Stereotypes and the Average Human Idiot
I walked into work Monday to see my voicemail light on. I checked the message after some time, and heard an “interesting” message. First, you need to know I work for a construction company. Personally, I do a lot of accounts payable things. Second, you need to know that my voicemail is the general mailbox calls get forwarded to when the office is closed. We normally get some telemarketing messages after a weekend, sometimes we get the wrong number leaving messages. This day, however, I received I very different message.
A man called on Saturday night. We were obviously closed, but he left a message. His message began by saying that he saw our video and knew a way to get the protestors out of the cameraman’s face. (Apparently they were mid-eastern protestors.) The caller said to pour pig’s blood on them so that they would be ashamed and sinful and wouldn’t get their 72 virgins. We played the message, because it was quite funny.
Now my boss, who heard it, didn’t seem to find it very funny. She then talked about a video she watched where what the man on the message described actually happened. (People in the cameraman’s face were from the middle east, not the pig blood.) She spoke quote seriously about the video, and that the person operating the camera had every right to film these random people. As if the people being filmed had no right to be mad during a time of heightened stress anyway.
While I do believe that perhaps the subjects of the video, may have overreacted (I did not see the video), one cannot assume the filming was innocent. Who gave anyone the right to film people taking to the streets? At last check, all cell phone cameras HAD to make noise so that people would know when a picture was being taken. People are entitled to their privacy, which is why people have to be informed about being filmed, and often times need to sign releases if their identity may be revealed.
This is the same boss, who will ask the race of someone when you are telling a story about someone who cut you off in traffic, or gave you an attitude at Shop Rite. This is the same boss who, on Election Day, announced she was, “going to vote, and no not for the black man.”
Neither of these stories show any political correctness, whatsoever. But she would be the first person to put on the front that she is all welcoming. One time one of her sons had a “hispanic” girlfriend. During that time, she was all loving and very rarely had anything negative to say, because it affected her life and the way people perceive her and her family.
This is the way too many people live their lives. How many people can say that they think stores should wish you a Merry Christmas instead of Happy Holidays, and yet as soon as something offends them, they are automatically in the right? As an atheist, who despises Christmas (after 24 Christmases with my entire family shoved into my house to ruin the happiest day of most children’s years) I honestly don’t mind people greeting me either way. I was raised Catholic, so I have always been used to the “Merry Christmases.” But I understand that while I may celebrate Christmas, many other people celebrate other holidays, or no holidays at all.
My boss is the one person in the world, who think it’s ok for other people to have their rights of freedom infringed upon, as long as her aren’t. She wants people to say “Merry Christmas,” but she also feels that because she is a white elitist that she can say what she wants, regardless of how others may feel about it. The saddest part of it all is that she has three children. They are all between the ages of 18 and 22, and yet, I guarantee, they were not brought up in a home that fosters free speech and thinking. This is the problem with America today.
