On 11/20/05, Kwan Lowe <kwan@digitalhermit.com> wrote:
>
>
> > My grandparents came from Ireland and the treatment of the Irish was no
> > better than the blacks, Italians or any other immigrants but we didn't
> > cry about it for the next hundred years, we sent our kids to high school
> > and then the next generation sent theirs to college. We took over the
> > police departments and then the political machines Tammany Hall for one
> > instance. We worked hard, saved our money and made life better for our
> > kids than that which we found when we came into this world.
>
> Certainly... many of the Asians I know have the same philosophy. Work hard. Study.
> Use the opportunities. I can tell you that I have worked hard for many years and
> it's starting to pay off...
>
> At the same time, I can understand the other viewpoint. A few years ago I visited a
> stationery store in a moderately well-to-do mall looking for fountain pens to add to
> my collection. Now I have a small collection as these things go. They range in price
> from a nice $5 Waterman to a couple Parkers and Mont Blancs that are worth listing
> in my homeowner's insurance. I'm not wealthy by any measure -- just a regular IT guy
> with an IT income -- and I'm only saying this to show that I was aware of the price
> of items in the store. Anyhoo, I walked in and immediately a lady approaches and
> asks if she could help.. Nope, just browsing. Look around a little more and find a
> fairly common Mont Blanc and a nice Schaeffer. I knew that the price for the former
> was around $60 and the latter averaged $140. (The Mont Blancs are awesome pens, but
> the low-end ones are always overpriced in these stationery stores to snag the pointy
> heads and tourists.) There are lots of other customers but she'd hovering behind me
> peeking over my shoulder, dusting the counter next to me, in general acting as if I
> would smash and grab something. I ask her the prices...
>
> First words that dripped from her mouth: "They're rather expensive."
>
> That's it, nothing else.
>
> In retrospect, I do look like the typical IT guy. I prefer jeans and T-shirt, a Polo
> if I need to dress up, and often sneakers or loafers. But my clothes are clean, free
> of holes. I speak standard English. I bathe regularly. But somehow I *looked* like I
> couldn't afford a $60 pen.
>
> And that's the point. There were other people in that store that dressed similarly
> to me. But she seemed to single me out with her condescension based on my
> appearance.
>
> This happened to me once a few years ago and it still upsets me.
>
> I can't imagine having to live with that on a day-to-day basis.
I do not even have the benefit of some ethnic characteristic beyond the
usual WASP or whatever look... But back in the days when I flew a lot
and got upgraded a lot to first class I found it very interesting that the
people who got on the plane with a coat and tie got better treatment
than I did in my jeans and rather coarser dress (there is a reason for
that, if you take a depress at 40K feet that sucker is going to get real
cold REAL fast and you will want the additional covering, people who
get on airplanes with shorts and other non-dress and flimsy light dress
are asking for a real suprise if that thing looses pressurization, they
will be the ones needing covering not me) anyhow it was really
annoying knowing that both of us had upgraded from the same ticket
level, I could sort of understand it if the other guy had of paid full first
class fare, but that was not true. Oh yes I do take a daily bath and try
to avoid strong smells and make sure my dress is nice and clean, no
second day underwear or any other ordour generators.
So what I learned from that was that people automaticly tend to give
certain groups or configured people a level a preference they do not
give others, correct or incorrect, I have to recall a conversation I was
part of on the east bank of the Niger river in Guinea while awaiting a
ferry to take us across the river, one of the people I was with was
telling me about racisim, he told me that there were basicly 4 ethnic
groups in the country and those who got the preference were those
who's ethnic group was in power, his observation to me was that
compared to them we did not have a problem in this country, so each
sees his field as being worse than the one across the fence. By the
way the person who explained this, his tribal group was in power at
that time, but this person had been educated in several different
countries and so knew a bit about what discrimination was based on
color, he told me about being african and living in the old USSR and
Japan, both he told me were quite entertaining to say the least, but
he found that in the end discrimination was the same regardless of
the reason.
-- Chuck Hast To paraphrase my flight instructor; "the only dumb question is the one you DID NOT ask resulting in my going out and having to identify your bits and pieces in the midst of torn and twisted metal."----------------------------------------------------------------------- This list is provided as an unmoderated internet service by Networked Knowledge Systems (NKS). Views and opinions expressed in messages posted are those of the author and do not necessarily reflect the official policy or position of NKS or any of its employees.
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