Stereotypes, Racism and My Two Front Teeth

There is something odd about Stereotypes. We all recognise them as being intrinsically wrong. After all they assume that everyone is alike, which they obviously aren't. The only trouble is that clearly there is something right about stereotypes too. Whether you like it or not, the Americans are gun-toting, the French are arrogant, the Japanese do take pictures of everything and the English do create "little england" wherever they go. That is not to say that all of them are, but enough to make it a reasonable stereotype.

If they are a reasonable picture of a people or a culture though, why are we so offended by them. In the UK we had a hit show in the 70's called "Mind Your Language". It was totally successful right up to the end of its run, and had massive viewing figures. It was however racist, and ITV took it off the air. The show was about an english speaking school. The english teacher would try to teach people from different nationalities the nuances of english. The french lady was whistful and sexy, the italian man was passionate and gaudy, the japanese man had a strict code of conduct and so on.



My mother is Chilean and she loved it. She recognised and associated with the spanish bartender character Juan. She understood his protective family values, she laughed herself silly when Juan would treat Mr Brooks the teacher like his closest brother, and laughed harder still when he would raise his fists at the teacher and threaten him with a "punch up". The truth is that in Chile, they have strong family values. They are very protective, and should you be welcomed into the family circle of friends then you really are like the lost brother returned. I experienced this myself when were in Chile. I had never met these people my mother introduced me to, but their welcome was honest and heart-warming in a way I had not experienced before.

This show was filled with stereotypes, from the efficient german au pair, to the chairman mau quoting chinese lady. It was also filled with warmth celebrating our differences and understanding that each nationality has a different set of problems when trying to conform to the british way of thinking.

In the end, as the world got more PC, this well watched show was shown to be racist. As a brit I understand that on the one level we are just laughing at the funny foreigners and their stupid ways. On another hand though it was saying we are all different, let's not be frightened to say so.



The truth is that each and every stereotype has come from somewhere. There are however, reasons for them. Not excuses exactly, but reasons. There is a stereotype of the English being arrogant and nationalistic, superior and outspoken. Pretty much everything you get from Al Murray's "The Pub Landlord". We have an unhappy history in England, we have lorded it over half the world for many years. We have exported "Britishness" and reaped its rewards. And now we are paying for it. The English are disliked the world over for its oppressive history. From our closest neighbour Scotland, to Australia on the other side of the world, everyone enjoys seeing us fail.

We are not an apologetic people as a rule however, so instead of crawling into a corner we stubbornly stand out unabashed claiming how wonderful we must be for everyone to want to beat us. We become visciously protective of our nationalism, shouting from the highest rooftop how we do things better than everyone else, and no-one will tell us what to do, especially those foreigners in Europe. Obviously this isn't everyone, but all the english feel this streak of jingoistic zeal around them.

When asked "What is England?" however, we tend to struggle. We know its not double decker buses and beefeater hats, but over hundereds of years of trying to keep an empire, then a commonwealth and always a United Kingdom we lost our identity in a way the Scots, Irish and Welsh would never have done.



To say "What is Britain?" however! We know instantly of a proud nation fighting alone against insurmountable odds, of a parliament that was the template of governmental process around the world, of a system of laws and courts that balances our sense of equality and justice, of a talented and well educated people that have influenced the worlds thinking from Charles Darwin to Isaac Newton, that changed the way we see the world from William Shakespeare to George Orwell, and who led the world in creative invention from Isambard Kingdom Brunel's brindges to  Adam Smiths ideas on competition.

Anyway, the reason I mention all of this is because this Christmas I am staying with my brother in Scotland. He is 5 years older than me and we used to do exactly what the archetypal stereotype of brothers do. We fought all the time, were horrid to each other at every opportunity, we were jealous and competitive at every turn but we would fight side by side if someone hurt us, and backed each other through thick and thin when trying to get one past our parents.

Today as we were driving through the snow, some of the old arguments were brought up. There was no way that I could compete with my brother physically when I was young so I learnt how to get to him emotionally. In fact I became an expert in it. I could get him to fight me within a minute if I wanted to, and since he had no reasonable response, he would end up punching my teeth out. I would claim the moral victory and get the double bonus of him getting unfairly told off by my parents. By pointing out irritating failings in his comments I managed to provoke the same angry response I got all those years ago.



Now I'm not 8 and he isn't 13. My brother and I are both mature now, and we're smart enough to know what was happening, so he didn't get told off by my parents, and I still have my teeth, but as he protested telling me I am argumentative, and as I frustrated him  by reminding him of his unreasonable opinion, I thought about how we got to where we are now. How just like glaciers carved the rock into hills and valleys, our time growing up together helped carve our personalities. As last night wore on, and the entire population of Aberfeldy tried in vein to take on the Allen boys in doubles pool. I felt so proud to be once again back to back with him taking on the world.

Stereotypes aren't always wrong, they aren't always unjust, but the truth is that they don't tell the whole story. Searching for the larger picture can be fun, entertaining and inspirational. Assuming a people have a "type" is not as big a problem as not asking where the "type" came from.

At least he's not an atheist.

My mother is a Roman Catholic. She was born in a South American country and Latin American countries have strong religious convictions and deep connections with the Pope in Rome. I was brought up in England and was a choirboy in my local Roman Catholic church.

If you didnt know, the official religion of the UK is the 'Church of England', a protestant break-away from Rome, which started up when our most famous King, Henry VIII (he of 6 wives) wanted a divorce from his first wife Catherine of Aragon, to marry the beautiful Anne Boleyn. In the end it was a matter of convenience for Henry, and Martin Luther's protestant movement gained another kingdom in Europe.

The truth is however, that despite the "official religion" being Church of England, the true religion of the UK is apathy. Attendances in UK churches have all fallen, and when approached, most people deny god exists except in a very personal individual spiritualist way. It doesnt make them less moral, or less kind to each other, or less considerate, it just makes them less "religious".

I am however more inclined to Atheism. To me the whole religion thing seems implausible and uncomfortable. For a start, if we were to compare it to a scientific definition, we would have to provide reasonable theory, backed by verifiable facts and experiments. A scientific theory demands rules to be put into place. If one of these rules are broken then the theory breaks down, and you come up with a new one. A scientific theory moves and sways according to the verifiable facts we discover and repeat under scientific conditions. Some more zealous types would say that is one of sciences downfalls. How can you say that science will answer all your questions when it gets things wrong all the time. How long ago was it when science told us the world is flat! Well, we figured it out crazy person, and okay, it was wrong, but the theory changed. Hows about you changing your ideas on stoning your wife if she isnt a virgin, cos my fiance doesnt like the sound of that too much. I know, I know... that was written in a time when Men were Men, Women were worthless, and Sheep were nervous, well... to be honest sheep have always been nervous, but life is better now we have created lube.

Religion is a faith, a belief that certain acts happened, that certain prophesies will come true etc. etc. How do you repeat Jesus' miracles under scientific conditions... well in a hospital perhaps, but we are not exactly using the same method as he is claimed to have done. It's not like doctors can inject people with the spirit of god. If a scientific theory is proved wrong, you just move onto the next one, when have you ever heard of a religion packing in because they got it wrong.

Intelligent Design is a classic example. It basically says "How could you create something so complex as the gills on a mushroom without some grand creator or grand scheme." or to try and put it another way... If you find a sculpture, you can assume someone created it, but if you find a rock, you cant assume that someone created it. Something complex must be designed. And since we're complex, and the world is complex, and the universe is complex... you get it? Yes I agree, it all sounds like tripe, but this is what they want to put in school curriculums across the states as a counter argument to Darwin's theory of Evolution. The fact that there is no evidence whatsoever doesnt seem to bother them. The fact that the rest of the world thinks theyre nutters, and should any one of these kids leave the states to work abroad, and come out with this stuff they will be considered a laughing stock doesnt seem to bother them. Not a lot bothers them to be honest. Well, their newly democratically elected president chatting to the children across the country about responsibility, and staying off of drugs bothers them, but this garbage is perfectly fine.

Well, Mr Creationist and your intelligent Design buddies... there are many many examples of failed evolution, such as the Dodo, which was totally fine and never bothered to learn how to fly because with no land based natural predators, it had no reason to learn. That was until we came along and fried them all with chips and some ketchup. oops.

Thats a simple one, but there are literally thousands of examples of evolution, and only the blindest and most obtuse of zealots would deny that in our lifetimes alone there are countless examples of creatures changing their behaviour because of environmental factors, some of those changes even going so far as to metabolic changes within a few generations. On two Samoan Islands a parasite has been killing off the male members of the Blue Moon Butterfly. By the year 2001, the population of males was down to just 1%, within one year the butterflies had developed an immunity to the parasite and are now making a signficant comeback, up to 40% of the population are now males.

[caption id="attachment_265" align="alignright" width="300" caption="Stud Muffin"][/caption]

This happens with just one butterfly, a freak if you will, a butterfly genetically different to others finds itself with an advantage, like a child born with a bigger nose to allow more oxygen to the brain, or with incredibly attractive eyes to attract the best suitors. The butterfly finds it has immunity to the parasite, and when it reproduces, it passes on its defect to its offspring, all of which in turn pass it on until the whole species is parasite free. Meanwhile the butterflies without the immunity die off. This happened across 10 generations or just under one year.

Proof that evolution is real, and works everyday. And also proof that butterflies can really get around when they want to.

Thats verifiable proof, compared to your 'we found a 2000 year old book and it says the world was created in 7 days, so there' its pretty convincing to me.

Now more reasoned debaters will say that Evolution is a mechanism that God uses to influence change. This is a sensible assumption. After all science can only take us to the big bang before it asks the question of "yeah okay, but how did that start?". To me though, the jump from an "originator" to a higher omnipotent power than benevolently watches over us, cares for us, listens to our prayers, will take us away to a new and different and beautiful world when we die and gives his son to forgive our sins, even the ones we havent done yet, is too great a leap for me.  It's like saying we know that gravity exists, so naturally, it must be the giant vacuum cleaner who teaches us by his example that we must remove dirt from our homes and keep our floors clean, because cleanliness in next to godliness and to have a clean home is truly an honour to the great Hoover in the sky. And whilst we're at it, we should all exalt at the great sucky one for giving us moral guidelines on keeping our houses free of dirt, something we would never have figured out on our own.

It's pretty much what the romans did, having a god for everything they didnt understand.

Some people say that you might as well believe in god because if it is true then at least youre in with the right bunch, but then you have to ask which god? If you believe in Jesus, then youre stuffed if Allah happened to be true. What if theyre all wrong. What if God is just playing a cosmic game of Sim City? It makes some sense, after all whenever I play Sim City, I inevitably get bored after a while and decide to set off a volcano, just for a laugh. The fact is that for all we know you might as well believe in the Flying Spaghetti Monster. Now please be careful here, because I have met a few of these Pastafarians, and they're a tough bunch... take the mickey at your own risk, but personally I dont wanna noodle with any of them. They got big Meatballs!

The Flying Spaghetti Monster was created by Bobby Henderson in 2005 as a rebuttal to the move to teach creationism and intelligent design as an alternative to Darwin's theory of evolution in Kansas. In his open letter to the school board he wrote...

"I think we can all look forward to the time when these three theories are given equal time in our science classrooms across the country, and eventually the world; One third time for Intelligent Design, one third time for Flying Spaghetti Monsterism, and one third time for logical conjecture based on overwhelming observable evidence."

Check out the open letter, Wikipedia's facts, and the fabulous Venganza website which also reports any sightings of the great ones noodly appendages below.

http://www.venganza.org/

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Flying_Spaghetti_Monster

http://www.venganza.org/about/open-letter/

However, say the christians, there are no eye witness reports of the flying spaghetti monster curing the sick in Jerusalem over 2000 years ago. No, there arent. And it's not like Jesus was only found in one book. In the Koran he turns up as an important guy, not the main dude mind you, but important nonetheless, so why shouldnt I believe in him, well the truth is that I do believe that Jesus existed.

[caption id="attachment_267" align="alignright" width="187" caption="Brains!"][/caption]

I'm just not a believer that he was born of a virgin, that he healed the sick just by touching them, that he fed 5000 with a few loaves and some wine, that he didnt drink or eat for 40 days, that he was the son of god and most of all that he came back to life, walked around a bit, met a few of the old gang and didnt get shot in the head by americans!

I dont believe that the eye witnesses were unbiased and that their evidence would stand up in court today. I dont believe we would accept the claims made by his disciples, just as we dont believe some of the rubbish that comes out today. There was a football commentator not so long ago who found faith, and announced to the world that at the age of 45 he realised he was the Son of God come back to earth for the second time and we should all bow down and follow him... Yeah right! David Icke was his name, and spouting rubbish turned out to be his game.  Personally I think he was better off sticking with football, but either way he was certainly entertaining for a few weeks.

Then theres the question of authenticity. The bible does seem excessively sexist. Does God really want us to treat women so poorly. I just struggle to believe it. My fiance would flip her lid if I treated her the way the bible teaches. I would move from man to eunuch in minutes. It's not very PC when it comes to racism either. Labelling people almost in every chapter. Just imagine for a second if you happened to be one of the pharisees, a land owner and local despot, but overall a nice guy who treated his staff good, well, didnt whip them for spilling the wine, who only taxed people who still had arms to break, and maybe once a month would have a pretty burning at the stake followed by a barbeque and punch for the gathering crowd, no point in wasting the meat ... Oops, no chance sunshine, you're going to hell. Bummer!

Does it not bother anyone else that St Paul, who never ever met Jesus, wrote nearly half of the New Testament, and edited the rest? Im not saying the word bias... Im Implying it. Actually now I'm saying it, but perhaps "Artistic Licence" is better. The Christian Zealots online tell me however that the will of God was acting through Paul when the Council of Nicaea met (yes, Dan Brown did get that bit right int he Da Vinci Code.) I told my fiance it was the will of god that we got freaky deaky with the chocolate body paint last night, but clearly she isnt as religious as me!

Now, yesterday I went to a mall in Oklahoma. To my complete surprise I saw not one or two, but over ten t-shirts featuring peoples love and devotion to their god, their christian god. I say christian god because I have no idea how much blood would have been shed if one of them had a baseball cap saying "Wake up blessed! Sleep with a Muslim", or if another had "Muslim Ninja" written on her shorts, or even "Muslims wanted! It's a tough job, but the retirement plan is unbelievable!" written over his t-shirt.

One guy had a tattoo with jesus on the cross on his left arm. I dont really mind people exhibiting their beliefs. I do object to them telling me their devotion to something I consider as real as the tooth fairy, is more important than, say my devotion to watching the international football match, but that kind of comment gets said on an individual basis. I dont have swathes of christians protesting me every morning I turn on the soccer channel, just the odd one or two less reasonable ones getting in my face. Odd though, i'm sure there's a whole bunch of stuff in the Bible about being non-judgemental, clearly you can take the judge out of the judgemental...

Most people leave me alone though, and rarely threaten me with a one-way ticket to hell

My real question though, is that if I were to wear a t-shirt that said "God Doesnt Exist" or "The devil doesnt scare me" or even... "Whilst youre at church I will be having sex!", how many people would come up to me and complain. In the Jackass movie, some guy dressed as the devil practically got beat up for "being offensive". Never mind that seeing t-shirt after t-shirt with religious propaganda might offend me. They all have "religious freedom to express themselves", what about my religious freedom to not be approached randomly in the streets by rabid god-praising carol singers, or have my dinner interrupted by fervent door-to-door salesmen offering me magazines that will save my soul from eternal damnation. What about my freedom to have a little bit of help and support without being drafted into some pseudo-charitable superstition.

It occurs to me that whilst It is clearly not a great time to be a Muslim in america, it's not a good time to be an Atheist anywhere. With no rights, no voice, no representatives, how can we bring some common sense to things. I dont want my world blown up by crazy religious nutters from any denomination. I dont care which team they support. I have had to watch the last 100 years my closest neighbour Ireland tear itself apart over a stupid pointless religious war, and they were on the same side.

I dont need that kind of stupidity affecting my world. Dont we have enough on our plate trying to cope with the effects of Corporate Control, Global Warming, International Drugs Cartels, People Trafficking, the Energy Crisis, Environmentalism, Faltering Economies, Over-extended Banking Institutions, Despotism, Racial and Sexual Prejudice, Serial Killers, Rapists, Pedophiles and Talk Show Hosts.

I ask, I beg, I plead... cant we all combine our great resources, skills, talents and abilities and do something really useful for society, like do something, anything about 'Chavs'. Put them on an island and wait for 200 years before getting beaten at sport by them and then pretending we liked them all along and since we've messed everywhere else up can we please move there, please, please!

[caption id="attachment_260" align="alignnone" width="460" caption="http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Chav"][/caption]

The Great British Breakfast

Imagine a plate of food served up to you at 8am, with the sun steaming through the whispy clouds.

Rashers of sizzling bacon, plump sausages, fried tomates, beans, eggs sunny side up, potato croquets or has browns if you will, mushrooms in butter, fried bread, toast on a side plate, a hot steaming cup of coffee and some fruit juice. A Full English breakfast. They say the entire british empire was nurtured by this hearty meal, everyday during its 300 year reign.

To you and I in this enlightened world, we may see it as a coronary waiting to happen, and would recommend 30 minutes on a stairmaster. However, in the days of the british raj this was not an option. Instead they used to hunt lions so thats nice.

As I sat in the cafe at Gatwick Airport, on the grubby seats and sugared table waiting for my Egg and Bacon toasty, I watched the esteemed group of various gentlemen that patronised the 'Greasy Spoon', and my thoughts went back to this image of 18th century Bristol filled with sailors looking to gather new booty from the Americas.

The sandwich finally arrived, and the only way to describe it was dissapppointing The bacon was limp and gristly, the egg yolk was congealed, and the barely toasted toast, was dry and stale as if the penicillin had only just been scraped off. There was no sign of butter or mayonnaise, tomatoes or lettuce. The coffee was weak and sourly burnt my lips with its insipid taste. I have no idea how many bacteria resided in the china chips.

Thats when it occured to me that Britain really is a nation of shopkeepers, and they dont go to work on a hearty, traditional full english at all, but instead go to work on a diet of shrivelled up sausages, rancid eggs, and a tomato so mushy that they'd give Halle Berry a run for best oscar acceptance.

Thank god I ate my cornflakes before i went.

The small businessmen and manual workers however, devoured every last morsel down to the final crumbs of buttered bread, as they sat and chatted with bonhomie and jus de vive.

Clearly I will never be a millionaire in Britain... for a start they're clearly all too French!