Fire fighting

Listening to the radios and the blogs today, all of a quiver about racial tensions and strikes, and you'd be forgiven for thinking we were actually living in 1989 NOT 2009. Can't be though cos if it was I'd be wearing leggings and a sweater dress (*looks down slowly* O. M. G. !!!) (as long as that weird new kid starts playing Johnny B. Goode before the end of the night then we know we're gonna be ok). My internet blog colleague P.D. Shawaddywaddy has written a much more eloquent and thoughtful post on this particular topic but the comment I started writing in response to it turned longer than a comment has any right to be (Blog comments! Know your place!) so I'm going to witter here rather than there, as I am wont to do.

So. Yes. Once upon a time, in a galaxy far, far away lived a girl called Sazz who just so happened to be part of the Anti-Nazi League. She was one of those girls who has purple dipped hair and wears purple Doc Martins (there was more purple than is strictly necessary. Kinda like the grunge this guy in fact) and goes to clubs where they play Faith No More and S.O.A.D and The Smiths rather than fun things that people ACTUALLY want to listen to (like Britney and more Britney). ANYWAY. God she was annoyingly earnest. I hated that chick, for one thing there was no revelry in her inner dorkness AT ALL. For another, she saw the world as depressingly black and white. It was so lame. Like, one time, she stopped talking to a work colleague because someone else told her (AS A JOKE it subsequently turned out) they'd voted for the BNP. She didn't try and engage that person to a) find out if it was true or b) work out, even if they had done that, why that might have done that. Because there was right and there was wrong and nothing in between. So she just ceased talking to them full stop. She sure felt awful silly when it turned out to be a 'joke' (an hilarious, hilarious joke). Now, I think we can agree that racism is, like homophobia and sexism, so totally gay. It just is ok? Let's not quibble over that point. HOWEVER, with that in mind, how do you think we go about eradicating racism in the hearts of all those scampy racists? Because although you or I might objectively not get it (like, AT ALL!), they do. They might start sentences with the phrase 'I'm not racist but...' BUT don't be fooled! They are defo racist. Even if they then go on to insist that some of their 'best friends are black' again THIS IS JUST TRICKING YOU. Now, you might think, giving a platform to people who hold these views, not just in the secret squirrel 'I'm not racist but' way but in the flag-waving 'I'm totes a racist, here's my card to prove it' way, is counter-productive when what we (you and I, I mean) want is for there to be LESS racists and more NOT racists. Letting them have a voice legitimizes their arguments and makes the on-the-fencers more racist than before and makes skinheads go out looking for people to beat up etc etc. Well, maybe, but actually perhaps not...

I eventually quit the anti-nazi league because someone pointed out to me that it was kind of fascist to not let people have the opinions they want to have. Being 'anti' an opinion is inherently fascist. Don't get me wrong, kicking anyone out of the country with skin a darker shade than what St Tropez spray-on tan can give you kind of top trumps the thought-police side of fascism that the ANL have but basically what I'm saying is that fighting fire with fire doesn't work (unless it's in a forest). Just like how Georgey Porgey Bush fought people determinedly flying planes into skyscrapers by turning a free country into a phone-tapped, torture-happy, police state just made everyone go - See! U.S.A is SUCK.S.A! The only way forward is to fight abhorrent ideas with logic. Not censorship. Putting your hands over your ears and shouting NOT LISTENING! doesn't make those ideas any less real in the minds of those that hold them. If you are in the right then your ideas will hold up when being debated with rational thought and logic. THAT'S how you fight racism: reason. It might not change anyone's opinions there and then but if it sows some seeds of doubt in some of those 'I'm not racist but' crowd then that in itself can be counted as a victory. If you shine a light on the disgusting, vile opinions held by Griffin and his ilk then we will all just see a little clearer the extent of how disgusting and vile they are. Of course, it might stir up racial tensions and incite racial violence but if it means we discuss, in greater depth, why those tensions exist in the first place (and then, you know, do something about it) it's the first step to seeing them melt away (for precedent please see Brixton and Stonewall riots which lead to the Scarman Report and kickstarted the gay rights movement respectively - neither of those battles are won yet exactly but things are better now then they were before). A more harmonious society doesn't happen overnight and sometimes something bad is needed in order to push something good into occurring out of it. That's why I think the BBC are right to let him appear. Let us all see how stupid and contradictory and confused and evil the opinions of this man are - and not just suspect it but see it, and hear it, and argue with it so everyone knows it's wrong. Just like with that Jan Moir thing. She didn't write something that she thought was wrong (and I bet plenty of Daily Mail-ers read that with nary a hmm of dissent). It was only by other people pointing out the inherent flaws in her, frankly bizarre, argument that we could all reach a general consensus that The Daily Mail is a force for evil and must be stopped (that's what we all agreed right? Oh. Well, Old habits die hard I guess).

However, in all honesty, my sky plus is making me choose between watching this and Fearne Cotten interviewing Paris Hilton on ITV2. I think we all know where my allegiances lie.

In other news, today an old man saluted me, I saw a dude wearing a 'Choose MILF' t-shirt (for realz!) and I got stopped by the census squad twice! With the same man conducting the survey! It was kind of awkward and I don't know why really!