Here we have another hot potato (or perhaps a burning ember) on this blog. How do you feel about this?
Wednesday, October 08, 2008
Saqib Ali Facebook Poll
Subscribe to:
Post Comments (Atom)
MPW Series
- At Least We Aren't California
- Council District 4 Special Election
- Council District 4 Special Election 2009 Preview
- County Budget 2008
- County Budget 2009
- Crisis at the Gazette
- Crisis in Transportation
- The Elrich Plan
- Everybody Loves Main Street
- Free State GOP Fades to Black
- How to Get Clout in Annapolis
- Income Inequality
- Inside Ehrlich's Secret Police
- Is This Smart Growth?
- Ben Kramer's Record in Annapolis
- Long Knives for Franchot
- Mike Miller Meets the Bloggers
- Millionaire Tax
- MoCo Most Influential 2008
- MoCo's Great Crash
- MoCo: Not as Rich as You Think
- Montgomery College Union Busting
- MTA Declares War on Chevy Chase
- The Reporting Life
- Saqib-Mania
- Slots
- Special Session
- State of Maryland Blogdom
- Top Stories of 2008
- Traffic Measurement
- Washington Post's Boy King
- Wheaton
- Where is Subsidized Housing in MoCo?
- Whispers of the At-Large Race
- Who are the Real MoCo Progressives?
- WSSC
- Young Guns of MoCo
Links
Contributors
Our Comment Policy
What Other Blogs Say About MPW
2 comments:
The only thing on Saqib Ali's facebook that I think even borders on "objectionable" is is declaration of opposition to "anti-FOB" racism.
For those who are unacquainted with the concept, "F.O.B" is an acronym for "fresh off of the boat", and so far as I can determine, it's a term more-or-less of concept that originated in the Korean-American community (both "full american" and "one-and-a-half-gen" have been known to use it. Google also "korea pride" for edification.
The thing is, as a rule it cannot be racist for Americans of a certain ethnicity to find fault with members of their own ethnicity who are in fact new to our shores. "Racism" implies a sense of entitlement or contempt or attribution of inferiority or superiority based on race.
The fact is, foreigners are foreigners, whether they're tourists or immigrants. To the degree that they have had time to adapt and have adapted, one presumes that they have learned "when in Rome, do as the Romans do".
Now, believe it or not, I have actually been confronted with Germans from Germany who even in the modern day declare themselves superior to other ethnics and nationalities. Considering how my father's generation of German Americans (with lots of help, if course) kicked their butts in WWII, you'd think they'd know better.
In the course of the conversation it came out: they weren't "racist" at least in the case of their dealings with me or other "Euro-Americans"; they were more... anti-American or more properly, anti-other-than-German, and by "German" I refer to Germany the nation, not Germans the people.
I get a lot of comparable attitude from a lot of folks who are in fact FOB or fresh-off-the-airliner as the case may be. I'm not pretty and I do not dress well, and if you don't speak nor read much English, my education and gentility aren't blazoned on my by the cut of the suit I do not wear, nor evident in the expensive car I do not drive.
I get a lot of racism -- except it's not racism, it's classism from FOB of all stripes. So, I am opposed to the classism of any FOB who exhibit it. To be very fair, in my many sojourns in the District, I have met a lot of very fine tourists and diplomatic types who will cheerfully tell you what they don't like about the USA or various regions of the USA, but very significantly they realize it's the USA, they're visiting, and they must adapt to the US, the US need not adapt to them nor can they reasonably expect Americans to know their ways nor demand that they learn and adapt to them.
To demand that Americans somehow know and conform to the expectations of very recent arrivals is astonishingly arrogant, and if arrogance is responded to with disdain or even contempt, this is to be expected. But it's not "anti-FOB racism", its "being offended at rudeness".
I do consider myself fairly tolerant and a reasonably intelligent person that understands ironic humor. However, Saqib's "humor" smacks of sexism and frat boy syndrome. I'm glad I'm not his wife or his daughter.
Post a Comment