Your racist friend
Feb. 1st, 2003 01:06 am![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
substituteSo, there's this woman who is sort of on the periphery of my scene; she's married to a friend of a friend, basically. I see her a couple times a month. She is well-educated and a good storyteller, and at first I thought she was kind of fun, although she's a terrible egotist. If she's not the center of a conversation she drifts away, and she likes to drown people out. Not fatal flaws though.
The other day I was in a conversation with her and others, and the topic turned to the Korean crisis. I mentioned that I felt very bad for the North Korean people because of the starvation in their country and the government they've got: totalitarian and insane is a rotten mix. But particularly the starvation: the numbers aren't hard, but it seems that hundreds of thousands if not millions of people are at risk of death at any time.
She responded in a very dismissive way that they deserved their fate. "Any people who can't overthrow their government under those conditions deserve their fate" was her line. She repeated this twice, a bit more loudly each time.
I was shocked. I asked her if she really had though this through. Let's say five hundred thousand people die of starvation. Did anyone really deserve that fate? How easy is it to rebel in a totalitarian state? Had she been there?
She responded again, in a very dogmatic way, that peoples who cannot overthrow a bad government are responsible and deserving of whatever troubles they get, up to and including death. I said that was beyond my ethical reach; I couldn't ever say that any huge group of people like that deserved collective punishment by a painful death. I was really upset by this time.
Her reply was "Well, I'm a historian. History tells us that people choose their government and their fate." Literally with a dismissive wave, as if historians were anointed by God to dispense moral judgment on populations. I said "Well, I'm an educated person too, and I've read lots of books, but I have ethical limits."
Two weeks later I'm still angry about this. Really angry. I saw her tonight and she was going on and on about how Europeans are irrelevant or something else equally offensive and inane.
I wanted to say to her, and maybe I'll have the cojones to say it next time: "Hey you know what? You're rich, privileged, arrogant, and morally vacant. History tells us that you're the last decayed remnant of a dying empire and that your high-handed racist hand-waving at the miseries of millions will be an example of evil to the schoolchildren of tomorrow. Enjoy the legacy, you stuck-up little bitch."
Bonus points: she's a high school teacher.
The other day I was in a conversation with her and others, and the topic turned to the Korean crisis. I mentioned that I felt very bad for the North Korean people because of the starvation in their country and the government they've got: totalitarian and insane is a rotten mix. But particularly the starvation: the numbers aren't hard, but it seems that hundreds of thousands if not millions of people are at risk of death at any time.
She responded in a very dismissive way that they deserved their fate. "Any people who can't overthrow their government under those conditions deserve their fate" was her line. She repeated this twice, a bit more loudly each time.
I was shocked. I asked her if she really had though this through. Let's say five hundred thousand people die of starvation. Did anyone really deserve that fate? How easy is it to rebel in a totalitarian state? Had she been there?
She responded again, in a very dogmatic way, that peoples who cannot overthrow a bad government are responsible and deserving of whatever troubles they get, up to and including death. I said that was beyond my ethical reach; I couldn't ever say that any huge group of people like that deserved collective punishment by a painful death. I was really upset by this time.
Her reply was "Well, I'm a historian. History tells us that people choose their government and their fate." Literally with a dismissive wave, as if historians were anointed by God to dispense moral judgment on populations. I said "Well, I'm an educated person too, and I've read lots of books, but I have ethical limits."
Two weeks later I'm still angry about this. Really angry. I saw her tonight and she was going on and on about how Europeans are irrelevant or something else equally offensive and inane.
I wanted to say to her, and maybe I'll have the cojones to say it next time: "Hey you know what? You're rich, privileged, arrogant, and morally vacant. History tells us that you're the last decayed remnant of a dying empire and that your high-handed racist hand-waving at the miseries of millions will be an example of evil to the schoolchildren of tomorrow. Enjoy the legacy, you stuck-up little bitch."
Bonus points: she's a high school teacher.
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It's an oversimplification
Date: 2003-02-01 06:43 am (UTC)However:
If you beleived the converse, how would that guide your actions ? I mean, if people can't influence the fate of their countries, why not just fuck off and do whatever one wants, right ?
In fact, I believe this how a lot of quasi-lefties conduct themselves. They want to beleive all that stuff about the hopelessly entrenched ruling class superstructure so they can fritter their time away on Tibetan restaurants and IFC on cable.
Mm, fritters.
Date: 2003-02-01 07:45 am (UTC)Re: Mm, fritters.
Date: 2003-02-01 12:40 pm (UTC)No way, man. If fritters are outlawed, only the outlaws will have fritters.
Re: It's an oversimplification
Date: 2003-02-01 10:37 am (UTC)Re: It's an oversimplification
Date: 2003-02-01 12:42 pm (UTC)Bleargh indeed. The whole thing is giving warm fuzzies about our educational system.
(no subject)
Date: 2003-02-01 03:32 pm (UTC)Even so, there's a distinction between saying that they are responsible for their own situation, and that they don't deserve humanitarian or other forms of assistance.
(no subject)
Date: 2003-02-01 09:24 pm (UTC)I was reading Jonathon Spence's mini-bio of Mao and I was struck by how Mao was a such a marginal figure (an outcast in a group that was offering a rather unpopular ideology) and yet was able to ride the manifest destiny (so to speak) of Marxist-Leninist "vanguard" ideology straight to the top. The momentum of a determined clique to rule is a scary thing indeed. But it seems that the populace of even politically mature countries (such as, say, Germany in the 1930s) either will not recognize the phenomenon or welcome it as a cure-all for real or imagined historical wrongs. It can happen here.
Even so, there's a distinction between saying that they are responsible for their own situation, and that they don't deserve humanitarian or other forms of assistance.
Of course. Substitute's "friend"'s line of reasoning is abhorrent and full of hubris to boot.
(no subject)
Date: 2003-02-02 01:43 am (UTC)I guess you're right. But your country has so many virtues, and values freedom so highly, it would have to be very subtle, at least at first.
I'm no "historian", but I can imagine how it might go.
It would be in your weak spots first: lingering racism; ignorance and fear of the rest of the world; faltering belief in due process; a relish for direct, even brutal action; and a history of rhetoric that America has a special destiny to remake the world. There would be provoking incidents, there always are. The first actions might be well justified. And then there might be a few mentions in the paper about disappeared foreign nationals, or unsavory interrogation methods being used on them.
For things to get really out of hand though, there would have to be a similar breakdown in all countervailing forces -- the press, the judiciary, the political opposition, the intelligentsia, popular organizations. America survived Hoover, McCarthy, a period of brutal industrialism and depression, and a civil war. In your country's infancy you confronted, and triumphed over, an amazingly similar situation (http://www.independent.org/tii/news/011206Watkins.html). One hopes there will always be that sort of resilience in your country.