Whoever puts the racist stickers all over my neighbourhood

[dreamer_easy]

What are we going to do with you, mate?

I'm sure you'd argue that it's free speech when you sticker the local bus stops and electricity boxes. It's not. It's vandalism and it's harassment. If you don't already keep a blog and write letters to the editor and the government, why don't you try that instead?

I think we both know the answers. Firstly, because then you'd have to own up to your views - maybe even defend them. That's a lot harder than anonymously trying to make Australians feel unwelcome in their own community. Secondly, it's because our community rejected your views decades ago. That's why, as soon as you go on another stickering spree, the stickers come straight down - whether easily peeled off when they're still fresh, or painstakingly removed a little at a time by a succession of passing thumbnails.

I don't think you belong to one of those scary little groups, or there'd be a URL or PO Box in tiny letters somewhere on one of your efforts. I don't think you have mental problems, either. I think you're just a bitter individual who can't accept that the world keeps turning whether we like it or not.

By the way, if we speak English in Australia, why don't you learn to fucking spell?

Comments

[rdmasters.livejournal.com]

I have come to conclude, of late, that in general(1), in western cultures, bigotry is inversely proportional to language capability.

The measuring of the correlation between that measure and overall levels of education is left as an exercise.

(1) Yes, there are a significant number of high-profile exceptions. And low-profile ones, too. (2)
(2) I also have absolutely no figures to support either assertion.

[hnpcc]

I would tend to agree with you - I do wonder though if the language capability and the bigotry are going together because of the lower number of jobs available to people with lower language capability, and the fact that they're often competing with people who have migrated and who have English as a second language for those jobs.

[dreamer-easy.livejournal.com]

That's an interesting possibility (it might be a perception of competition, rather than real rivalry for the same work, but it would still create the resentment).

[dreamer-easy.livejournal.com]

I think this is actually a really interesting question. It's tempting to pat myself on the back and declare that prejudice is for the ill-educated, but where did I learn what's important, obvious, normal, natural, desirable - and what isn't? School, in part. Surely some gross prejudice results from simply not having an accurate picture of the world and its peoples. Or is it less to do with information and more to do with attitudes and perhaps experiences? Dunno, I'll see if I can find anything out.

[rdmasters.livejournal.com]

leecetheartist pointed out to me that I should have been more accurate by using "overt bigotry". The subtle (and arguably more damaging) stuff takes an education after all.

[dreamer-easy.livejournal.com]

Here's an interesting bit of research:

http://www.diversityweb.org/digest/sp.sm00/tolerance.html

IIUC it's not so much how much you know, but whether you've learned to think critically, both about the information reaching you and the assumptions which arise automatically in your own mind. (Who was it who said "Education is what's left when you've forgotten what you learned?")

[rdmasters.livejournal.com]

A very interesting article - thanks!