art imitates life imitates art

A few nights ago, I met up with a man who made contact with me through Friendster. He is not my new best friend. In addition to his long long (I even yawned in the midst of it) monologue on how the second X-Men movie deviated from the comic books, he told me a series of racist jokes. I can enjoy the occasional racist joke shared with someone I know well when the joke is clever or particularly outrageous and I know the teller believes none of it. I enjoy the funny-because-there-is-a-bit-of-truth-in-it-and-that-makes-everyone-uncomfortable humor of Sarah Silverman and Chris Rock.

But telling unfunny far-from-clever racist jokes to someone you just met? A terrible first impression. Especially since the jokes mocked Mexicans and Indians, groups with minimal-if-any presence in these parts. How can you play around with the stereotypes of groups of people you’ve never met?

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Last night, I watched The Believer, a powerful, interesting movie about a Jewish boy who grows up to become a neo-Nazi. It’s interesting to watch him try to reconcile his Jewish past with his fascist ideas. Not a happy film, but highly recommended.

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This morning, on my way to language class, I walked by a woman waiting for a bus. On her bag, she had two buttons. The one I saw first had the Star of David inside a red circle with a line through it (in place of the cigarette in no-smoking signage). I was really shocked to see it & broke stride to make sure it was really there. Even the Nazi in the film had the good sense to wear a jacket over his swastika T-shirt. After that sunk in, I saw the next button: a cross with the words ‘white pride world wide’ (in English) around it. What is with the overt racism? I don't think I have ever seen someone wearing such things before.

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Continuing – and I hope ending this racist trend – we were taught the derivation of a slur for Germans in my language class. I already knew the word, but I didn't know that it’s derived from the Serbian word for cockroach.