Prejudice

Prejudice
Racism has reared its ugly head here in Leprechaun land. I blame the church for some of it. Now generations of Irish men and wome have done truly heroic work in the developing world. Their example has been held up to congregations. As a young boy I used to think of becoming a missionary myself, but I have reconciled this with a latter-day commitment to pursue the missionary position as frequently as possible. But generations of mass attendees were told of the plight of "pagans", who were invariably black, and who needed saving. There used to be a special collection box with a figure of a young African boy standing over a slit. You popped in your few bob and the figure of the African would bow obeissantly.

Racism and prejudice is a horrible thing. It is based on stupidity. on ignorance, and on fear.

As a disabled person I've encountered a fair amount of prejudice. This has been especially so in the world of work. Naturally, it is always smeared in reasonable-sounding plattitudes, such as "They" [the disabled] "just can't do things we" [the able-bodied] "can do, like drive a car." The people who've said this about me aren't Poles, Nigerians or Black Romanian Bastards. No, they've been nice, white, church-going Cavanmen, pillars of the community. And then I attracted a further element of prejudice here in Cavan: I had a number of academic qualifications so I wasn't a drooling idiot.
But this post is neither the time nor the place to discuss my experiences of prejudice. Am I angry? No, just sad because stupid people make me sad.
Apart from the tragic minority of babies who are born with part of their brains missing we are all born with the same brain with the same cerebral capacity. The fact that some people go on to be rocket scientists has got nothing to do with the brain we're born with. That's the same for everyone. As for "intellectual quotients" such methodologies have been largely discredited. The vast majority of us lead ordinary lives. This isn't because we are born stupid. The fact is that we become stupid as life goes on. This gets enforced early on if a teacher tells us enough times that we're dumb, but we're not really dumb. We just aren't good at giving the "right answer" to the teacher. But then many people wear their stupidity with pride, like a badge of honour. In fact some actually consider themselves superior to the rocket scientists. But they're wrong - theyre just the same.
And one of the ways of really consolidating your stupidity is to think prejudicially about other folk: Pakie bastards, niggers, unmarried mothers, queers ... whatever you're having yourself.
But it's no good telling them they're dumb: they lap it up. They take it as a complement.

So much racism and prejudice goes back to fear. Animosity towards the outsider is a very old phenomenon. He (or she) may be a thief, a carrier of disease. This was particularly the case in rural communities whose inhabitants rarely went beyond the bounds of the village. To find such fears still in our technologically advanced world shows that, just because we've sent men to the moon, we're still nothing more than a crowd of apes who're afraid of the dark.

The "Foreigner" is known throughout Europe i.e. L'etranger who is, by definition etrange, Der Auslander in Germany or the concept of the nemyets in Russian. The nemyets was anyone from outside your village or mir, and don't forget mir is still the Russian word for world. It is also the Russian word for peace. The nemyets (plural nemtsy) is also the word for German in Russian. The concept of the "foreigner" is more complex here in sleepy old Cavan in the paw of the Celtic tiger. You see, for years there was, and indeed still is, the concept of the "blow-in". This is effectively any non Cavan person. It was a term of abuse. Well do I remember Liam Cosgrave standing up at a Blueshits rally aka National conventio and telling the blowins that they could either blow out or blow up. It was applied not only to those from other counties in Ireland, but I have heard of people referred to as "blow-ins" from Butlersbridge, only three or four miles down the road from the Jerusalem of Cavan. The problem with being a blow-in was that you couldn't do anything about it. It was like original sin. Once again this stemmed from an inferiority complex for the blow-in was invariably felt to be looking down at Cavan people. Now, imagine what it must be like if your mother tongue isn't English, or even if it is, you speak it better than Cavan people. When I hear people making disparaging remarks about "fucking foreigners" I say "hold on, my girlfriend is a foreigner. She's a citizen of the UK and as her possible Irish ancestors are five or six generations back she's not entitled to non-domicillary citizenship of the Irish Republic." But they then try to back-pedal. Rosie's not a "real" foreigner. She speaks English, and... and she's white.

But there is fear as well. There is the fear of these people coming in and "taking our jobs". But then no one has ever taken our jobs. That's not how it works. The jobs are in the gift of Irish employers who are naturally tight-fisted bastards who want to screw as much as possible out of their workers for as little as poss. So the job is offered to Janusz who does the same work - maybe more - than Micky but for half the wages. Janusz never gets a sicky on a Monday morning. Don't blame him for being able to keep heart and soul together for less than Micky. And what's more he probably has to send home some of his wages to his wife and family, whereas Micky's generosity to his nearest and dearest has a lot to do with whether he's back on the waggon or not.

Then mythology plays its part. Many of the Cavan racists believe that blacks are better - they're bigger. In other words they are better endowed in the old John Thomas department than the Cavan racists with their measly little tassles. Of course they feel inadequate, believing that Cavan women will go for the guy with the big cock ev'ry taam.

Now you may have read what I had to say about Benny in Regensburg. Well Benny has a whole new fan club amongst Ireland and Cavan's racists. You see, he was giving it to the Muslims. That's a good thing because well Muslims are bad. They suck funny water pipes; they speak a different language from the racists (though frequently they speak the racists' vernaculars far better than the racists). But perhaps the greatest problem with Muslims, and this is what Benny was really getting at, is that they're brown and some of them are even black.

I'm not making any of this up by the way. Such "beliefs" are alive and well in Ireland, and to be honest they are PURE FUCKING SICK. People who hold them oughtn't to be allowed on the streets. They need counselling.

Yet some would say I'm the candidate for counselling. I have two fairly serious disabilities, but I'm not fucked up. I'm truly happy. I don't wake up wondering "Who will I hate today?" I take people as they come, and nineteen times out of twenty I'm not disappointed. I've never had the strength to hate people. I've hated individuals but it was self-destructive. To hate a whole community would just be too much.

Yet I am told that I'm out of touch with the "real" world i.e. the little cesspit which is Cavan town, and how it is being innundated by "fucking foreigners". One racist tells me dreadful examples of criminal behaviour he has observed while cruising the streets of Cavan in the early hours of the morning. I am prompted to ask "Why are you wandering around Cavan at 1 or 2 a.m.?" I'm usually given some inadequate reply about wanting to see who is rogering who on the sly. My Chinese star sign is the snake, but I sure don't crawl at night. In fact, when it's dark, I much preferred to be tucked up in bed with my gorgeous girlfriend.

So. racism and prejudice are:
Stupid
Sick
But more than anything else they're just not nice.

I don't want to be snobbish but ranting racists usually betray their low social origins and status. As they say, you can take the snipe out of the gutter but you've still got a guttersnipe.