I was confined to the house for several years, not only because my parents needed me, but because the family dysfunction was so aggressive that had I had any kind of normal life, everybody, including my parents would have been at risk from my sisters.
My brother was too selfish to notice, either that my parents might have liked to actually see their grandchildren, or that anything my sisters would do would be upsetting in any way.
In fact, his answer to both problems was to join in and validate their behaviour. This is why absent children are nasty to carers – it is far easier to hate the person doing all the work than offer them any help of any kind. It removes any need for acknowledgement of anything they would have had to give up, or any work that they are doing and you are not. This means you are STILL ENTITLED, and negates any requirement for actually making a contribution of any kind.
During the time I was confined to the house, the only people I saw were my procession of exs, who would drop in when they felt like it. I usually got them to assist in some job or other that required help – since I would not of course be getting any help from the scum family, despite their grubby little hands. They were too busy rubbing them.
This is what respectable people do. They bitch about anybody that actually does any work, and then they take anything they have from them, even when they have very effectively prevented them from having anything approaching a normal life.
At one point I was interviewed by the police to find out if I was actually in conditions of Modern Slavery, so intense was the delusion of one of my charmless relatives.
Anyway, since this post is about racism, I am sure my charming sisters, in particular, are horrified by the events surrounding Little Shiva. They will be delighted to learn that I am now spending some quality time with a rather sweet and equally shocked Muslim. He had assumed that I would write him off as a racist and not want to speak to him.
My exs will of course also be horrified. I had to listen to many, many hours of vile ranting about our immigrant population from at least three exs. What was fascinating to me, as a person who was at the time employed to deal with immigrant populations in terms of extracting information, was the astonishing lack of awareness that meant they did not seem to notice that they were saying these things to someone with no issues at all about race. I think they thought it would rub off eventually. It clearly didn’t.
After the first hundred hours or so of listening to it, I was astonished to find myself questioning what was meant by the bile. On face value, racism is abhorrent, of course, but the ranting conceals fear. Fear of the loss of status, fear of the loss of territory, fear of the unknown. You cannot blame people, particularly people who have suffered loss, for being tribal.
You can however get annoyed with the colour related elements, but I think since a lot of newer immigrants to Scotland are actually Eastern European and therefore white, the colour-based racism has actually dissipated in favour of the fear of overcrowding and being sold somebody’s child. Some of the most eager proponents of curbing immigration that I have interviewed are actually Hindu and Muslim. They understand, apparently a whole lot better than the Scots do, that borders are relevant and precious. Hindus in particular are often very right wing and not at all worried about saying so.
As I have mentioned in previous posts, racism has been studied quite extensively and has common elements which should be grasped before making assumptions that you ‘just hate’ somebody. I am sure I am not the only person that finds they have more in common with other nations than I do with the English as a general rule. This is, of course, partially due to the artificially generated tension that our lovely country likes to employ to keep the jocks in their place, but it is an odd concept.
Personally, when I lived in England, I found ignoring them helpful.
What you can get most irritated about is the lack of concern for the person next to you and the willingness to cause harm. That is nothing to do with race, and everything to do with a mean spirit and grasping nature. That is more likely to get you killed than anything to do with race.
