38 posts tagged “racism”

This is unbelievable in a modern European country in 2009, from Time:

The election campaign in Germany took an ugly turn last week when the country’s far-right National Democratic Party (NPD) threatened a black member of Chancellor Angela Merkel’s conservative Christian Democratic Union (CDU) party. Angolan-born Zeca Schall, who has German citizenship, was featured on CDU campaign posters in the eastern state of Thuringia, which is holding a regional election on Aug. 30. The posters went up on Aug. 1; 10 days later, the NPD attacked Schall on its website, calling him a “n_____ for the CDU party quota,” telling him to “go back home to Angola” and urging its members to deliver the message to him personally. In an act that had tones of a modern-day lynching, NPD supporters tried to march to Schall’s house in the central town of Hildburghausen, but they were stopped by police. Since Aug. 11, Schall has been under police protection.

   Mr Schall has lived in his town for 20 years and isn’t even running for office, but it hasn’t stopped some racists nutters from the threats.
   Time, meanwhile, has the following as a related article on its site:

German racism and Adolf Hitler

A shocking series of racist emails attacking job applicant Julie Eru on the North Shore, which have been traced back to a Chinese-run company called Brightstar, has been exposed on 3 News.
   It was generally agreed by Brightstar that their computers had been hacked and a police report has been filed.
   The boss of Brightstar has limited English so we can easily rule him out as being the writer of these messages, which point to a native English speaker.
   The question was raised in the report, ‘But why would a hacker attack a small business in East Tamaki?’
   I would have thought the answer very easy. The hacker is a racist.
   I said not too long ago on the blogosphere that those who make accusations of racism so readily, as the writer of these offensive emails does, are usually racists themselves.
   Their motivation is to make an immigrant, in this case, Chinese, company look bad, and to create a rift between Chinese and Māori.
   It was a failed attempt, trying to revive the sort of irrelevant muck that yesterday’s politician, Winston Peters, specialized in.
   It’s less disgusting than the attempts by racist groups some years ago of simultaneously desecrating Jewish gravestones and sending pork to Muslim families, but the ideas are similar.
   That time, we could rule out the perpetrators being Jewish or Islamic; this time, we can rule out the hacker being either Chinese or Māori.
   That time, too, it brought Jews and Muslims closer together in New Zealand; this time, I can only hope that both Chinese and Māori, who have both experienced racism, either as immigrants or in our own homeland, can come closer together, too.

The weirdos do come out on blogs, don’t they? Remember the nutter who wrote to my team saying that I was prejudiced against homosexuals? Just had one saying I am racist! Got to love ’em.
   It’s as I said to my latest accuser: those who claim others are prejudiced usually harbour some strong prejudices themselves. The first person I refer to above certainly had it in for some people in his or her email because their views were not in accord; the latter, I sense, probably is a closet racist, who took one message in the post (‘I harbour no ill will to Japanese people despite WWII’) and twisted it in his head to read the exact opposite (‘I hate Japanese people because of WWII’).
   Either that or Nathan works for Toyota.

I’m firmly an officious bystander in the whole “Michael Jackson thing”: I am sad people have lost a son, a brother and a father. But since the mid-1980s I have not been a big Michael Jackson fan. His death, while premature, is not going to make me suddenly say that I adored the man and his music. I’m not one of those people who made every single item on Amazon.com’s top 10 a Michael Jackson one. I’m not going to join his MySpace page and leave a tribute.
   But I do not think he was a nonce. When the media go on about child molesters ad nauseam, I am not surprised that some accused Jackson of molestation. Paranoia alone could have seen to that. Some may have seen dollar signs and took the man for a ride. Psychologically, I don’t think the man was capable of forming the sick thoughts that pædophiles have.
   He may have paid off some of his accusers, but think of it this way: if you are a lawyer and your client has the mentality, or tantrums, of a child, what do you do? A father might encourage his son to stand for the truth and go through even a difficult experience to build his character. Someone less close, knowing the person had millions, might just advise paying up to spare a fellow human being more emotional pain than he seemed capable of handling. Michael Jackson seemed like one such person: the stresses we might choose to bear were anathema to him.
   That is, perhaps, how one should think of Jackson: a man who preferred to live some form of childhood than recognize that he had reached adulthood. In his interviews, during the legal cases, Jackson came across in words and manner as a man deeply hurt, as a child might be. Visually, however, his damaged appearance through continual plastic surgeries swayed many of us into thinking he was a monster. It is easy to be fooled by what one sees, and Jackson was the victim of his own choices in that respect.
   I am not excusing him fully. I am not going to say that Michael Jackson lacked an adult’s mental capacity. He was able to reflect on his own mortality, according to his ex-wife Lisa Marie Presley on her MySpace page. He knew what was going on, even if he chose to shield himself from it.
   But he was a deeply troubled man, with a very different perspective on life because of his experiences. He chose himself to be as defined by his eccentricities as his music. Just as with Britney Spears shaving her head, many chose to poke fun at the person rather than say that they needed to be protected and looked after. Jackson’s plastic surgeries and his strange complexion were signs, in my layman’s understanding, of someone who chose to dissociate himself from his true identity. This was not about race, as many want to paint, but about a man who never understood who he was.
   Still, I have devoted a post to him. One part of it was seeing the negative comments pages with his videos are attracting on YouTube. He did not deserve many of them. The other part is that there was a Michael Jackson, once, who was a great performer, who never divided opinion as deeply as he does today. I choose to remember hits like this one.

Who votes that the next time we shop at New World Thorndon, those of us who are multilingual speak anything but English (in the wake of this news)?
   Or demand we are only served by multilingual staff?

My friend Bevan spoke of this item on my Facebook page today:

   The Thorndon New World has told staff they may get a warning if they break the rule and a notice to staff posted on the supervisor's kiosk spells out the English language policy.

I found this on another Vox blog here and I wonder how appropriate some of this is.

You know you’re Chinese when:

1. You look like you are 18 years old.—Hmm. I looked 18 when I was, well, 18.

2. You like to eat chicken feet.—Of course, totally normal.

3. You suck on fish heads and fish fins.—I suck at eating them, or literally suck on them? The former is true. Can’t stand bony stuff. No idea why this is particularly Chinese.

4. You have a Chinese knick-knack hanging on your rear view mirror.—What? No.

5. You sing karaoke.—No, that’s the Japanese more. They invented it.

6. Your house is covered with tile.—No. And not even in Hong Kong.

7. Your kitchen is covered by a sticky film of grease.—No.

8. Your stove is covered with aluminium foil.—Underneath the elements, but again this is not distinctively Chinese, surely.

9. You leave the plastic covers on your remote control.—No.

10. You’ve never kissed your Mom or Dad.—What? Who writes this BS? Of course I’ve kissed my parents.

11. You’ve never hugged your Mom or Dad.—As I said, who writes this BS? Some racist whose only impression of Chinese people is an episode of Bonanza?

12. Your unassisted vision is worse than 20/500.—No.

13. You wear contacts, to avoid wearing your “Coke bottle” glasses.—No.

14. You’ve worn glasses since you were in fifth grade.—No. Apart from that fact I don’t know how old fifth grade is, but it sounds awful young. I wore glasses from age 13.

15. Your hair sticks up when you wake up.—A little, but it’s usually too short to do that.

16. You’ll haggle over something that is not negotiable.—No. Again, stereotype. Again, my suspicion of some racist writing these BS positions.

17. You love to use coupons.—I wouldn’t call it love. I call it practical. If you have a coupon and can save a bit, wouldn’t you? And why is this distinctively Chinese behaviour?

18. You drive around looking for the cheapest petrol.—I know where the cheapest petrol is.

19. You drive around for hours looking for the best parking space.—No way. I know when the parking gods aren’t on my side.

20. You take showers at night!—More often than in the day. Anyone remember that Palmolive Gold ad in New Zealand with the white couple where the guy had to shower at night?

21. You avoid the non-free snacks in hotel rooms.—Of course, especially if I can go to a supermarket and get the same thing for a tenth of the price.

22. You don’t mind squeezing 20 people into one motel room.—Yes I bloody well mind.

23. Most girls have more body hair than you, if you are male.—Um, no. Not in my experience.

24. You tap the table when someone pours tea for you.—Yes, it’s only good manners. So the writer of these kept his eyes open at yum char. Well done. Better than having them closed. Or ramming chopsticks up your nostrils.

25. You say, ‘Aiya!’ and ‘Wah!’ frequently.—Define frequently. So, no.

26. You don’t want to wear your seat belt because it is uncomfortable.—BS.

27. You love Las Vegas, slot machines, and blackjack.—No.

28. You unwrap Christmas gifts very carefully, so you can re-use the paper.—No. I tear into it. If it’s that plasticky type of gift-wrap that’s hard to tear, then I might be more careful. If I can reuse paper, I do. Again, why is this particularly Chinese?

29. You only buy Christmas cards after Christmas, when they are 50 per cent off.—Of course. And I have enough to last me a decade. Why not buy 10 for 40¢?

30. You have a vinyl table-cloth on your kitchen table.—No.

31. You spit bones and other food scraps on the table.—No.

32. You have stuff in the freezer since the beginning of time.—OK, I have old stuff in there. So does Homer Simpson. Last time I looked, he wasn’t Chinese, though he is yellow.

33. You use the dishwasher as a dish rack.—Don’t have a dishwasher.

34. You have never used your dishwasher.—Don’t have a dishwasher.

35. You keep a Thermos of hot water available at all times.—Not a Thermos, but I do keep some boiled water in a jug, and some cooled boiled water in a bottle. A good habit to get into, as I discovered while travelling.

36. You eat all meals in the kitchen.—No, that’s what dining rooms are for.

37. You save grocery bags, tin foil, and tin containers.—Grocery bags, yes; no to the other two. Bags are good to put rubbish in for the recycling collection day. Again, not exclusively Chinese.

38. You have a piano in your living room.—No.

39. You pick your teeth at the dinner table (but you cover your mouth).—No. I thought in no. 36 we all ate in kitchens?

40. You twirl your pen around your fingers.—No. Again, did the writer of these just know maybe one Chinese person who did this and surmised that the other billion do this?

41. You hate to waste food.—Of course.

42. You have Tupperware in your fridge with three bites of rice or one leftover chicken wing.—No.

43. You don’t own any real Tupperware only a cupboard full of used but carefully rinsed margarine tubs, take-out containers and jam jars.—I own real Tupperware. I do have some take-out containers, which I save up and give to people I know who run take-out joints. It’s called being environmentally conscious.

44. You also use the jam jars as drinking glasses.—Who the f*** does this? Seriously. Who?!

45. You have a collection of miniature shampoo bottles that you take every time you stay in a hotel.—A few, but then I get samples at work. I certainly don’t take the hotel’s.

46. You carry a stash of your own food whenever you travel (travel means any car ride longer than 15 minutes). These snacks are always dried and include dried plums, mango, ginger, and squid.—No. The writer has obviously never been to New Zealand.

47. You wash your rice at least two to three times before cooking it.—A couple of times: a wash, then two rinses.

48. Your Dad thinks he can fix everything himself.—And he can.

49. The dashboard of your Honda is covered by hundreds of small toys.—I’m Chinese. That means I don’t have a Japanese car because of WWII, just like how some Frenchies don’t have a German car for the same reason (though I know a Jewish guy with a Merc). I do have great Japanese friends so my beef is not with individuals: I am just making a statement on behalf of my own kind. And why would some nut put toys inside his car like that? Stereotype.

50. You don’t use measuring cups.—Yes I do. I have a lovely orange plastic set.

51. You beat eggs with chopsticks.—Yes.

52. You have a teacup with a cover on it.—No. I thought white folks do this. Yes, all white folks. No, it depends on the person, surely.

53. You always look phone numbers up in the phone book, since calling information costs 50 cents.—Not always, but if I can save 50¢, why not? I’d rather Google a number or look it up. It’s actually quicker than trying to spell something to someone who can’t speak English.

54. You only make long distance calls after 11 p.m.—No.

55. If you are male, you clap at something funny and if you are female, you giggle whilst placing a hand over your mouth.—Clap? No, more a slap on my own thigh if it’s really good. Again: who writes this shit?

56. You like Chinese films in their original undubbed versions.—Yeah, duh. Like how French people like French films in their original undubbed versions. Like how English people like English films in their original undubbed versions.

57. You love Chinese martial arts’ films.—No more than any other genre. There are some crap ones out there. Again: stereotype.

58. You’ve learnt some form of martial arts.—Some basics. Mostly to give writers of stereotyped BS an ass-whooping.

59. Shaolin actually means something to you.—No more than anyone else who knows it.

60. You like congee with thousand-year-old (century) eggs.—I like congee; eggs, depends.

61. You prefer your shrimp with the heads and legs still attached.—Ew, no.

62. You never call your parents just to say hi.—Bollocks. When I travel, I always call my Dad. When my mother was alive, I called.

63. If you don’t live at home, when your parents call, they ask if you’ve eaten, even if it’s midnight.—OK, they do do this. Because they care.

64. When you’re sick, your parents tell you not to eat fried foods or baked goods due to 热气.—Of course: fundamental health principle. Actually, this is one thing where I am surprised that there is no western equivalent.

65. You know what 热气 is.—Uh, duh. I’m Chinese.

66. You email your Chinese friends at work, even though you only 10 ft apart.—What? I used to have some white students who did this, even when they sat behind one another. So I could summarize that all whites do this, like the writer of these points who probably knew two Chinese who did this.

67. You use a face cloth.—Yes. And, miraculously, I use it on my face.

68. You starve yourself before going to all you can eat places.—BS.

69. You know someone who can get you a good deal on jewellery or electronics.—Jewellery, probably; electronics, probably not.

70. You save your old “Coke bottle” glasses even though you’re never going to use them again.—There this writer goes again, about “Coke-bottle” glasses. First, my eyesight was never that bad. I do save old glasses, but I paid good money for them. My father does, too, and he’s been able to reuse his frames.

71. You own your own meat cleaver and sharpen it.—Yes. So I can use it on people who write stereotypical cobblers.

72. Your toothpaste tubes are all squeezed paper-thin.—Yes. Again, I know some people of other races who do this.

73. You know what moon cakes are.—Duh, yes.

74. When there is a sale on toilet paper, you buy 100 rolls and store them in your closet or in the bedroom of an adult child who has moved out.—I buy stuff on special, but I do that with most things. I bought two packs of 16 once.

75. Your parents know how to launch nasal projectiles.—What?

76. You iron your own shirts.—Sometimes, not all the time.

77. You play a musical instrument.—Yes. I guess this is so Chinese in the minds of the original writer.

78. Even if you’re totally full, if someone says they’re going to throw away the leftovers on the table, you’ll finish them.—Who am I? Joey Tribbiani?

79. You’ve eaten a red bean popsicle.—No.

80. You bring oranges (or other produce) with you as a gift when you visit people’s homes.—Has happened.

81. You fight over who pays the dinner bill.—Yes. Good manners.

82. You majored in something practical like engineering, accounting, medicine or law.—I did a law degree, so I couldn’t not major in law, right?

83. You live with your parents and you are 30 years old (and they prefer it that way). Or if you’re married and 30 years old, you live in the apartment next door to your parents, or at least in the same neighbourhood.—I lived with my folks when I was 30, or, more accurately, Dad lived with me. And this is exclusively Chinese why? And this is unusual because …? I can again name you people of other races who are equally close to their parents.

84. You don’t tip more than 10 per cent at a restaurant, and if you do, you tip Chinese delivery guys or waiters more.—I typically tip 15 per cent if I were to tip, regardless of the server’s race.

85. You have acquired a taste for bitter melon.—No.

86. You eat every last grain of rice in your bowl, but don’t eat the last piece of food on the table.—Yes.

87. You know why there are 88 reasons.—There aren’t. There are only 87 on this list.

   Conclusion: the original author maybe knew two Chinese people who exhibited some of these traits and reckoned they might just extend it to a billion people. Dumbass. Being generous, I probably could check off 30 of the above. Out of a billion-plus, there’s probably more chance of differences than in a nation of a few million. I found some of these ignorant, which is probably why I did it: to show that no race can be summarized in a few stereotypical points. 

I am being fair and balanced here by airing one video that attempts to paint Republican supporters in a poor light after the previous video that did the same to Democrats. This was from al-Jazeera English and the network itself critiqued it on Listening Post after there were complaints and accusations of bias. Please note that the n word is used.

I’m not sure if you can do this sign in the US, but in New Zealand, you can with our sense of humour: it’s at the New Orleans bar (formerly Paris), on Lambton Quay, Wellington. Two of the staff are Frenchmen so we chatted more about the fact that Orléans is a French town. You can even do a President Bush impersonation and say, ‘I see the reconstruction’s fine, and you don’t need my help,’ and not get nasty glances.

New Orleans blackboard

   This one at Get Funk’d might be more universal though:

Get Funk’d blackboard

We never found out if she did get fired.
   However, I did not know what to do with this one at the National Bank on Manners Street, Wellington:

Modern segregation

The first time I was not sure about this. I thought it was some modern form of segregation. I went to the regular queue with them white and brown folk. When I got to the teller, I asked him if the bank expected Kazakhs, Iranians, Indians and Asiatic Russians to go with the ‘Asian Banking’ sign. He was a bit humourless and it went over his head. But he did tell me that the staff were multilingual or spoke different dialects as I noted I did not speak Mandarin. I was welcome to go there next time.
   The second time I put this to the test. I figured that if the National Bank wanted all Asians—if you are one of the group descended from or related to the 3·7 billion from Asia—to turn right and not left, and segregate us, I would go along with it. Plus the teller from the time before said the staff were multilingual. I went to ask if any of the Chinese staff (I did not see any Japanese, Kazakhs, Pakistanis, Bangladeshis or any others) if they spoke Cantonese. They did not. Therefore, I went to queue up with the regular folk.
   The Mandarin-speaking woman working there did come to ask if she could help me. I said I wanted a cheque cashed. She said I was in the right queue. I remarked that I was just following the signs about segregation because I didn’t want to go all Rosa Parks-on-the-bus on them. (And the last time whites pulled this stunt with Chinese we got so pissed off that we brought down the Ching Dynasty in 1911, so bringing down a single bank is not too hard.)
   This time, my teller was (probably locally born) Chinese and could appreciate the nuances. She, like me, thought it was inappropriate for Chinese to be grouped with 3·7 billion people on the Asian continent. And we had very little in common with, say, the fictional Borat, who is from Asia. Or Emperor Hirohito. Or Gandhi. Or my friend Merrill Fernando who sells tea on TV.
   She said I was the first customer to have interpreted the sign as requesting Asians go to a separate part of the bank but she would raise it with the manager. I said that even the Chinese writing said ‘Asian banking’. But I still do not know what the sign means: clearly all ‘Asians’ cannot be assisted because there are only Mandarin-speaking staff in that section of the bank. Clearly there, the services are specialized and regular banking is still with the regular tellers. This was deceptive advertising.
   I am so glad I have closed the majority of our ANZ–National–Post Office Savings Bank–Countrywide–whatever-else-was-merged accounts. I don’t understand this lack of logic and it demonstrates a massive absence of cultural awareness. (As a non-customer it is a great thing to have a laugh about and I hope they will leave it up as a relic!)
   So they want Asians in another part of the bank but they don’t. And they can’t serve any Asians anyway unless you speak Mandarin, which is about 28 per cent of all Asians, but it’s pretty sweeping and arrogant to say all Asians should go that way. I do not know of any Chinese who would not find this sign either insulting, humorous, or stupid, which are probably three qualities that the National Bank wishes to convey. And I bet every other Asian, say folks from Tajikistan or Azerbaijan or Vietnam or India, are wondering why they can’t get served in that section or why their languages aren’t included on the sign or by the Chinese staff.
   The sign should read, in Chinese, ‘Specialized services for Mandarin-speaking customers’ which, believe it or not, would fit into the space they have anyway, and is probably what the bank means.
   Congratulations, National Bank, you’re stupid in two languages. Which is better than being stupid in three:

Large Black Coffee from "Role Models"

One of my team, who hails from Washington state, thinks I remind her of Gov. Sarah Palin when I say, ‘You betcha,’ which I have actually said as part of my regular speech for around 20 years. A lot of my family is American but it’s not from that, but from a line uttered by Andy Griffith somewhere in his long career. I liked the folksy nature of it—heck, anything Andy Griffith said came across as folksy, even when he played a villain in Spy Hard.
   So I am not specifically marketing the Republican campaign when I mention the blog of Meghan McCain, daughter of the senator.
   McCain Blogette is not Miss McCain’s alone—she shares it with two other contributors who are on the Straight Talk Express—but I would love to know if the Democrats have a similar insiders’ blog.
   It shows behind-the-scenes images not just of her and various Americans who support her father, but some from before the most recent debate. Her parents are in some, her paternal grandmother, and Sens. Lindsey Graham and Joe Lieberman.
   And it does what neither Sen. McCain, Gov. Palin, nor conservative media can do: humanize the campaign.