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pecuniumRecently, at work, something odd happened.
Guy came in, and started to ask me questions about knives. So far all is normal. Selling knives is a lot of what I do. We talk about this and that, and he starts being discoursive. He then asks me one of those questions I've had, now and again, though not here; at SLT.
"What do you think of women using knives?"
"I don't have any problem with it."
He went on, saying from things he'd seen them doing in the kitchen it gave him the willies. I said he ought to see the things I see men doing with knives. Then I tried to point out that it was more a matter of preconceptions than anything else. I told him I'd been in the army for 167 years, and I taught firearms handling, as well as knife skills. This was to lead into telling him that I far prefer to have female students (in firearms) than I do male ones (in knives it doesn't have the same gender skew, though there are traits I think I see more in women than in men. There are other traits I think I see in men more. some good, some bad, in both sexes).
That did, so I thoght, derail the conversation, but it was being a bit strange, and I wanted to done with it. He started asking me questions about guns, and I started actually moving him out of the store. On the way he started asking me about my thoughts on "open carry". My thoughts on the carryng of firearms are pretty simple. Most people shouldn't do it because they don't think it through carefully enough (for more detailed ideas of my thinking you can read the post/comments in places like Making Light (where the subject has come up, more than once).
I tried to say this, gently, but I was starting to get an odd vibe. I actually started pushing him out of the store (my boss actually noticed this). At the door he kept going, and then it happened, he explained why he was looking into things like "open carry" (which right he didn't know we had in Calif. never mind that as configured it's a mess... asking for trouble and conferring no real benefit to anyone who isn't willing to spend lots of time getting a number of drills down to pure muscle memory. Even if that's done the requirements still make you much more target than anything else... all of which I mentioned to him).
It's because of the political situation now, and the "trouble we have coming with the blacks and the browns".
I was croggled. He'd just given me what can only be described as the tea-bagger's secret handshake. I wasn't certain until he added, "You know I used to be a liberal."
The next say, he was back. Asked if I had a card, and then (when I said I didn't really. Which was true, in context. I don't have a card for my work, and I had no intent of sharing my personal one with him). That, it seemed was ok. He had one to give me, with a slightly conspiratorial leaning in as he said, "I might have some work for you."
Guy came in, and started to ask me questions about knives. So far all is normal. Selling knives is a lot of what I do. We talk about this and that, and he starts being discoursive. He then asks me one of those questions I've had, now and again, though not here; at SLT.
"What do you think of women using knives?"
"I don't have any problem with it."
He went on, saying from things he'd seen them doing in the kitchen it gave him the willies. I said he ought to see the things I see men doing with knives. Then I tried to point out that it was more a matter of preconceptions than anything else. I told him I'd been in the army for 167 years, and I taught firearms handling, as well as knife skills. This was to lead into telling him that I far prefer to have female students (in firearms) than I do male ones (in knives it doesn't have the same gender skew, though there are traits I think I see more in women than in men. There are other traits I think I see in men more. some good, some bad, in both sexes).
That did, so I thoght, derail the conversation, but it was being a bit strange, and I wanted to done with it. He started asking me questions about guns, and I started actually moving him out of the store. On the way he started asking me about my thoughts on "open carry". My thoughts on the carryng of firearms are pretty simple. Most people shouldn't do it because they don't think it through carefully enough (for more detailed ideas of my thinking you can read the post/comments in places like Making Light (where the subject has come up, more than once).
I tried to say this, gently, but I was starting to get an odd vibe. I actually started pushing him out of the store (my boss actually noticed this). At the door he kept going, and then it happened, he explained why he was looking into things like "open carry" (which right he didn't know we had in Calif. never mind that as configured it's a mess... asking for trouble and conferring no real benefit to anyone who isn't willing to spend lots of time getting a number of drills down to pure muscle memory. Even if that's done the requirements still make you much more target than anything else... all of which I mentioned to him).
It's because of the political situation now, and the "trouble we have coming with the blacks and the browns".
I was croggled. He'd just given me what can only be described as the tea-bagger's secret handshake. I wasn't certain until he added, "You know I used to be a liberal."
The next say, he was back. Asked if I had a card, and then (when I said I didn't really. Which was true, in context. I don't have a card for my work, and I had no intent of sharing my personal one with him). That, it seemed was ok. He had one to give me, with a slightly conspiratorial leaning in as he said, "I might have some work for you."
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no subject
Date: 2010-03-22 05:00 am (UTC)What I don't get is why he thought (from nothing but notes about how to properly use knives) he chose to sound me out on the subject.
I am then not sure why he assumed that I (who think women with knives is fine, and that they are better students for firearms training) would agree with him on the "trouble" with "blacks and browns", and the (stereotypical) throwaway of his having been a liberal in the past.
Do I look like some sort of reactionary racist?
no subject
Date: 2010-03-22 05:22 am (UTC)no subject
Date: 2010-03-22 05:26 am (UTC)no subject
Date: 2010-03-24 04:02 pm (UTC)More like a hippie, okay, that I've gathered, but I assume that you're still white, wiry, youngish-looking (late 20's, or early 30's --in the dusk, with the light behind you), and that -- even in Suave Mode -- you practically project an aura of alertness, intensity, and maybe idealistic passion. That combination rather suggests (to me) a significant possibility of some kind of fanaticism. The guy you describe was, I'd suggest, not far off target, in a sense, but was simply very wrong in assuming that you share some of his basic values rather than being diametrically opposed to them. Or so it seems from here.
no subject
Date: 2010-03-28 12:33 am (UTC)