A mild rant

[pasithea]

So. Lots of people have been passing around a link to a youtube clip from the latest episode of Top Gear. (A cool british car show) http://youtube.com/watch?v=G6MJVzXbqRU

Recently they did a trip through the US. Part of their quest was to 'get through Alabama without getting shot' and to make it more fun, they were allowed to decorate one anothers' cars in ways that might make them more likely to get shot.

They took the challenge in good fun, thinking they might get flipped off a few times or something. As someone who grew up in one of the shithole states, I could have warned them against this challenge.

Even with a camera crew, they got threatened, shouted at, rocks thrown at them, and assaulted.

Now imagine there was only one of them, there was no camera crew, and they were broke down.

A lot of people don't understand why I get so upset at right-wingers. They've never been a minority in a place like this. This is the world I grew up in, and when I express contempt for 'good christians', these people are the ones I'm speaking of. This is my reality. This is the america _I_ know. The people you see in this video aren't 'a few asshats', they're THE VAST MAJORITY in Texas, Oklahoma, Kansas, Missouri, Arkansas in my experience. Probably several other states too.

So, for you, maybe you don't give a rat's ass about what group is in power, or you think a racist or sexist joke is funny, even if it is in bad taste, and then don't get why I get so upset.

Watch this video. This is the world I come from. Imagine being there, being small and weak and different. Imagine these people not just as everyone around you but your family, your friends, your support network, the only people you know.

These are the people I know who call themselves 'good christians' and 'republicans'. This is the sick sad world I see the rest of America sliding into.

It doesn't excuse generalizing or going off on people. That really makes me only marginally better than they are, but if I'm over-reacting to something, maybe try a gentle reminder first. My reactions are often those of one dealing with memories of a very traumatic and stressful world.

Comments

[barberio.livejournal.com]

I'm currently reading through the comments posted to that... Thinking there may be just a touch of Inferiority Complex going on with some of them...

[paka.livejournal.com]

I agree, but also disagree, with you.

Back in 2000 I voted against Bush because I felt he and his supporters wanted to make this whole country into one big rural Georgia, like where I was a kid. It's 2007 now, and if I've been proved wrong at all, it's because I was being optimistic back then.

The part I disagree with is the few asshats versus the many. In my opinion people basically want to do the right thing - but what the right thing is varies, often by who shouts the largest. All you need is a few asshats limiting information, dictating what's right and making sure everything wrong is blamed on someone else (so there's never a sense of responsibility), and you have a lot of people - good people - who will fanatically uphold and defend the worst shit on the planet. Because that's all they know; because that's all they'll ever know or be allowed to know.

[dv-girl.livejournal.com]

I think you're still too much of an optimist. I see a lot of people who give lipservice to being good, but it really fails. I knew a bunch of guys who got rich during the dotcom boom who were like, "Oh, I'll invest in stocks and then when I'm _REALLY_ rich, I'll give to charities I care about." In the meanwhile, of course, they weren't so poor as to not be able to afford expensive cars, motorcycles, wines, etc. No. I don't expect people to live in suffering in order to do good or anything like that but... To me it's rather like promising to help someone move and then remembering there' a movie you want to see and making up some excuse to get out of helping your friend to go slag off. In its own way it's worse.

Where I grew up, I knew a lot of people who defended being racist by saying, "It's just the way I was brought up.". Fine. It's the way I was brought up too and I'm not so gutless as to use that as an excuse for petty bigotry.

These people are exactly the same. "The bible sez I should hate fags." Sure buddy! Find that in the text. Wait. Better yet, use a little fucking common sense. Is it RIGHT to throw rocks at someone, call them names, threaten to kill them, for nothing more than who they are? Why are they blind to the 80 places in the bible where it says 'be kind to strangers'?

So yeah. I disagree. I think the majority of people are petty and selfish and looking for some way to categorize and dislike other people. (Myself included, as my contempt for these people clearly illuminates) Above I said I was marginally better than them, and I stick by that. Where they throw rocks and shout death threats to people different from them and want them to conform, I only reject the imbecillic notion that they have a right to violently oppress other people. Hate is not a thought, nor does it deserve to be treated as such.

[paka.livejournal.com]

You might very well be right about this, and that scares the hell out of me.

[shatterstripes.livejournal.com]

To be honest... shit. What the Top Gear guys were doing in this clip is no different from any other game of tweaking your out-group. Here we have people on this show that can afford to occasionally crash very very very expensive cars, driving through one of the poorer parts of the US, waving their Alien Values high. Then when people say "Hey, what the fuck, are you trying to start trouble or something?" they pretend innocence. In an accent that says they're clearly Very Alien. They're mocking a fourth-hand caricature of the South, and are surprised when this offends.

To me, that clip looks no different from that Something Awful guy who snuck into some furry con to plant little flags all around. Hello, I am mocking you, and I am trying to start some shit. They're doing it FOR TEH LULZ and it's no surprise that this sometimes gets reactions larger than they expected.

I wonder if they got releases from that gas station manager, and 'the boys'?

[dv-girl.livejournal.com]

I really believe they probably didn't know better. I mean, consider the flashmob Jon and I did in San Francisco. We got attacked by zombies and joined the legions of the undead, then staggered around moaning 'braaaaaiiiiinz'. Freak the norms, yes. And you know. In San Francisco, they loved it! They thought it was hilarious! People were getting their photos taken with zombies and in general having a grand time.

These guys are somewhat recognizable celebrities. Their show plays in the US on the same channel as like Monster Garage and such. It's a car show. Even in the sticks, there was a fair chance someone might recognize them. And the camera crews should have been a dead give-away. Why shouldn't they have expected people to get some laughs out of it? The people in the town could have laughed at them and boo'd them in good-spirited fun, and that was more likely the outcome they expected. They'd get some amusing footage and it'd be entertaining but light-hearted. Their show isn't exactly known for high-drama.

To me, that clip looks no different from that Something Awful guy who snuck into some furry con to plant little flags all around.
There is a big difference. The SA guy was going into it laughing AT the furries. The TG guys (in my opinion) went into it thinking they were going to be laughing _with_. Was their idea to make fun of americans or was it to make fun of stereotypes about americans?

Besides which, suppose instead of goofing around, they'd been sincere? What if it was a real gay person driving through the state that had a rainbow flag on their car which said 'Pride'? Are they going out of the way to bait people? What if you and your boyfriends road-tripped out to visit your mother? Would you dye your hair black and wear mens clothes for the trip so you wouldn't 'offend' people in towns like this? I think if you didn't, you be even more at risk than they were.

Disliking someone's political message is fine. I see cars with Christian fish on them all the time or 'Bush 04' stickers. However, I do not 'get the boys' and throw rocks at them, despite their invasion of a 'liberal' town.

[valarltd.livejournal.com]

I get where you're coming from, 100%.
And I am reminded of the Charlie Daniels Band song "Uneasy Rider."

All I can say here is summed up by an icon I found around:

[heavenscalyx.livejournal.com]

Having had beer bottles thrown at me and obscenities shouted at me by Southern rednecks for doing things that were not at all geared at tweaking anyone in any way at any time, the Top Gear guys were clearly suicidal.

(And when I have done exactly the same things up North, funny thing, nary an obscenity or beer bottle. Baffled looks, maybe. Violence, no.)

I'm with you 100%.

[prickvixen.livejournal.com]

I've got a brilliant idea. You're gonna like this idea. Let's take all the white people in the Deep South, and deport them to Montana and Idaho and shit, where all the white supremacists are moving to anyway, and leave the South to the black people whose ancestors' blood and labor gave it a viable economy, and to the Mexicans who are filling that role now, and we'll find the descendants of the Cherokee and the other tribes from around there and give the land back to them and have them actually administer it, with the provision that they accept the other minorities the white man has fucked, which I'm sure they'd be more than happy to do. And then none of us limousine liberals will ever darken the doorstep of whatever Idaho shithole those proud Southern folk wind up in. Awesome.

[paka.livejournal.com]

Did I ever tell you about driving through Idaho? I really had no preconceptions about the place, back when I moved to Seattle.

I love small towns and usually tend to daydream about moving to some small town in northern rural nowhere, despite that I know damn well my neighbors would probably be several shades more conservative than me. Heck, as long as we're talking about states you mention specifically, I basically thought Montana was okay. Idaho, though? I drove through small towns there and my subconscious was constantly screaming "THIS PLACE IS FULL OF KLANSMEN!" at me.