Rant VIII: The Reckoning

Is it also racist if I say it about "my own" people?

My grandparents - and many of their generation, who lived through WWII - abused the fuck out of this sort of tasters/samplers in shops. Almost to a man, they all claimed it was always good to stock up on free food. Most of them always kept a pantry full of canned/tinned food that'd last for years, "just in case". I have also, from personal experience, seen refugees from Syriah and Iraq do similar things, for the same reason. People who've lived through war and famine tend to be, you know, somewhat traumatized and take, perhaps extreme, precautions about ever starving again. I don't see how it's racist or wrong to make a similar comment about people who've experienced something similar in another part of the world.

"boat people" I'll leave on him, but even so, that's not technically racist as it isn't derogatory. It's a comment on how people came over; not as tourists but as abused victims trying t o cross the ocean in rickety old boats. Which would be likely to increase sympathy for them, rather than lower it, in the mind of decent people.
 

fade

Staff member
I mean, theoretically you are supposed to use both lanes until one closes, then alternate who goes to try to minimize how far back traffic backs up. But it never actually works that way.
I'm not talking about a zipper merge though. I'm talking about things like a plain old turning lane.[DOUBLEPOST=1460655271,1460655105][/DOUBLEPOST]Also I grew up a poor white redneck. My people would also abuse the snot out of any free giveaway. And then hilariously joke about how black people did the same (now THAT'S racist).
 
Sit back, kids. It's story time. I just encountered an asshat customer at Costco.

So Mom and I were in line. It was so busy that there was a line up to get a line at one of the cashes.

A woman (about in her 40s) and her mother start cutting ahead of everyone. Someone tells them where the line starts. She rolls her eyes and says, "We're not getting in line. We're looking at something over here."

BUT THEN THEY ACTUALLY CUT IN LINE.

Mom stopped me from saying something. I really, REALLY wanted to ask, "So, what makes you better than everyone else here?" I wanted to make a big scene of it, shouting, "LINE CUTTER! WE GOT A LINE CUTTER OVER HERE." But Mom wouldn't let me.

What grinds my gears the most isn't that they cut in line, but her reaction to her mother. Like, her reaction was basically, "How DARE they accuse me of cutting in line?" Which, okay, fair point. People make wrong assumptions sometimes.

But that they then proceeded to actually cut in line?! Uncool.
I have a love hate thing for Costco. I love their food, flowers and yoga pants but I can't handle some of the jerks that shop there. I was just there on the weekend and god forbid you're walking slowly with a cane. They employ a ton of people, I see no reason why all the cashes can't be open. Also, I wish more cashiers would stop line cutters. I got totally cut off yesterday at Michael's and the cashier was all did she cut you off? I said yes and she then got all angry about that. More angry than I was. Would the solution not be to not serve the line cuter?
 
"Indochinese boat people" isn't a racist term because it's not a derogatory. Indochinese: one of the many ethnic groups from the former French colony of Indochina, including the nations Vietnam, Laos, and Cambodia. It's like "Sub-Saharan African" or "Northern European" - geographical, not ethnic or racial. "boat people" - refugees escaping the regime via boat, spending weeks or months crossing the ocean. So it's a handy way of saying "Refugee immigrants from the former colony of Indochina in Southeast Asia". If you think that's an insulting term, that's kind of on you.
 
Would it be fair to say that all humans have a propensity for being assholes? Because I don't think there is a group, nationality, income level, religion, etc. that can guarantee there's no one selfish among them. Individuals, yes, but as a group? Never.
 
i think i'm having two conversations at once here.

A) what ib4 said was pretty shitty
B) people saying i'm wrong for saying China is
1) not in the 3rd world
2) not in Indochina
3) not in SE Asia

B being all things that I thought were pretty indisputable facts, but I am open to hearing why they aren't
 
Our problem as a species is that every race, nationality, or religious group has that one subset within it that fulfills every stereotype others have of the entire whole. Thus those negative views of the whole keep being perpetuated because of the actions of these small outliers within them. It's not right, it's not fair, but it happens.
 
I have a love hate thing for Costco. I love their food, flowers and yoga pants but I can't handle some of the jerks that shop there. I was just there on the weekend and god forbid you're walking slowly with a cane. They employ a ton of people, I see no reason why all the cashes can't be open. Also, I wish more cashiers would stop line cutters. I got totally cut off yesterday at Michael's and the cashier was all did she cut you off? I said yes and she then got all angry about that. More angry than I was. Would the solution not be to not serve the line cuter?
You need to let me handle Costco. I never have trouble with weirdos and rude people. But nobody ever joins me in singing Christmas songs though. Strange really.
 
i think i'm having two conversations at once here.

A) what ib4 said was pretty shitty
B) people saying i'm wrong for saying China is
1) not in the 3rd world
2) not in Indochina
3) not in SE Asia

B being all things that I thought were pretty indisputable facts, but I am open to hearing why they aren't
Well, I'll give this a shot:

A) My post was in response to remembering things I had seen for myself abroad. You seemed to take offense to what he said, but I could guarantee you that not only would these people in question not be offended by IB4's statement, they'd almost certainly have a response similar to what Jun said. Heck, I asked her just to make sure I wasn't wrong. She thought it would be nuts to deny the obvious. In my experience, people in Asia tend to talk about some things with a level of frankness that was shocking to myself when I first started living there. Your outrage at his statement simply would not be shared with the actual people you think might be outraged.

B)
1) Technically you're correct (the best kind of correct). In fact, China was considered part of the "2nd" world in cold war terms. However, in "Average American Joe's" lexicon, it's often used as a way to imply a place is underdeveloped or impoverished. I happened to live in provincial capitals and municipalities for my of my time there (except for when I was living in the outskirts of Wuxi) and the level of development was decent to excellent, depending on the city. It is easy to forget however, that for every beautiful city scene in China

IMG_2046.jpg

There's a whole lot of this:

These are tall taken from my visit to a town called Dangshan in Anhui. China's simply full of places like this, and outnumber the places that AREN'T.

IMG_1467.jpg

IMG_1488.jpg
IMG_1531.jpg

No Chinese person would ever dispute this. In fact, the average Chinese person would likely be more hesitant to acknowledge their country as a "developed" nation than they would to say that China is "still developing" and "has a long way to go". Needless to say, there are a lot of behaviors that Chinese associate with places like this, like the aforementioned food grabbing. Jun even said that while *she* personally wouldn't do it, she wouldn't have put it past her mother or grandmother to do such things.

2) It is true, China is not in Indochina, despite the name being terribly deceptive. However, I suspect the location IB4 gave was less relevant to you than the other content of his post.

3) This is a bit trickier. Some sources exclude China entirely, preferring to separate Asia by national borders. Others take a more cultural approach and acknowledge Chinese provinces like Yunnan and Guangxi are essentially part of South East Asia.
 

GasBandit

Staff member
Or to make it simpler, have a look at this map of Asia.



Would you say that China is in the north half of Asia, or the south half?
Would you say that China is on the eastern coast of Asia, or not?
 
What's hilarious to me, is that on most region maps I just saw on Google, "The South" is actually labeled "The Southeast"
 
ironbrig4 is not a fucking anthropologist. he's just a racist
I'm a maritime historian with an external focus in anthropology. There was nothing offensive in what I wrote.

Indochinese refers to people from Indochina. Like another poster said, Indochina is just a region that includes several former French colonies.

"Boat people" might sound pejorative but it is most assuredly not. It describes a specific set of refugees. There were two waves of emigration from Indochina. The first wave occurred early in the Vietnam War and typically included the skilled and educated classes. That wave of emigration was orderly for the most part, and those emigrants usually had contacts in their new home countries. They were economic migrants and not refugees.

The second wave of emigration involved either fleeing overland into Thailand, or fleeing in whatever could float. They were bona fide refugees. This took place in the final stages of the Vietnam War and continued into the 1990s amid increased political violence, repression, and famine. These people were generally unskilled, uneducated, and desperate. Last chopper out of Saigon and all that. The boat people drifted in the South China Sea where 200-400,000 died from dehydration, exposure, drowning, and pirates. There was a good chance of being shot if they were picked up by their former countries. If they were picked up by American, Australian, and Southeast Asian ships, they were brought to refugee processing centers in the Philippines, Thailand, or Wake Island where they awaited another trip to a host country. Once there, they struggled to earn a living in an environment they were completely unprepared for.

It was a traumatic move, and those who remember it never lost habits formed through years of hardship. Those habits include swiping a whole tray of free samples and hoarding packs of soy sauce from Chinese take-out. They know they live in a First World country but can't quite shake the feeling that a Pathet Lao patrol is about to requisition their pantry.
 
is Phoenix considered in "The South" in the United States?
Yes.

Arizona is prime destination for Snowbirds escaping winter.

Oh, But you capitalized "the" modifying the meaning of "South" to include your country's historical, political history, and its neat, accepted definition that specifies certain States. You're using a phrase that is more precise in its use than is "Southeast Asia."

You should be asking if Phoenix is in South America.[DOUBLEPOST=1460664960,1460664717][/DOUBLEPOST]
ironbrig4 is not a fucking anthropologist. he's just a racist
I'm a maritime historian with an external focus in anthropology. There was nothing offensive in what I wrote.
Okay, so you're an anthropologist. But are you currently engaging in some sort of sexual activity?
 
Ballet parent rampage!!!!

Email said white tights, hand out said tan. Half the class is buying the right tights 30 seconds before photo session.
 

GasBandit

Staff member
where in the anthropology textbooks does it say "Boat People", like, you could have called them "refugees" so easily
Keep digging that hole, Chuckles.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Vietnamese_boat_people

It's a common term, not a racial slur.

You're really going to keep arguing this after you dismissively said he wasn't an anthropologist, when he is, in fact, an anthropologist? Doubling down on wrong must be your favorite pastime.
 
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