disclaimer at the end if you want to fast-forward, but you’ll miss me vainly attempting to make a point.
Lots of people dress it up in a lot of different words, but when all the equivocations are stripped down to bare bones the fact of the matter is that eleanorigby’s Pakistani acquaintance is not white, not Christian, eats weird food and, perhaps, dresses funny. Therefore she cannot possibly celebrate that most English of feast days.
I see this all the time. I see it posts on this board, where someone will type hateful words against an entire group of people because of one stereotypical point of a person’s social class, skin color, language, religion, place of birth, or accent. I hear it from family members, one of whom told me a couple of months ago me that every Muslim wants to kill every Christian. I read it in comments on my local daily paper’s internal message board, where any article that deigns to mention a name that sounds even vaguely Muslim or Latino results in dozens or hundreds of comments with an over-arching sentiment of “Paki go home” from people whose real names end with –ski or -son.
I am fucking tired of it.
I’ve been working with our local refugee population for a while now. About a year and a half ago I met a guy at a bar who told me that Somalis are un-American, don’t want to even be American, and don’t salute the flag…but he didn’t say anything about the many local Somalis who have volunteered to serve in our armed forces, or about the families whose wish to put down roots here are so strong they’ve bought houses here – and break their religious laws regarding interest to do so. He told me that not only do Somalis take too many of our tax dollars, they don’t even have to pay taxes the first five years they’re here (which came as a surprise to my friend Mohamed, the guy who has a business helping fresh-off-the-plane Somali refugees file taxes). He told me that not only do Somalis not speak English, they don’t want to learn how to speak English despite the fact that there is a LENGTHY waiting list for ESL classes around here.
I mean, people actually believe this bullshit despite all evidence to the contrary – the thousands of dollars paid to immigration and lawyers to obtain citizenship; the tremendous effort to find a job to support their typically large families (I mean, seriously – if you’ve spent your adult life practicing law or nursing or teching, do you REALLY expect that the best job you can get in your new home is $10 an hour cutting up chickens?); trying to navigate the things with which even locals can have difficulties, like getting a drivers license, car insurance, job applications, and telephone hookup.
People around here forget that their agrarian grandparents didn’t speak English until they started public schooling; people around here forget that our early 19th-century election ballots were issued in French, German, Polish, Swedish, Norwegian, or any one of a dozen languages (I mean, fucking hell – my maternal grandfather’s birth certificate is in German, and he was born in Minnesota in 1920!); people around here forget that everyone – no matter the exterior stuff that designates a person as an “other” – wants to get up in the morning; feed the kids breakfast; send them off to school; go to work at a job that will pay rent and put food on the table; return home; watch a little TV; argue with the spouse; and go to bed. And do all of that without the threat of getting shot while picking up a gallon of cooking oil on the way home from work.
No matter what my good friend Fadumo does – her volunteer work, her job history, her English skills, her education, her intelligence, her guts, her humor – she will never be comfortable attending this city’s 4th of July fireworks simply because some asshole, like that guy in the bar, is going to say something about her clothes or her skin color or her accent. Each and every time I’ve tried to talk her into going to an event like this her response is along the lines of “But not everyone is like you”, which is code for “I would love it if my American-born son could participate in the same activities your niece does, but I’m scared shitless to venture out of my cultural zone because I’ve had quite enough violence in my short refugee life, thank you very much”.
I sent an earlier draft of this to a much-more-level-headed friend of mine who told me “I think you’re kind of goin’ off the deep end some” and I probably am. I’m tired and I’m cranky and I’ve had a long, insanely busy week. The problem is that Cabdiasiis told me something yesterday that was, for me, the last goddamn straw:
Caabdiasiis recently graduated from university and is applying for jobs in his field. As he was leaving one place of employment he saw, reflected in the glass entry door as he was walking out, the receptionist shred the application he had just completed. If there’s no evidence of an application there’s no evidence of discrimination, right?
I am no longer going to sit here at my computer and silently seethe when I see a post declaring that political correctness has gone amuck. I’m incredibly sad and I’m incredibly angry that strong, intelligent people are denied the opportunities I take for granted simply because of their skin color or their religion or their mothers’ locale when she gave birth.
So here’s the disclaimer:
There is no way for me to adequately describe why and how eleanorigby’s “I don’t get it” post set me off without delineating years of experience working with subordinate populations. I’m in no way pitting her or her post; it’s just yet another example of “Why are all the black kids sitting together in the cafeteria?” - a facet of life that I can see so clearly because of my proximity to the issue yet seems to be beyond the ken of many people.
Likewise, I’m not pitting chowder - he’s English and he’s proud of that (and hates ManUre even more than I do. :D) - but he also knows of the connection between the St. George flag, the BNP, and right-wing/fascist football hooliganism and chose not to mention that. I hope that symbol can be wrenched away from its less-savory connotations, but I guarantee you that it will go the way of the Confederate battle flag and the godwin alert Nazi swastika until we as human beings choose to spend more time considering our commonalities and dismiss our very minor differences as trivialities.
resigned sigh
Ok, I think I’ve typed out my anger and frustration now.
