race

Travel and racism

Posted on by Nikolai Vladivostok

When I was young, innocent and avowedly stupid I used to think that the best cure for racism was getting to know other peoples, and that aside from multiculturalism, travel was the ideal way of doing this.

Then I traveled.

In a country with a skilled migration program like Australia, you only see a small sliver of a country’s population.  I knew Indians all my life.  To me they were brainy classmates, engineers, restaurateurs, business men and assorted other respectable types.  I had noted a touch of arrogance about them, but generally acknowledged their industrious and talented nature.

I never knew a single stupid Indian until I traveled to India.  There, one just needs to look out the window to see Read More

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Ethnic Interhate

Posted on by Nikolai Vladivostok

You know how it goes. Evil YT holds down the coloured people. All of the latter are so nice. Blacks and Jews marching arm in arm against our nastiness. What the fuck is wrong with us? Was there something in the water back in that Merry Green Land that made us so mean? Perhaps it was the cholera, which, incidentally, we eliminated from our evil and cruel societies wherever we went.

Those of you who have spent any time in the real world know that things out here are rather more complex than in that Cultural Marxist fairy tale. In reality, the Big Bad White Wolf is pretty tolerant so far as things go, and might even help Black Grandmother across the street sometimes just because he feels sorry for her. Though she always Read More

The Serene Bigotry of Low Expectations

Posted on by Nikolai Vladivostok

There was a fuss at work this week because the front office had been requested to do various things and had not done them. Fairly straightforward things – getting chairs put out for a function, printing some documents, organizing replacements while people were away etc. While neglecting to do these things, it is unclear what they were doing as this is the main part of their job.

Some of my colleagues got quite irate about this. Me, not so much.

‘TIA’: This Is Africa. A similar phrase is, ‘Africa wins again’.

Here, many people don’t do their jobs properly. They either Read More

Blood and Tribe

Posted on by Nikolai Vladivostok

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I recently attended the funeral of a close family member.  A miserable service but in the midst of all those closest to us, a reassuring and comforting one.  We are not alone in our grief and there are many who support us, even if from a great distance in space and time.

Old friend were there.  Very old friends from childhood, old neighbours long since moved away, old cousins and great-uncles who I had heard news of but not seen in decades.  A scattering of newer friends, introduced to the old.

With only a couple of exceptions, everyone there was Read More

White Man’s Burden

Posted on by Nikolai Vladivostok

Recently, Australia attempted to have refugees resettled in Cambodia instead of within its own borders.  Millions of dollars later (presumably paid into the hands of deserving officials) a grand total of four refugees have arrived.

Australia’s ongoing attempts to turn its illegal immigration/refugee problem into a broader, regional issue have attracted howls of fury from human rights activists.  Australians should not abrogate their responsibilities.  Their neighbors, it would seem, bear no such responsibilities. Read More