I just don't get people
Sep. 20th, 2005 11:15 am![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
pecuniumA kid in Jacksonville, Fla. got a beating.
I can't say as I'm surprised, he was wearing a shirt I might have been willing to end up in a fight over, and I'm a fairly non-confrontational guy.
The shirt, it showed, on one side, a confederate flag, with the motto, "Keep it flying." On the other side it showed some klansmen, in the stereotypical garb, waving at a car with the words just married on it. Behind the car, where one might expect to see cans, or old shoes, were a couple of black men, being dragged in nooses.
His explantation: He forgot he was wearing it, and had it on to go to a party later. We'll get back to that party.
He larger explanation, "I'm not racist or anything," he said. "It's just, some people I hate, some people I don't get along with. And black people just happen to be the ones because they think they're better than everyone else."
He also says he has a black friend.
Now, about that party..."He said he put the shirt on in the morning because he planned to wear it to a party that night with others who, like him, had enlisted in the Marines."
I'm glad he didn't say Army, because I don't want him. It isn't just that his attitudes offend me, nor yet his blithe stupidity (if one is going to wear fighting words on one's shirt, it behooves you to not forget that and end up getting your ass kicked), no it's that people like that are a menace to the unit, in a way that gays aren't.
I know a lot of homosexuals. Some have made passes at me. None have been rude about it, some have been very quiet about it and I might never have known, had they not chosen to tell me. I've never known a closeted bigot who managed to pass, and someone as willing to be vocal about it as this little twerp, well he won't be able to keep it to himself. We can only hope he spouts off in Boot Camp (where odds are he will have at least one black Drill Instructor... he'd better believe thost men think they are better than he is, because the are) and gets kicked out. He'll blame, "the blacks," (though I suspect it will sound more like, "those damned niggers," when he says it) but neither I, nor the Corps will care.
Because if he makes it to the Corps, he is a liablilty. Even in a rear unit (and there are precious few of those these days) you have to be able to depend on your fellows. In 13 years in the Army, I've only known two-guys I couldn't trust to cover my back if it dropped in the pot. Neither of them stayed in very long.
This didn't go where it was supposed to, but that't the way of things.
I can't say as I'm surprised, he was wearing a shirt I might have been willing to end up in a fight over, and I'm a fairly non-confrontational guy.
The shirt, it showed, on one side, a confederate flag, with the motto, "Keep it flying." On the other side it showed some klansmen, in the stereotypical garb, waving at a car with the words just married on it. Behind the car, where one might expect to see cans, or old shoes, were a couple of black men, being dragged in nooses.
His explantation: He forgot he was wearing it, and had it on to go to a party later. We'll get back to that party.
He larger explanation, "I'm not racist or anything," he said. "It's just, some people I hate, some people I don't get along with. And black people just happen to be the ones because they think they're better than everyone else."
He also says he has a black friend.
Now, about that party..."He said he put the shirt on in the morning because he planned to wear it to a party that night with others who, like him, had enlisted in the Marines."
I'm glad he didn't say Army, because I don't want him. It isn't just that his attitudes offend me, nor yet his blithe stupidity (if one is going to wear fighting words on one's shirt, it behooves you to not forget that and end up getting your ass kicked), no it's that people like that are a menace to the unit, in a way that gays aren't.
I know a lot of homosexuals. Some have made passes at me. None have been rude about it, some have been very quiet about it and I might never have known, had they not chosen to tell me. I've never known a closeted bigot who managed to pass, and someone as willing to be vocal about it as this little twerp, well he won't be able to keep it to himself. We can only hope he spouts off in Boot Camp (where odds are he will have at least one black Drill Instructor... he'd better believe thost men think they are better than he is, because the are) and gets kicked out. He'll blame, "the blacks," (though I suspect it will sound more like, "those damned niggers," when he says it) but neither I, nor the Corps will care.
Because if he makes it to the Corps, he is a liablilty. Even in a rear unit (and there are precious few of those these days) you have to be able to depend on your fellows. In 13 years in the Army, I've only known two-guys I couldn't trust to cover my back if it dropped in the pot. Neither of them stayed in very long.
This didn't go where it was supposed to, but that't the way of things.
