I know! :-O I feel a bit guilty for laughing, because that's some holy-wahoonies-Batman!serious-privilege-blindness going on there, but the alternative was to explode with rage, instantly killing everyone within a 30' radius... >:-@
Yus. Yus I em. I believe that intelligence isn't a privilege, it's an entitlement. In fact it's a right. A basic hyooman right. Now give me my smart pills. When was the last time the government did anything for us, anyway?
I need them pills today. I _was_ intending to blog on the topic of violence in Melbourne suffered by Indian students but the brain is just to sluggish for that just now. I will blog instead on a topic I can discuss in my sleep - toys!
Oh Dearie dearie me. By way of contrast, I can tell you that this very day in my local newsagency I was asked what country I was from. Yep really true blue, dinki di etc yes really. Because she didn't think I sounded/looked like one. So I told her that in Greece I am taken for German; in Iceland they assumed I was Danish; I spoke many languages in various degrees of bad but hey, what the hell? Nobody's from where you think they're from really. But you guys would be Sikhs, right?
She was a bit flustered and asked how I knew. I mentioned that the portrait of Nanak Guru on the wall was a bit of a giveaway....
On the whole, I think we should continue messing with these folks' heads. I'm sure it's good for them.
(But, for fellow denizens of Oz flagellating themselves about our relationship with our Indian guests, she said that she loved Oz and had never been made to feel unwelcome. So there we are. Mind you, given that Sikhs are everyone's favourite ethnic minority you'd have to be a real knob-end to want to pick on them...)
I do like the idea of her asking customers where they're from, though, rather than the other way round as I imagine usually happens (it certainly does to me). A bit of pre-emptive strike action, perhaps? ;)
As I think I've mentioned before on here, I don't generally find the dreaded "where are you from" question quite as offensive here as I find it in Australia. Here, although it occasionally reveals a degree of (sometimes breathtaking, as in this instance!) ignorance, it's a question that is commonly asked of everyone no matter how they look, and the asker is just as curious to find out the answer, whether it's Nottingham or Norwich, or Malaysia or Melbourne. Plus, I'm really not from here (the accent is usually a giveaway) so the question is justified. In Australia, on the other hand, it usually (though not always) reeks of Unwashed Assumptions about who belongs and who doesn't.
Indeed yes! She is a very polite young woman, too. Her hidden cultural assumption was that Mr Weirdo Cosmopolitan couldn't really be from here; yet by putting it so politely it makes it so much easier for her to Make The Save
( ... )
I am one of those boring 'Anglo-Celtic' Australians but in the first week of secondary school was asked by classmates if I was from the UK. I think it was coz we watched too many BBC productions at home. They also asked if I was gay - apparently all Poms were queer in the minds of some of my classmates.
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Ah, you're just intelligence-entitled! (-8}
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;)
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She was a bit flustered and asked how I knew. I mentioned that the portrait of Nanak Guru on the wall was a bit of a giveaway....
On the whole, I think we should continue messing with these folks' heads. I'm sure it's good for them.
(But, for fellow denizens of Oz flagellating themselves about our relationship with our Indian guests, she said that she loved Oz and had never been made to feel unwelcome. So there we are. Mind you, given that Sikhs are everyone's favourite ethnic minority you'd have to be a real knob-end to want to pick on them...)
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I do like the idea of her asking customers where they're from, though, rather than the other way round as I imagine usually happens (it certainly does to me). A bit of pre-emptive strike action, perhaps? ;)
As I think I've mentioned before on here, I don't generally find the dreaded "where are you from" question quite as offensive here as I find it in Australia. Here, although it occasionally reveals a degree of (sometimes breathtaking, as in this instance!) ignorance, it's a question that is commonly asked of everyone no matter how they look, and the asker is just as curious to find out the answer, whether it's Nottingham or Norwich, or Malaysia or Melbourne. Plus, I'm really not from here (the accent is usually a giveaway) so the question is justified. In Australia, on the other hand, it usually (though not always) reeks of Unwashed Assumptions about who belongs and who doesn't.
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