Okay, so I'm on my way out of the grocery store. Across the from the entrance to the store, there's a FedEx drop box. It's one of those oddly placed ones -- the box is on the passenger's side of the car, so you either have to be on the wrong side of the street to use it, or you have to park next to it and get out.

As I'm walking to the car, there's a college girl who has pulled up to the drop box. She parked, got out of the car, dropped her package in. Note that she wasn't blocking traffic. In fact, there was no traffic.

This guy approaching me on the sidewalk (across the driveway, remember) starts yelling at her though. He's telling her she shouldn't park there, that it's not safe, and that she should find somewhere safer to stop. She tells him that she's just dropping off an envelope. Which she does. Then she gets back in her car and drives off. No big deal.

This dickhead, though, as he walks past me, mutters "Go back to China." (Judging by her dress and accent, she was an Asian-American from Southern California.)

Oh man, I kind of blew up. I spun around and said "What's your problem? She wasn't in your way."

He said, "They just don't know how to drive. She shouldn't have stopped there."

My jaw dropped for a second. I finally just said "Fuck off, asshole."

Why why why are people still like this? Why?

Jesus.

I'm taking an extra dose of blood pressure meds today.

You can't make other people better. You can only make yourself better.

People are like that because they're unhappy with their lives, and that makes them angry. But since they're either too stupid to realize it, or simply don't have the backbone to fix their miserable lives, they take it out on the easy scapegoats. You can't really change that.

What an ass.

Why are people like this? Because it's a lot easier for lazy people to toss around lazy, ignorant slurs than actually think.

Or, what cmonkey said.

Good on you for telling him to fuck off.

Yeah way to go for calling him on that shit. I don't know if I'd have had the balls to do that. What a moron.

≡ Click to see image ≡

Tha't sgreat that you stuck up for her, mudpuppie. I always seem to be super-sensitive to asshole behaviour like that so I know how bad it makes a person feel to see it.

Gimme a M
Gimme a U
Gimme a D
Gimme a P
Gimme a U
Gimme a P
Gimme a P
Gimme an I
Gimme an E
GOOOO MUDPUPPIE!

yay for sticking up for her. he'll get his comeuppance, eventually.

Eh. People are bigots. My best (worst) story of this type: when I was 16 my redneck boss at the landscaping company where I had a summer job referred to Asians he saw driving as "DWO" - "Driving While Oriental." As in, "Goddamn, there's another one of those DWOs. Lookit that bitch go!" Yeah.

Also, he referred to Washington D.C. as "Niggertown" and refused to go there (this was in suburban Northern Virginia, mind you, and D.C. was only about 15 miles away).

One last Redneck Al anecdote: his sallow, angsty teenage daughter accompanied him to work one day for some reason. Forever afterward, he would find excuses to bring her up as a topic of conversation and refer to "what a fine piece of ass" she was. But I'm getting off topic.

Come to think of it, I have lots of equally wierd stories from my two landscaping summers. Like the guy whose huge McMansion we spent weeks on who was visibly and continually dealing blow to a steady stream of customers who pulled up in their SUVs. Good times.

"calling some on it" in such circumstances usually only gets the caller flustered. People like that guy aren't going to learn shit. This has been my personal experience. After an exchange like that, I usually want to break things.

*someone*

guh...

I know what you mean, 3pie, and it certainly did raise my hackles a bit. But I feel better knowing that that guy is not under the impression that it's universally acceptable to say something like that to some random white stranger, that we don't all agree, that we don't share some common bond based on our superior whiteness. I'm hoping that because I said something, he feels slightly less smug about his white superiority.

Yeah, he may (rightly) feel smug and indignant at being sweared out by a stranger. But my guess is he probably said nasty things about me after I walked away, so at least maybe he was distracted from the "Go back to China" sentiment.

I don't feel bad at all about saying something. I would have felt worse if I hadn't.

Come to think of it, I have lots of equally wierd stories from my two landscaping summers.

Do tell! I am hoping some of these stories involve an attractive older woman.

mudpuppie, about four years ago I was on a bus in downtown with a friend of mine who was studying at PSU. She's from southeastern China. A guy in front of us turned around and started telling us his theory that China was becoming too powerfull and that the strategic thing for "us" to do would be to try to turn the northern and southern Chinese against eachother and thereby weaken our nearest competitor for superpowerdome. I started to explain why I thought it was rotten to tell someone how you thought you could fuck over their country so you could prevent them from gaining power, when I just lost it, grabbed my friend by the hand and got off the bus declaring "fuckit, I'll find us some better transportation" along with calling the guy a racist prick or something like that. I doubt it did a lick of good, and I just wish none of it had happened in the first place. I spent much of the rest of the evening appologising to my friend for the behaviour of stupid people in my town.

The worst part is that I hadn't done anything, yet I felt deeply ashamed.

Let me just say this again.

See pie, there's your trouble. You tried to reason with him.

Telling someone to fuck off is much more efficient.

Props to the Pup, yo.

Sure, but he'll keep on doing shit like that, and I still feel awful.

Applause, a fantastically delicious plate of tacos, and a really good margarita to you.

Can I get a margarita, too? I didn't do anything to deserve it, though.

But I feel better knowing that that guy is not under the impression that it's universally acceptable to say something like that to some random white stranger, that we don't all agree, that we don't share some common bond based on our superior whiteness.

For whatever set of reasons, partly because of who my friends and family are, growing up in eastern New Mexico I pretty much never saw real blatant racism against blacks, although there was a constant low-level ubiquitous racism against hispanics.

But my parents moved to Amarillo right after I graduated from high school; and a few years later I moved back in with them for a while. I was working at a mall retail store.

One evening when it was just me and my buddy working, a 19-year old from Kansas, these three customers walk in to the store, an older couple and 30-ish woman who turned out to be their daughter. They had toothpicks and were picking their teeth of bbq from the mall resaurant nearby. I don't recall the details, but as they were paying for their purchase it was mentioned that it was the daughter's birthday the next day. That day also happened to be MLK's holiday. So suddenly the man gets a big grin on his face and says, "Yep, her birthday is on Nigger Day. How about that? Nigger day. Hehe."

Me and my buddy just sort of froze and then I said very coldly and firmly, "I don't think that's funny at all". Then everyone acted embarassed and the transaction was completed and they left.

But this event really, really disturbed me. It validated all of my negative ideas about Amarillo. I couldn't recall ever having another stranger so blatently use that language, certainly not in a nudge, nudge, wink-wink tone. And I felt soiled. I felt exactly as you describe above, mudpuppie, that because I was white I was automatically a racist, one of the in-crowd, someone who would find his comment hilarious.

Then, just a few days later, me and my mother and my sister all watched "Mississippi Burning". This generated a conversation afterwards. My sister was at that time a freshman in high school. She had been brought up with, at the very least, zero overt racism in our family. But suddenly she blurted out, "Well, it's the way they act. They bring it on themselves." I was floored. Stunned. You have to understand, my sister, ten years my junior, was at that time probably the most important person in my life. I got angry with her...I had to leave the house. Later, things were patched up between us, but this was just another bit of evidence that Amarillo should just be burned to the ground and the earth salted. I hate that town. I really, really wish my sister hadn't grown up there. She's overcome most of the brainwashing she was exposed to, but not all of it.

My cousin, actually the youngest grandchild of my paternal grandmother, had a baby last year. As far as I know, she's never said who the father is—I was told she said it was an "aquaintence". Anyway, her little boy, Jackson, is black. Now my dad's family is mildly racist. Not real overt, but little things here and there. They respond to Jackson oddly. Everyone loves him, but boy oh boy the fact that he's black is always right out there, mentioned or joked about. A few weeks ago when my sister and brother-in-law were here for my uncle's whatever-we-did-after-his-death, the subject came up between the three of us. I said, "I think maybe people are a little bit racist about Jackson." My sister gave me a look and said, "You think??" She mentioned that just that day my dad had seen Jackson and commented on his big hands and how they'll be good for holding a basketball.

Sigh.

But, you know, it could be worse. No one in my extended family are/were racist to the point of saying what that man in Amarillo said.

I'm with matildaben, after thinking about the stuff in this thread (kinda like trisha's thread about sexual assault a few days ago) I could use a drink, deserve it or not.

I keep telling you all - people are no damned good. When will you believe me?

I'm inclined to agree with Red Robot. Crush all humans!

Kill all humans ... kill all humans ... hey baby, do you wanna kill all humans...? --- Wakes up --- Oh. I just had the most wonderful dream. I think you were in it! /nerd

people are no damned good.

See, I hear this a lot -- not just from you, dg (and I don't even mean to pick on you in particular) but often tossed out as an offhand remark here and over on Mefi and among people I know (when in doubt, my former boss used to simply chalk up anything bad that happened to the fact that "the human species sucks."). I just don't get it. If you really believe that, then how can you possibly account for mudpuppie's response, or the response of many of us here? Is she (or are the rest of us) as equally "no damn good" as the bigot who snarked at the Asian woman? Is the Asian woman "no damn good" either? I guess you're just no damn good, too. Seriously. If you level the playing field like that, then what basis do you have for any meaningful sense of (in)justice? If all people are "no damn good," then the clerk who's perpetually rude to me in the grocery store is basically no better and no worse than someone who bilks little old ladies out of their pensions, right? And you're left without a meaningful way to account for actual, demonstrable good in the world -- making the people who sheltered refugees from the Holocaust just as no damn good as the people who orchestrated it.

sorry to get all literal about it, but the appeal to the generalized shittiness of all people always leaves me puzzled.

Good on you for speaking up. People who say shit like this seem to assume they are speaking for all white people. It is important to show them that they are not. It might not change their hearts. But if it shuts them up, so they stew in their hatred instead of spreading it, that is progress.

scody, when I make that reference, it is more as a generic statement that people, meaning all the human race as group, are no good and I say this in all sincerity - I am not just trying to be hip or whatever the kids say this year.

However; the general apalling state of the human race doesn't preclude individual (or group) acts of niceness in any way. In fact, the "random acts of kindness" only highlight the fact that this is the way we should act, but don't. Maybe I am just old and bitter (and anyone who says that would get very little disagreement from me), but my experience is that people on the whole cannot be trusted to do the right thing. I truly and honestly believe that the default setting for humans is on "arsehole", but some people manage to re-set their switches somehow, or get them re-set by being brought up in a way that facilitates this and end up good people.

What this means in practice is that I assume someone I haven't met or dealt with previously is going to do the wrong thing given the opportunity and act accordingly. As hard as I try sometimes, though, I can't bring myself to act the same way in return and end up getting my fingers (and other bits) burned way too often.

The short version is: Not all people are no damned good, but it is a safe assumption that any individual is, until evidence to the contrary presents.

Hm. I guess I just passionately believe precisely the opposite: Not all people are basically decent, but it is a safe assumption that any individual is, until evidence to the contrary presents. I believe that given the chance, most people will (and indeed do) behave accordingly to that. I, too, have had plenty of bad experiences -- I've been raped, stolen from, betrayed, made fun of in public for my looks (before I had my jaw fixed), and heartbroken (not all at once or by the same person, heh) -- but when it comes down to it, the really awful things that I've experienced in or from other people have been a tiny minority of the countless thousands of people I've encountered over the years.

In fact, the awful things that have happened have only served to highlight how incredibly frequently people -- friends, family, loved ones, coworkers and total strangers alike -- really have treated me (and others, when I've been able to observe) with kindness, politeness, generosity, and respect. Honestly. Just today, I was given a gift by a coworker, told by another coworker (who I had a nasty fight with two weeks ago) that she was going to bake cookies for me once I can resume my regular diet, was complimented by a third coworker for the project I'm working on, was told by the nurse who was taking my blood this morning at my doctor's office how pretty my hair color is, had numerous doors held open for me, had someone pick up my change when I dropped it at the store, and was waved into traffic on the way home. As for negative interactions today, well, I can't count a single one.

Most people are plenty good. I know I am. Why would I be the exception to the rule?

i believe in the enduring good of scodys over the persistent irritation of man

My jaw dropped for a second. I finally just said "Fuck off, asshole."

Why why why are people still like this? Why?

Remember - someone stupid enough to be racist is ALSO stupid enough not to know why you're mad at them. You HAVE to remember to say:

"Fuck off, you racist asshole."

Scarabic, you are so right. I'll remember that next time.

Long (sorry!): "People are no damn good" is shorthand, but the truth in it, as it pertains to this discussion, is that people do constantly display tribal tendencies, and much of this is manifested by bigoted behavior.

People generally are always trying to seek an "in-club" to which to belong, and the more fearful they are, the more rabid they are about drawing those circles of exclusion. Even people who hate the most obvious forms of bigotry draw their own circles. Inside our circle are others who despise prejudice based on ethnicity and sexual preference, for example, then we may draw tighter and tighter circles... Rightwingers on the outside, fundamentalists on the outside, conspicuous consumers on the outside, mainstream pop culture consumers on the outside, technophobes on the outside, non-internet savvy on the outside, X-Website users on the outside, higher/lower user numbers on the outside...

Which all sounds kind of silly, but whenever someone in the Metaverse (eeep!) makes a snark about Fark, or Britney Spears fans, or AOL users, at the most basic level they are doing what mudpuppie's bigot did - drawing a tribal circle, us against them. People do this because they want to belong to the clan, they need the self-definition that the clan gives them, and want the protection of the clan. The more ritualistic behaviors and ceremonies and "secret passwords" that exist inside any given circle, the tighter that group forms around its nucleus, which isn't, in fact, the commonality of interest shared by the members, but just the existence and exclusionary nature of the group itself - not so much "who we are", as "who we aren't".

People do this because they are people (basically what dg indicates); it seems that it is in our nature to separate ourselves into loose "packs" and then to assign hierarchical status to members of the pack, and everything from civil and world wars down to schoolyard bullying can be partly ascribed to this tendency.

I think tribal behavior is certainly close to ubiquitous, and can certainly manifest itself in the worst possible ways -- witness Bosnia, Rwanda, etc. But I would still argue that pack behavior, in and of itself, doesn't make people essentially "no damned good" anymore than it makes them "completely good" -- that is, I don't believe that there's a value judgment that can be ascribed to it as general human behavior. People also exhibit plenty of cooperative behavior -- it took cooperative work to form even the most basic units of human society -- that can be expressed both positively and negatively. The general tendency towards a certain behavior (what I guess might be termed "human nature," even tho' I'm loath to resort to that term), to me, seems neither good nor bad -- it's just that: a tendency. What makes it good or bad is the context in which it arises, and the specifics of how it plays out. So-called "pack" behavior (allegedly "bad") can be perfectly good under myriad circumstances -- when a community comes together to help a family in need, for example. Yes, the circle has been drawn around "us vs. them" (whether the "them" is an insurance company or the local coal mine or, even, a hurricane or tornado) -- but in this hypothetical case the drawing of the circle is what can allow a family to keep their home or get medical care for a child. It's the particular context that gives the behavior its value, not the general tendency towards the behavior in the abstract.

This is true - not all pack behavior is bad, and at heart I'm actually an optimist about human nature. I guess my feeling is this: the racist asshole is not necessarily as different from us as we would like to believe, and we each need to be vigilant about the nature of our own tribal yearnings and behavior. Expressing or forging solidarity in positive and productive ways is a good thing.

Expressing or forging solidarity in positive and productive ways is a good thing.

Hear, hear. (Here, here? I know there was an AskMe thread about that very question, but I can't remember what the answer was!) I think that's an impulse we see so often here on MeCha -- when kmellis was hurting so much the other day, for example, or when essexjan lost George last year, or a dozen other examples I can think of. When the chips are down for any of us as individuals, we'll rally around each other as a group to offer solace/sympathy/support. That is indeed a good thing, and one of the reasons I love you bunnies all so much. *mwah!*

bunny on bunny action
penguin on penguin crime

What scody says. She's my hero. I love people. Except for the ones I don't.

Well, scody, maybe it is something to do with our DNA that has made us react to things that have happened. I haven't had anything as serious as rape happen to me, but I have had all the other things you mentioned and then some. In fact, I have had all of the other things happen to me at once by the same person, but that's another story.

After reading your comments above, I suspect that we agree on this more than you might think. Despite what I (often) write and say about the awful state of humanity, I am at heart an optimist, in that I constantly live in hope that things will get better, despite evidence to the contrary.

Anyway, you and taz have shamed me into silence with your eloquence. I think I have spent so many years writing business documents, I can't write about things that matter any more.

I can't believe people would make fun of the way you look, scody - you are hot.

Theologically speaking, only God is good.

But under that definition one bad act or thought negates any other goodness, so basically everyone is right, on this thread.

Isn't there a lot we're assuming about this guy? For all we know he had just come from the hospital visiting his terminally ill wife/sister/brother/father, was constipated and 3 months behind on his mortgage b/c he is unemployed. Not that any of that justifies his slurs. It doesn't. But I now that *I* have done/said stupid blanket statement things like that when I was grouchy, even knowing how shitty it sounded to whomever was in earshot.

Yeah everyone wants to belong. Maybe he wanted to belong to a group that agreed that parking illegally is not cool?

We're also assuming that the illegal parker is "innocent and good". How do we know she wasn't sending off hardcopy emails for blackmailing her bosses? Or trading company secrets for some payoff?

I have an active imagination. Can you tell?

I've found that most people have no idea what to do when you threaten to kill them. So if you say, "Fuck off, asshole. I oughtta kill you for saying that," they usually won't go to the authorities. Then you jump a little and make 'em flinch, and they're cowed and walk away.

If they talk back, just calmly ask, "Didn't you hear what I said? Do you really want to talk to someone who just said they'd kill you?"

If they go to the authorities, you can say you learned it from watching 24.

That's really bad advice, Hugh.

I'm very late but I'll share anyway:

Once I was riding the shuttlebus at DC's National Airport. The bus stopped, and a woman stepped in and was trying to ask the driver if she was on the right bus for whatever terminal she wanted. Problem was, she didn't speak much English, and couldn't understand the driver when he asked her which airline she wanted. They went back and forth a little, but they soon both realized that this wasn't going to work, and, nodding amicably, she stepped off the bus to try again later. We drove on. The guy across the aisle from me then says, aloud but to no one in particular, "We wouldn't have this problem if English was the national language." Then the bus driver agreed with him! I managed to keep my temper and mildly observed that we would probably still have language difficulties at an INTERNATIONAL AIRPORT. That put a stop to the muttering anyway. Sheesh, some people aren't only just mean, they're incredibly amazingly DUMB.