An Interesting Movie, Available on YouTube

While perusing YouTube during incubation periods, as I do on occasion, I discovered that a movie I bought several years ago is now available on YouTube.

I have refrained from reviewing movies on this blog in the past, because I can get very touchy about the movies that I adore and so usually keep those opinions to myself. I will make an exception in this case however, because although this movie is not in the category of you're-not-allowed-to-criticize-this-in-my-presence, I found it an incredibly interesting movie. 

It consists of a fictitious documentary, conducted by the BBC about the (relatively) modern-day United States, as history would have been had the South won the Civil War. It is aired on fake-American T.V. and thus complete with fake commercials in between segments of the documentary. Some of them are jarring, and when I first watched this movie I thought it was a little over the top. Until I got to the facts in the closing credits, and then it blew my mind.

It blew my mind so much that I have since recommended it to everyone I came across. Although you have to be in the mood for a movie consisting of a classically slow-paced history documentary, if you are in the right frame of mind and have an hour and a half to kill, this is well worth watching.

Thoughts On: Defensible Arrogance

I have mentioned before that I have a friend that is struggling to accept the fact that she is losing her faith, and so I suggested that she read The God Delusion by Richard Dawkins, a book I know has helped a lot of people in her same position. The other day she tells me that she is having a very hard time reading it, because despite the fact that she agrees with much of what he says, the arrogant tone with which he says it is putting her off. “There are millions of people around the world that have faith”, she told me, “are you saying that they are all stupid? Are you presuming that you are more intelligent than all of those people, that they have nothing worthwhile to contribute to the philosophical conversation, that you are smarter than all of them, simply because they believe?” Now I do not presume to speak for Richard Dawkins and I do not know how he would answer this specific question (though I am sure there are some videos of him responding to similar questions floating around, as he is often accused of this smugness), but there are a few points of contention that I would like to bring up.

First of all, I pointed out that The God Delusion is a book about the reasons why one should not believe, and that if there is a believer with something to offer they are by no means prohibited from putting forth an argument in contradiction to something in the book and hashing it out. Secondly I pointed out that the “smug” tone of the book would not be nearly so criticized if he was taking shots at Bigfoot believers, reptilian conspiracy theorists or AIDS denialists. She agreed with me on both points, but still maintained that the tone of the book is something that is unnecessary and off-putting.

I am not going to sit here and pretend that Richard Dawkins has no arrogant or smug bone in his body, that is not true and I am perfectly aware of it. I also realize that I was talking to someone that wont be derisive to anyone, not even the stupidest idea alive will make her snarky towards them, so this was not an issue of putting religion on a pedestal. However, here comes one of my extended analogies to address her initial question: there are millions of believers around the globe, are you saying that they are all stupid?

First of all, there mere presence of numbers of people that believe a certain thing is a terribly piss-poor reason to give credence to that particular idea or theory. The classic example is 1000 years ago the vast majority of the world believed that the Earth was flat, it does not mean that “there might be something to that” and it does not mean that everyone who thought that way was stupid: they just didn’t know any better.

To second that point, let’s say that I wrote a book similar to The God Delusion but about racism. I hate racism, I think it is an incredibly stupid belief system, and my frustration in having to deal with multiple racists throughout my career prompted me to write a particularly scathing book about all the reasons that I think the concept of racism is ridiculous, regardless of how mild or extreme, and that it should be renounced altogether. I truly believe that I am right and that the evidence backs me up, and I go on to cite all of the reasons why racism has had a terrible, poisonous influence on society as a whole, how it has impeded education and how the genetic variability within races is higher than the genetic variability between races and that thus annihilating the basis for racism.

You may come up to me then and rightly say hey, you realize that there are millions of racists around the world, and that they outnumber people that are not racist? (Not to suggest that all people are racist the way die hard Nazis are, which would be more analogous to the Westboro Baptists and Al Qaeda fundamentalists, but it is true that the majority of people around the world do have some prejudices based on race). Are you saying that those millions of people around the world, those who outnumber you, are all stupid, or bad people? The answer to that question is no.

There are plenty of stupid people around the world, and there are plenty of smart ones as well. There are stupid racists and smart racists, and then there are a bunch of people that are in the middle. There are plenty of people that do not have access to good education, have not heard the evidence against racism, and have never sat around to ponder the question because honestly they have more important things to worry about like how to feed themselves and their families. There are plenty of people that have never traveled outside of their town of birth, have never seen someone of a different race and are thus very understandably wary of the unknown. This does not mean that the people that fit this description are terrible people, or that they should be considered “just like the Nazis”. Many people of this description are very good people, they help out in their communities and are amazing, empathetic people. They do these things because they are good people, not because their racism towards other tribes or colors causes them to want to help out people of their own color and tribe.

There are also people that go on TV and spout hateful racism out to the masses, trying to convince as many people as possible to give them money, power and status. There are people that believe them, follow them and do unspeakable things in their name. Many times these people are intelligent, often times they are charlatans that do not believe their own hype, and sometimes they are stupid but possess a flair for rhetoric. I, as the author of this book, should be allowed to point this out for the awful, hurtful crap that it is, without having to constantly repeat “yes, I am aware that not all racists are like that!”. Also, the fact that a large portion of racist people do not harm others and are good people does not mean that I should not be allowed to attack the core principle of what they believe, or that I cannot express that I believe they would be even better off if they let go of their racism altogether and all of the fear, mistrust, anxiety and hate that comes with it.

At this point you might say that it is a false analogy, because racism is something that is undoubtedly hurtful to society, to which I say exactly! That is what many of these authors are saying about organized religion as well! Nowadays it’s OK to vilify racism and its loudest proponents, but even 150 years ago it most certainly was not. To even mildly suggest that maybe African Americans were also human beings, Like Harriet Beecher Stowe did in Uncle Tom’s Cabin, got her the same kind of hate mail and death threats that many prominent atheists get today, including a package containing an African American’s severed ear. The two points are more similar than you may think.

Anyway, I suppose the main point is that yes, despite the arrogant undertone of the book, there are always going to be instances in which people will feel that an arrogant undertone is perfectly justified. The question in the end becomes, is it justified in this case? And if not, what is the real reason that it annoys you?

Is it really because you have a zero tolerance for smugness in any shape or  form and are never smug about anything yourself, or is it because some fragments of religion’s historical pedestal still remain in your mind?

On Racism, For Want Of A Better Word

I have mentioned before that I am something of a stranger in a strange land here, but I will recap slightly for those of you who are not Italian and do not fully understand how the country is set up here.

I am from Rome, but I am currently living in a small city near Venice. The difference between “North” and “South” (or rather, “North” and “Everyone else”) is palpable, not only because of the fact that the North is much better off economically and there are many people of the idea that they should be two separate countries. The fact of the matter is, Italy was divided into many different “countries” up until 150 years ago, when it was finally united. That is why the difference between regions is incredibly pronounced, from the accent to even very strong local dialects (many of which are literally incomprehensible to anyone not from that region) to the food to the mannerisms and culture. Travelling around Italy can in some ways be like travelling to different countries, and thus some within Italy racism definitely exists, particularly in the North. I say racism for want of a better word, because what is it really? We are all of the same “race”, so the animosity is not based on physical characteristics like skin colour. It’s not nationalism, because we are all the same nationality. Regionalism? For now we’ll call it racism, because it falls under the exact same umbrella. The fact of the matter is, in the North the feeling of resentment towards these lazy Southerners coming to steal our jobs is a common one to encounter. Not everyone of course, but I have come to realise and accept that many need not be so explicit in their racist sentiment, and it has started to weigh on me in a way I did not expect.

An example, if you please.

The other day I went for a pre-dinner drink with a couple of friends and others that work in the same building that I do. At this point I felt quite comfortable with this group, I felt I knew them well enough so I was not the silent observer in the corner, I was actively participating in the conversation. We were talking about food, I got my regular beating for not liking coffee (sacrilege, I know), and then I began pointing out the sacrilege of breaking your spaghetti before you cook it. “You can’t break your spaghetti!” I said laughingly, justifying my position by saying that, since I am from the South, spaghetti is kind of my turf. The fact is that regionally speaking, the Northerners have much more of a food culture in polenta and rice, while the South it’s pasta every day. I said that if I was making a mistake in my polenta-cooking I would trust their advice as I know they are bigger experts in that field than I am, but leave the spaghetti to me! We were laughing, we were joking around, and then one of the girls that is a regular spaghetti-breaker was perhaps getting a little embarrassed and fired back “Well, we have 80% of GDP so we can do whatever the fuck we want with our spaghetti!” Everyone laughed, one (who incidentally is the one I know best and thought was a closer friend) even said “Ha! What a great comeback! Nice one!” I, for the first time in quite a while, was speechless.

Just to give an example of what that joke is saying. Lets say that we are a group of Italians and one Indian guy, who upon finding out that we cook our basmati rice in a sea of boiling water before draining it laughingly expresses his distress and tries to explain how to cook it properly, because after all it is part of his food culture and he was raised on it. I then turn around and say “Yea, well, the day you can stop calling your country a third world country maybe I’ll listen to you about how to cook my basmati!” And everyone around the table laughs. Imagine a Southern, African American woman trying to explain the same thing about collard greens to a table of white Americans, and one of them saying “Yea, well, since we don’t have more white guys in jail than in college we can do what the fuck we want with our collard greens!” And everyone around the table laughs. Don’t know about you, but I didn’t find it very fucking funny at all.

It’s the sensation that this divide is always bubbling under the surface with them. As soon as you think you’re in, you’ve been accepted, and you open up and talk normally like you would to anyone else you consider a friend, this can crop up and shut you down. It’s like they’re thinking “We are different, and we always will be. We accept your presence and tolerate your company because you’re funny and cool and we like you, but don’t forget your place”. This girl is not a right-winger and does not truly believe all that crap about splitting the country in two, but she still hold the trump card of superiority tucked handily up her sleeve. She had nowhere to turn, no “I studied as a chef therefore….” or any sort of personal accomplishment to back up her argument, so out came the “I popped out of a vagina in the right place at the right time, so I looked around and said yup, this makes me superior to you” argument. Jokingly, but the fact that she even went there, and worse that not a single person even laughingly said “come on now! Low blow!” disappointed me immensely. No matter what I say or do or how well I might formulate any kind of argument, they can pull that out at any time and shut me down, end of conversation. Worse, this racism is so the norm that if I had protested this gross lack of argument I would have had thirteen people jump down my throat for being a touchy party-pooper.

And there is always one, at every party.

Yesterday I was at a friend’s birthday party, and one girl that now lives in Milan started talking about how there was a possibility for her to work in Rome, but she was utterly disgusted by the idea of having to move south of the river Po (not for nothing there’s a Northern saying dal Po in giù l’Italia non c’è più [from the Po down, Italy is no more]). She went on and on about how pathetic Rome is compared to Milan. She clearly had no idea that’s where I’m from, and at least this time the people around the table had the decency to look embarrassed. One even tried to interrupt her to inform her of my origins, but I stopped her. “Let her speak”, I said. I would much rather know what people really think that to have them walk on eggshells around me.

It has been a lesson learned. This is not to say that racism does not exist where I’m from, although it is usually more directed towards actual foreigners rather than people from other regions (they even have a half-slur for us, terrone, although as far as I know we don’t have one for them). However, down South you can tell if you’re not trusted by the locals. They can be polite but will always be superficial, they will treat you differently. However once you’re in, you’re in. Here I genuinely thought that we were talking normally and they were treating me like one of the gang, so when these jokes or insults or slurs come out it is unexpected, shocking and far more disappointing.

It is this racism that makes me feel like I will never find a true friend up here, because they have constructed a bridge that, when I think I have fully crossed it, someone at the end kicks me back over to my side. However, I refuse to let the fear of that bridge prevent me from trying. I know better than to assume that everyone here feels this way, so I will continue to open up and treat them all the way I would treat anyone else, even if it does leave me vulnerable to many more disappointments along the way.

To the ones that have shown their true colours, oh well. I’ll still be polite, but I wont be looking for a deep friendship, sharing my dark secrets with you or inviting you to my wedding. It’s been nice knowing you, but I do not accept your false sense of superiority, and most importantly, I refuse to respond to your “witty” racist remarks with equally clever racist comebacks on my end. I will not, ever, play that game.

I Think I'm Going To Be Sick...

Today was a bad, bad news day. First there was this story on TheYoungTurks this morning

I totally get what Steve Oh is saying, that this gross negligence could be just as much a "poor thing" as a "black thing". 

However, here's one that's definitely a "black thing"

Kenneth Chamberlain, Sr., a 68-year-old African-American Marine veteran, was fatally shot in November by White Plains, NY, police who responded to a false alarm from his medical alert pendant. The officers broke down Chamberlain’s door, tasered him, and then shot him dead. 

Unknown to the police officers, the entire altercation was recorded by a device inside his home. The police officers were responding to what they thought was a medical emergency, and when he told them he was alright and to please leave they called him a nigger, broke down his door, tasered him, shot and killed him in his own house. 

Not only is this policeman not in jail, his name has not even been released, so we don't even know if he is still on active duty since he murdered a 68-year old war veteran. To top it all off, want to hear the title of the newspaper article covering the shooting the next day?

"Officer fatally shoots hatchet-wielding man."

 or, how about

"Police Fatally Shoot Disturbed Man Carrying Knife."

Shit, there's only so much I can take in one day. I feel utterly sick for these people and their families. How in the hell does this shit still happen?

If anyone comes up to me and says "bah racism isn't a problem in the US anymore! We/they elected a black president!" in the next week I think I'm going to punch them in their stupid face.

 ___________

Edited to add: and now they've had to go and add this story to this crappy news day. Wonderful. Good to know what actually matters to the people in power in the police force.  

Another Heart-Breaking Example Of Pure Racism

This is a story that I have been following for the past couple of weeks on TheYoungTurks, and it still amazes me that this disgusting excuse for a human being has not been arrested. A man runs after a 17-year old kid, 10 years his junior and 100lbs lighter than him who is running away and screaming for help, shoots him in the chest murdering him in cold blood, admits it all to the police claiming self defense, and why is he not rotting in jail? Oh, of course, he's white, the kid he shot is black, duh. I was unaware this was 1920s Mississippi and not 2012 in Florida.

Now, thanks to PZ Myers I have discovered that there is a petition calling for this bastard's arrest. Please sign it, share it, do whatever you can to bring as big and bright a spotlight on this unabashedly racist police department that you can. The 9/11 calls made that TYT was speculating about have also been released, damning Zimmerman even more, and yet he's still kicking back at home.

I don't know what else to say

Racist? The US? But We Have A Black President!

Oooh doesn't this argument get under your skin? Even more annoying is how often I hear it. The US deserves no pats on the back for being able to look past a person's epidermal melanin content when electing one of their own citizens for President. Apparently, though, not everyone can, and there are still people that do not believe people of darker complexion are even allowed to be citizens. So, whenever you hear someone trump out the "but we have a black president" argument, please let them read the story about this asshole, who has actually filed a suit to bar Barack Obama from appearing on the State ballot.

The best part?

As stated above, for an Individual to be a Candidate for the Office of President of the United States, the Candidate must meet the qualifications set forth in the United States Constitution and one of those qualifications is that the Candidate shall be a "natural born Citizen" of the United States. As Barack Hussein Obama II is of the "Mulatto" race, his status of citizenship is founded upon the Fourteenth Amendment to the United States Constitution. Before the [purported] ratification of the Fourteenth Amendment, the race of "Negro" or "Mulatto" had no standing to be citizens of the United States under the United States Constitution.

Of course. Someone better tell Condoleeza Rice, Colin Powell, Allen West and Herman Cain that none of them are or have illegally held office in the US because guess what? None of them are citizens.

Gordon Warren Epperly, you disgust me.

To Those Who Whine About Affirmative Action

When I was in high school I had a very strange, ignorant and slightly imbalanced French teacher (I'm not just saying that, the man threw a chair across the room and then calmly stated it was blocking the door so he had just saved all our lives if there was a fire). He had just discovered that there was such a thing as affirmative action in colleges in the US. He was outraged, and made us all copy down in French "In France all types of discrimination are against the law, even positive discrimination". I tried to explain to him how pigheaded that statement was, but I was 15 and couldn't speak french so I failed. Now I wish I could show him this video.

I wonder if he can give a similar talk on sexism too!

PZ posted this a while ago but I only just got a chance to watch it, since I usually read blogs (as well as write this one) on my lunch break at work where I can't turn the speakers on.

I find a lot of the arguments I make with people reflected in his talk, but two instances in particular popped back in to my mind while I was listening to this talk, both of which happened while I was living in Ireland.
I am not trying to insinuate that the Irish are a particularly racist people. As Tim Wise says, most people are perfectly well meaning, they just sometimes miss the point.

1. I came home one day to find my roommate in a bit of a huff, and his girlfriend gritting her teeth over his recent rant about what happened. I managed to find out that he had gotten in to a bit of a fight with a Bangladeshi employee at our corner supermarket, to whom my roommate finally shouted "WTF mate?! You don't see me coming to your country and trying to screw people! I don't have to stand for that shit in my own country! Fuck OFF!" I promptly adopted the same I-just-stubbed-my-toe expression his girlfriend was wearing. He got a little annoyed at me and said "well what?! I can't get mad at someone who isn't Irish for fear of being called a racist?! I didn't mean it in a racist way, I don't hate all Bangladeshis, but that guy was being a dick, he deserved it!" This warped rationalization seemed to also win his girlfriend over, since she felt his rant was a racist one though she couldn't pinpoint what part of it was the failure. I shook my head at both of them. You've missed the point entirely. "It was racist", I said, "because you went there. So he was being a dick, fine. What does the fact that he's from Bangladesh have to do with anything? A foreign person has no more or less of a right to be a dick than anyone else that lives here." This idea that each person outside of their own country (or, as it is in the US, outside of the racial majority) is representative of the country (or race) as a whole is ridiculous. If someone doesn't like me it would be ludicrous to assume that they would start distrusting or condemning all green-eyed people on the planet.

2.Another common grievance people had was with those damn foreigners coming to steal our jobs, particularly since the economy started to go down the toilet. However there is a law in Ireland which states that if you have two equally qualified people applying for the job, you have to hire the Irish person. Only if the foreigner is better qualified do they get the job. So what's the problem?
The problem is that in Ireland the minimum wage is very high, so many places liked to higher foreigners who were willing to work for less than that. That same roommate of mine worked in a hotel where he told me that Irish CVs were automatically thrown in the garbage because they would have to be paid the full minimum wage. It is no wonder then, he said, that the Irish are frustrated with these foreigners that are getting hired over them when they don't even speak English. If they'd just stop being let in the Irish would have more jobs. Another fail in logic.
I said to him, why are you getting pissed at the people that are just trying to make a better life for themselves? The people that are hiring them at below minimum wage are breaking the law. They're not supposed to pay foreigners any differently, they are taking advantage of them. Why aren't you directing your anger at the assholes that are breaking the law and not hiring Irish people, instead of getting pissed at the guy that just wants to make a little money to send home to his family?

Anyway, in conclusion, great talk. I get it, it extends beyond the US and highlights some global issues that need to be addressed. However just talking about them, putting them out there is already a huge step forward. After I demonstrated the flaws in his logic my roommate never made those arguments again. He was never a racist, he just never thought of it that way. Presenting things in a different light can make a huge difference to public opinion.

Explaining Probabilities To The Mathematically Impaired

OK here it goes, going to talk about something related to FEMINISM inspired by new twitter hashtag #MenCallMeThings. I don't have a twitter account (and I refuse to get one) so I'm not going to be posting my little contribution, but I figured I'd write a post about a common anti-feminist argument I hear quite often.

OK now it's very difficult for me to talk about feminism alone without bleeding into racism, homophobia etc. I have previously explained why I feel that it is all the same nonsense: having a prejudice or even downright hatred of someone simply because of how they were born, regardless of what that characteristic they were born with is. I also don't feel any more strongly about one than any other, which leads me to interconnect them quite frequently, so please forgive me for doing so.

OK so this is the feminist argument: There is sexual discrimination in the workplace. Evidence? A very small percentage of women hold managerial positions/high-ranking positions compared to men, whereas if there was no discrimination the number we would expect is 50/50 thanks to the law of prbability.

The (polite version of) the counter-argument: So what, NOW we're supposed to hire people BECAUSE they're women? Isnt that blatant discrimination against men?! But feminists don't care about that kind of discrimination do they! So we're supposed to give a woman a job even if she doesnt deserve it as much as a man does, or we'll be labeled as sexist? MAYBE the female applicants are less qualified, or more men applied than women for the jobs cause the women want to have time off to have babies, there are loads of reasons why men might deserve those jobs more!

Of course you can substitute the word "women" with "blacks, minorities, gays, etc." and still have the same exact argument.

OK, let me explain it to you then. True, there are other factors that could influence a skewed percentage that does not involve prejudice or bigotry. So what is the reason? Let's try something called an experiment to find out.

Coincidentally, this kind of experiement has been conducted in the US to see if there was discrimination (whether subconscious or not) against African Amreicans. What did they do to investigate this?

1. Put up two adds on eBay for a product, which were identical in every way except that in the picture of the product there was either a white hand or a black hand holding it. People bid significantly lower amounts on the product held by the black hand.

2. Sent out CVs that were identical except some had a white-sounding name while the others had a black-sounding name. CVs with the black-sounding name were rejected more often than the white-sounding ones.

See, this is evidence that the skewed percentages of employees has something to do with racial discrimination. I don't know if they tried #2 with male and female names, but I would be astounded if such a study would not yield similar results. They should also combine the two, my prediction is the following classification of number of CVs accepted:

1. White man names
2. Black man names
3. White woman names
4. Black woman names

At least, that's what US history in civil rights issues leads me to believe. I would be extremely interested in seeing the results.

Anyway I guess my point is this: enough with the straw men you bunch of baby whiners. No one is trying to diminish the meritocracy. Gender and racial equality does NOT advocate for reverse discrimitation. It advocates for exactly what it says: equality. We want the person that truly deserves the position the most to get the job, regardless of gender, race or sexual orientation. Is that really so terrible an idea? Are there really people who are not in favor of that? I know that there are a bunch of bigots out there who will pretend to call bullshit and say this is really just a big conspiracy to put down the straight white man, the real minority, and all that noise. Even if you really believe that, still answer this question: supposing that the only thing that the [insert discrimination-victim group here] activists want is what I have just stated, would you be against that?

Thoughts on: Racism, Ignorance and Political Correctness

This is another one of those topics that is so multidimensional that it is difficult for me to figure out how I'm going to even structure this, but I'll do the best I can.

Here is the disclaimer: I am white. oooohhh noooo that means that I am not allowed to have any sort of opinion on this!!! Bullshit. Racism does not = whites hating/discriminating against blacks. It is so much more complicated than that. I am an Italian with American heritage, and that meant that sometimes I had a hard time, but most of the time I was fine. When the war first broke out in Iraq it was not a good thing to be an American anywhere in Europe, particularly in Italy which was a country that was dragged in to the war despite the overwhelming majority of the people not wanting to have any part in it. When I moved to Ireland I was constantly referred to as "the tanned one", which I only found amusing seeing as I am quite white for an Italian. When I moved to Northern Italy it became apparent that some people were going to hate on me for being from Rome, as there is a right-wing group that has a lot of traction up here that staunchly hates everyone from Rome and below, saying that they don't work and are solely responsible for all of Italy's angst. Compound that with the fact that my boyfriend of four years is Romanian, which has been the single most hated nationality in Italy for years now, although it looks like recently Albania has begun to compete for the top spot. Putting that all together, I have had a share of racism and/or ignorance flung my way. Anyway, even if I hadn't, I am not of the opinion that only those who have experienced it are allowed to comment on it, so I feel my opinions would stand anyway.

Back to the topic at hand. I feel like there needs to be a strong distinction between "racism" and "ignorance", although racism of course stems from ignorance. When my Irish friend, upon seeing a black man for the first time at age 7 on the bus, exclaimed "Mammy! What's wrong with that man? Is he dirty?!" his mother was right to be mortified, but no one could possibly claim that he was a racist. Saying the same thing at age 20, now you're being a racist. So when do the two begin to split? I once tried to explain my distinction of the two with a story, trying to explain why Italians hate Romanians so much, and yet very few of them are actual racists:

Imagine tomorrow when you wake up you discover that there is a group of green people that live on an island off the coast of (insert your country here). They have always been there, it has been known, but you are only just finding out about it because the news says that they are now going to be servicing that island with a much more regular ferry than there previously was. At first you feel weary, which is only natural. Next week you see one in the flesh for the first time in the supremarket, you will probably stare more than you would at any other person, but that is only natural as well. Other than that, your contact with these green people is limited to the occasional chance sighting.
But then the news starts reporting. It looks like many of these green people are poor, and since more of them have been moving to your town there have been burglaries commited by the green people. A green person murdered an old man while trying to steal his wallet. Three green people were arrested for stealing a series of cars. Five burglaries occur in 10 days, two green men arrested. What is your opinion of these green people now? That they have invaded your town in order to steal and create mayhem, much better if they go back to the island they came from where they belong!
But then you meet one. And another one. All of the green people you meet are actually really nice and hardworking people. You may hear of one or two that are not, but from your personal experience you start to see that they are not looking for anything except a chance to work and earn a living. What is your opinion of them now?
If you change your opinion, you were just ignorant before, because you did not have all the information you needed to form a sound opinion. If you still maintain that green people should be shipped back to where they came from you're a racist.

Aside: I am of the belief that the way media reports things, particularly in this country, perpetuates ignorance about people who are different. "Two Romanians arrested for", "Five Africans arrested for", and if it was an Italian? "A young man arrested for". What the HELL difference does it make if they are black, white or eastern european?? They are criminals and you arrested them, good for you. Unless you are giving a description of someone that the public needs to look out for, or if the crime in question was a hate crime, why are you even mentioning their ethnicity as if it were pertinent to the story?

Anyway, I have always gone to international schools and have always been raised in an international environment, so I never understood racism. To me, judging someone based on the color of their skin is as retarded as judging someone based on the color of their hair. However, in that vein, I also never understood the mania with political correctness, for the exact same reason.

I understand political correctness insofar as to make some people, particularly older people, understand that certain words are now offensive although they weren't back in their day. Take my grandmother for instance, who is just now transitioning away from the word "negro" (pronounced "n-eh-gro, not nearly as bad as the word nigger in English, in fact there is no word in italian that comes anywhere as close as that in offensiveness, but a touch more offensive than the word "negro" in English). My father, her son, is married to a black woman, trust me there is not a racist bone in her body, but she just didn't understand that that word is now offensive.

However, when it comes to the nervousness and panic that I see in some people when talking to someone of a different race or nationality because they are terrorized of offending them, I don't get it. What exactly are you afraid of saying? Something racist? Fuck I'll be offended if you say something racist, regardless of the fact that I'm white. To me, being overly worried about political correctness is just another, milder, form of racism.

Making a judgement about someone based on their physical characteristics or nationality is stupid, no matter what that judgement is. You think because someone has darker skin than yourself they should be talked down to, or differently than you would someone who is white? They are ADULTS just like you, should be treated the exact same way as you would treat anyone else. To me, the color of someone's skin or the words on their passport doesn't factor remotely into my opinion of them or the way I talk to them, and for this reason I don't get what the big deal is.

Am I wrong? Is it really so different in other countries that I just don't get it? Let me know