I've been having some fun with my (sarcasm) buddy (/sarcasm) Aaron over at uppity-negro and I'm gonna use our little verbal skirmish to demonstrate stereotypes. I wrote a blog about my experiences in a Diversity (All Hail Diversity!) Awareness workshop. We were taught that all stereotypes, even positive stereotypes were bad. Since I didn't want to have to listen to the bullshit they were peddling any longer than I had to, I didn't point out that good stereotypes can be good. Good stereotypes can be role models. Diversity (All Hail Diversity!) is really designed to give a different name to Affirmative Action, include gays (I'm not homophobic. I don't care about anyone's sexual preferences. Just don't ram your agenda down my throat), and support that bullshit policy known as multiculturism, which I will write about in an upcoming blog.
Anyway in last Wednesday's blog Dive Tables I wrote Well, let's suppose that Aaron wants to go diving. He might not have time to steal a decent computer. Aaron jumped right on that and immediately what jumped into his head was the stereotype that all blacks are thieves. I didn't say that was what I meant (maybe I just thought Aaron was a cheap bastard) but because that's a negative stereotype, that's what Aaron thought I meant. Obviously he needs to go to a Diversity (All Hail Diversity!) Awareness workshop.
What's with this Diversity (All Hail Diversity!) stuff?
Go here.
Anyway, back to stereotyping. I effectively got Aaron to stereotype himself. In Aaron's words' My bad'.
Aaron's also pissed because I won't turn comments on. I do that for two reasons:
I have begged, nay, pleaded many times for people to send me hate mail to no avail. I'm pissed at Aaron 'cause he won't e-mail me. I promise that I will publish any hate mail in its entirety with only the most offensive profanity edited out. I guess Aaron doesn't think he can make any cogent points without commenting on one's ancestry or using disgusting profanity.
Should I also bring up the fact that besides being black skinned, black folks tend to be thin skinned? Must be the 400 years of oppressionTM and slaveryTM thing. Want some examples? Howza 'bout a few years back when a white person described the DC budget as being niggardly? Guys, before running off half-cocked and screaming racism, look the word up. It has absolutely nothing to do with nigger. Another example? Boy, it sure is hot today. Don't call me boy! Dude! I wasn't even talking to you! If I was, I would have said 'It sure is hot today, you asshole!'
But back to stereotypes. I also told Aaron to look some more difficult words up in the dictionary, from which he implied that I thought he was dumb. No, I just thought that due to his sewer mouth he had a limited vocabulary. He commented that he was a linguist. ( I wonder. Is he also a cunning linguist?) Also, since I don't allow comments and he won't e-mail me (I did comment on his site by the way) I made a little joke about how to e-mail, which he rightly took as satire. And Aaron does have three redeeming factors: He uses Linux, he knows who Tom Lehrer is, and can recognize satire. (At least some of the time.)
old times there are not forgotten,
whoppin' slaves and picking cotton,
and waitin' for the Robert E. Lee.
It was never there on time.
From I want to be Back in Dixie by Tom Lehrer
OK. Back to stereotypes. Aaron, in attempting to ridicule me, implied that my sister was my mother. See, I live in Georgia, so I must be some inbred goober. Dude, you're wrong. My sister is my first cousin. My mother is my aunt and my father is my uncle and I do have trouble counting on my toes because I have three on one foot and seven on the other. And, by golly, I keep a whole big buncha stump broke pigs out back on the great patio of Dunwoody. My fav'rite one is Ethel. Here pig. Here pig. C'mon Elmer, ya gotta hold her for me. Ya gotta come up with better insults than that since my white skin is a hell of a lot thicker than your black skin.
Also, since I mentioned I'm using Netscape 4.7 on my home PC, Aaron and some or his buddies jumped on the stereotype that I must also be a computer illiterate goober and my sister/cousin must be also. I really got a huge laugh out of that one. As many of my readers know, I hate Microsoft and I hate Bill Gates. I'm running Windoz 98 (Motto: You should have waited for 2000. This OS sucks worse than 95). It was preloaded on my PC when I bought it. Once again, I have a life outside of computers and am too lazy to dump my apps and install a new OS.
But aren't you and your sister/cousin inbred dumb goobers?
Nope.
My sister/cousin and I were raised in Webster Groves Missouri, a suburb of St. Louis. Our father/uncle was an alcoholic and lost many jobs, so my mother/aunt went to work full time when I was young. I also didn't get much of an allowance so I mowed lawns, raked leaves, shoveled snow, cleaned gutters, and worked in the school cafeteria. If ya had sumpin' you wanted a kid to do, I'd do it. My sister/cousin did a lot of babysitting. We didn't sit around and whine about being poor and asking for gummint help. We got off our asses and did sumpin' about it. This was before food stamps and the Great starts with f ends with k and has a c and a u in the middle ing Society.
My sister/cousin won a four year scholarship to Washington University in St. Louis and graduated with a degree in Computer Science. She has been a programmer since 1964. Since 1967, she has worked for a company in the San Francisco Bay area. She's married and has one child. She is worth over a million dollars. She did all this without any gummint assistance.
I'm not as smart. The inbreeding was more damaging in my case. Just hate it when brothers marry their sisters. I flunked out of a junior college. Since there was a war going on, rather than getting drafted, and not having the money or connections to run off to England to dodge the draft, like a real redneck we know about, I joined the Navy and learned electronics. I guess I did get some gummint assistance, since when I got out of the Navy, I went back to college on the GI Bill. Being a lazy sort, and not liking to have to work three jobs to afford college, even on the GI Bill, I burned out in my junior year and went to work for TCIDNN (The Company I Dare Not Name). I have worked there for twenty nine years. I have worked in computers since 1977 (Maybe this guy does know sumpin' about computers). I moved to Atlanta in 1985. I taught hardware until 1988 when I broke my back which made me a T12/L1 paraplegic. I didn't do any of this poor old pitiful me crap when it happened. I did sumpin' stupid. I paid for it. Actions have consequences. I didn't even look for anyone to sue. I was told I was never gonna walk again. I said bullshit. They said I was in denial. I said bullshit. I do walk now. Not very well. I have to wear braces and I have to use crutches, but I can still walk. I've had a few health setbacks over the last four years and now am back in a wheelchair around the house, but walk everywhere else.
When I went back to work after my accident, TCIDNN asked what accommodations they needed to make for me. This was before Diversity (All Hail Diversity!). All they had then was Affirmative Action and Equal Opportunity Employment. I told them nothing. Just let me know what you want me to do. I couldn't do hardware anymore so they had me teach a class called Complex Systems Problem Determination and Recovery. That's when I taught myself to be a systems programmer. I have a nice house (worth over $250K), three cars (1992 BMW 325is, 2001 BMW Z3, 1998 Nissan pickup - every inbred Georgia goober has to have a pickup) and I can't mention my salary and net worth 'cause some of my coworkers read this stuff. I did this all without any gummint assistance. It sucked to become a paraplegic, but I didn't whine about it. I got up off my ass (not the easiest thing to do in my condition), outworked my fellow employees (12 hour days and weekends), and got to where I am today.
The inbred goober is a systems programmer. Why he still running Netscape 4.7?
Because Windows is a piece of crap. IE won't even run anymore and its part of the code! I even downloaded the latest release of IE and it won't run. How about Microsoft tech support? HAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAH. I don't have the time to reinstall or upgrade, and I haven't gotten around to learning Linux. As I said, I do have a life outside of blogging. I work with computers all day on stuff that works. I work with IBM mainframes large servers, that run z/OS (MVS - IBM's flagship large system operating system. Stays up forever. That's why I hate to have to boot up a PC multiple times a day), z/VM (You can run a shitload of virtual Linux machines under VM. All of a sudden VM has a new life), and Linux. So, I don't really want to come home and spend a whole lotta time working on my PC. So, yeah, I run Netscape 4.7 and I downloaded Netscape 6.2, but it's flakey because of problems with Windoz 98. One of these days I'll either get a new PC or fix my bugs. I'm in no hurry.
And now for another stereotype. I have a lot of fun when I do have to go out in my wheelchair. Being in a wheelchair sucks, but it does present some interesting opportunities. When I sit in my wheelchair, my IQ drops 30 points and I lose my hearing. People talk loudly and slowly when having a conversation with me. Ya see, people in wheel chairs are deaf and stupid. Since, I have a very thick skin, this doesn't really bother me. I spend a lot of time laughing at people. Not in their faces. I laugh inside.
So stereotypes don't really bother me too much. I'm stereotyped all the time. When I was growing up, my mother used to say to me, 'Sticks and stones may break my bones, but names will never hurt me.' I guess children are not raised that way any more and that's why people are so overly sensitive and are looking to be offended. Even my friend Cindy will sometimes call me up and apologize for sumpin' she said that she thought offended me. Most of the time I don't even know what she's talking about and when she has to explain I tell her I thought it was a joke (which is true) or didn't realize that what she said was offensive (also true). You gotta work real hard with an insult to really piss me off. If it's a real good and original slam I admire it. Too bad Aaron doesn't have that ability, as most of his just involve calling people names and the names aren't even very original at that. If it's a real bad slam, like Aaron's, I just consider the source.
Right now, I'm just pissed that my sister/cousin married someone else and not me. Damn. She done broke a family tradition.
Guess I'll go outside and see Ethel.
Someone fire up that banjo music from Deliverance.
Posted by denny at August 17, 2002 12:35 PM