I grew up and still live in inner-city Manchester, so I’m used to ethnic diversity.

On the other hand, I went to (almost entirely white) Roman Catholic schools and I’ve got an xbox live account¹ so I’m – unfortunately – familiar with hateful racism².

I’m distressingly familiar with the argument “I’m not racist, but” – which is usually followed by a tirade of bigotry. I tend to think of this as cowardice – but the thought has crossed my mind lately that maybe racists (who are generally quite stupid) really don’t realise the depth of their intolerable prejudice.

So I’ve made a little list to help them out.

You’re probably a racist if:

 

You think the Daily Mail represents quality, impartial journalism

The Mail is an incredibly popular newspaper, and it would be pretty damn arrogant of me to suggest that I was in any way capable of laying down judgement on the quality of its journalism or editorial content.

So that’s exactly what I’m going to do.

It’s full of conjecture, hyperbole and outright bullshit. The Mail itself regularly confesses to things like making up Winterval - although their corrections are rarely as hysterical or high profile as the original (in this case now excised) piece – and fabricating the occasional quote.

Some of the things the Mail does – like putting things in its headlines that aren’t actually part of the story – are just typical shoddy tabloid journalism. But if you find yourself reading a story in the Mail and believing it to be absolutely 100% true – then you’re probably quite racist indeed. And also a bit dim.

(especially if the story is something like ‘Gay asylum seekers use massive benefit payout to turn Buckingham Palace into mosque‘)

I’m not saying you shouldn’t read the Mail. I’m just reminding you that its journalists generally have the same deep connection with reality as Salvador Dali, paired with the same standards of truth, honesty and integrity as Baron Friedrich von Münchhausen.

Also: you shouldn’t read the Mail.

 

 You refer to an ethnicity as ‘they’

Pretty damning this one. It doesn’t really matter which ethnicity you’re talking about: if you’ve decided that it is now a faceless ‘they’ who are responsible for something, then you’ve crossed a line from which is there is unlikely to be a return.

You’ve decided that people of this ethnicity are no longer individuals, but a collective – they think as one, they act as one, they behave with one – undoubtedly sinister – agenda. A bit like the Borg.

That’s some racist shit, right there.

 

You think skin colour matters

(It doesn’t)

I might be willing to make a bit of an exception when it comes to tanning – but people who tan are usually enormous twats, so I don’t think I want to.

Your skin colour is a pretty good indicator of how much time you can safely spend in the sun – I,  for example,  have to be aware that as a ginger (with very pale skin) I will fry like a vampire in direct sunlight. This means you will rarely see me in a mankini (or even shorts).

Your complexion isn’t a good way of determining the people you have the most in common with, however (in my case, those people would probably be Norwegian, and I don’t even speak Norwegian. And I haven’t viked once)

If you can’t see the difference between those two, then you’ve got your racist goggles on.

 

You think asylum seekers should be ‘sent back home’

Just in case you didn’t know, ‘Asylum Seeker’ is British government-ese for ‘refugee’.

These are people who will quite literally die or be tortured back in their home country – and they have fled here, because they believe they will be safe.

If you’re the sort of person who wants to send these people home to die, you aren’t just a racist – you’re a dickhead.

 

You find immigration threatening

Britain is an island nation which has been invaded so many times that there is no such thing as an indigenous Briton – we’re descended from Saxon, Viking, Roman, Norman, Celt, Pict and fuck knows what else.

The variety of culture has not made our nation weak. The influx of peoples has never made us question who we are – it defines us.

If you think that immigrants come to live here for any reason other than they want to be British; you’re a moron.

If you think that British culture is now so weak that a few immigrants – most from countries that used to be British - will destroy it irrevocably, then you aren’t as patriotic as you claim to be.

British culture is a hodge-podge of other cultures already – it always has been. We have Roman roads leading to Tudor towns with Saxon names.

Are you really claiming that putting down a few Indian restaurants and a Mosque somehow ruins the fucking pastiche?

-

Now that you’ve been through that list – what should you do if you are a hateful racist?

The common response seems to be to try and excuse your behaviour by projecting it onto others, to deny it by falling back on your entitlement to free speech (no matter how vile or inflammatory) or to insist that you have some brown friends…

But to be quite honest, I don’t give a toss what you do, as long as you FUCK OFF.

I hope most people reading this aren’t racist – that’s great, but it’s not enough. I see far too many people online (on Facebook in particular) being openly, disgustingly bigoted.

Call them on it. Tell them that you know what they are.

No racist is going to change his mind, or his behaviour, just because you call him a racist – but that doesn’t mean such behaviour should go unchallenged.

(and who knows – maybe one day they’ll all fuck off back to their own country, which I’m hoping is Venus³; it rains sulphuric acid there)

 

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¹Can you guess what the most popular insult on xbox live is? It begins with ‘N‘.
²If you’re having trouble associating ‘Catholic’ with ‘hateful racism’ then ‘hahaha’. But consider that I was educated in the most ethnically diverse areas of Manchester, and that I can name all the black children who attended my 1000-pupil high school.
I can’t name any of the asian children, because there weren’t any.
³And there you were, thinking I’d never actually explain the title… 

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Posted by Dave in Bastardry (7/12/2011 at 18:19).
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