Saturday, February 21, 2004
I like to make fun of the idea of being an entire ethnicity for Halloween. I am sure people take that as me exaggerating things. "Surely noone dresses up as the stereotypical Chinese man servant archetype that existed in the early part of the 19th century" and then I let them know that I saw at least three people dressed that way last Halloween. The only thing that was missing was those people bowing graciously and saying "me so sorry" every time they got in someone's way.
People are typically thoughtless during Halloween. I'm not talking thoughtless like "I continue to forget close friends' birthdays" thoughtless I'm talking "I just asked someone from China if they eat rice every day" thoughtless. I guess maybe allowances should be made for the hallowen lapse in judgement, though I still profess a fondness for culling these dumbasses from the herd.
It's sort of unforgivable when people undergo these lapses of judgement in entirely different and less sympathetic situations. When you're trying to be a middle class academic in a liberal arts program like International Development Studies and you go to a university library and ask one of the people working there if they're from India, when they're actually from Pakistan, and tell them that if they do you a favour you'll make them naan bread, then you’re truly a fucking idiot. Like I said before, it's akin to asking someone who is Asian if they love eating rice.
It's like entering into a room and delivering with apblom a line like "I think every one of the more than a billion women who live in Asia are unattractive" and expecting every one to nod their heads knowingly.
This is not the same thing as forcing people to speak in an Asian accent any time they land on Oriental Avenue in Monopoly.
People are typically thoughtless during Halloween. I'm not talking thoughtless like "I continue to forget close friends' birthdays" thoughtless I'm talking "I just asked someone from China if they eat rice every day" thoughtless. I guess maybe allowances should be made for the hallowen lapse in judgement, though I still profess a fondness for culling these dumbasses from the herd.
It's sort of unforgivable when people undergo these lapses of judgement in entirely different and less sympathetic situations. When you're trying to be a middle class academic in a liberal arts program like International Development Studies and you go to a university library and ask one of the people working there if they're from India, when they're actually from Pakistan, and tell them that if they do you a favour you'll make them naan bread, then you’re truly a fucking idiot. Like I said before, it's akin to asking someone who is Asian if they love eating rice.
It's like entering into a room and delivering with apblom a line like "I think every one of the more than a billion women who live in Asia are unattractive" and expecting every one to nod their heads knowingly.
This is not the same thing as forcing people to speak in an Asian accent any time they land on Oriental Avenue in Monopoly.
# posted by Die Brucke @ 4:12 AM 
