So a few weekends we got out for a walk in Dunedin and were wandering about and realized that we didn’t feel like cooking, so we toddled off to the local fish and chip shop. On our way there we ran into a bunch of the local students out on some kind of pub crawl.

Now, a bit of background: when Canadian students go out to get drunk and it’s not halloween we just get on with it. We put on clothing to cover out nakedness and, you know, drink. Kiwi students, not content with merely getting drunk, feel the need to dress up in costumes. At least once a year, perhaps based on some bizarre ritual that I, as a Canadian know nothing about, the Scarfies get dressed up in the bizarre, offensive racial/ethnic stereotypes one can imagine.

This years lot outdid themselves. We started off, at the low end of the scale, with idiots in ponchos and sombreros and fake beards. Things progressed rapididly down hill from here. There was a nice young fellow, a future leader of NZ industry or somesuch no doubt, in a conical hat (Vietnam) with a Japanese flag t-shirt (ehm?) and yellow face on. There were other young men (because it was mostly men) in rags with bones and clubs in blackface. The topper, the absolute best, was the fellow with a black sweater, little mustache drawn on with makeup and a red armband with a swastika on it.

Moving on from there, Christine and I were out for a walk a day or so later while the lad was off on a play date. We popped into a shop that Lucas doesn’t really like, so we could a leisurely poke about. The store sold what they called “Licorice dolls” and what others would know as “gollywog” or dolls. I remember my Mom telling me she had one when she was little, about 60 or so years ago.

Discussing this with Christine we had a moment where we wondered if much of this wasn’t racism, but rather just pure ignorance/naivite/the off shoot of a largely (or at least until recently) monocultural society.

Then I thought back to the young, drunk men we saw wandering by the chip shop. Dunedin, because of the University, the Polytech and the foundation year program at the Uni, has a small but growing Arab population. Waiting for their meals were two young men speaking in arabic while, outside, were there of their friends. The drunk young men wandered past this group. The looks on the Arab men’s faces ranged from worry/fear to disgust.

So I guess my question is this, is there ever a time when blackface/racial stereotyping of this variety ISN’T racist?

If blackface is worn in a cultural setting where it has almost no baggage is it ok?

I know how I feel, but I’m wondering what others think.

This is what I’m reduced to…

GO HABS GO!

THEY WENT THEY WENT! 

6- 2 THHHHPPTTT

NO! I don’t care if it’s the nicest boot or trailer in the entire world. I don’t care if it’s got a plasma screen, kitty concubines for her amusement, live fish prepared by a sushi chef.. I will not put my cat in your fucking trunk or trailer. No. 

Now if  you’ll excuse me I’m going to go and spend just north of $100 to get to and from the Dunedin Airport to pick up Metro. 

At some point soon I need to get a drivers license because I’m not even getting kissed when I’m being screwed.

Dear Bigot, 

When I smiled at you identifying that I was Canadian and from Dorval this was not an invitation to tell me everything that was on your mind. 

I was genuinely quite happy to meet someone who had lived in Point Claire for 20 years, seriously I was. That’s why I smiled again. Now, and this is my fault, I should have immediately broken off the conversation when I told you I was from Dorval and you said “oh, is that still there?”. Every one of my warning bells went off. 

At this point I started doing math quickly and realized that you had fled when the PQ took power. This gave me an immediate foreshadowing of what was to come. 

From this point on all of my smiling and soothing conversation was no longer genuine and was the product of years of passive aggression and my trying to contain and manage you in much the way you talk to a 5 year old who is having a tantrum. 

When you started on with your delightful story about how the Quebecois don’t really speak French and how you once saw a French person refuse to talk to a Quebecois in French because they contended that they didn’t actually speak that language my smile was to hide my hatred of both you and myself. My hatred of you should be self explanatory, but I was hating myself for smiling and for not telling you off. 

What I would have liked to have said was “oh yes, when the colonizer comes along and prattles about how his or her language should be spoken it’s always funny. Because nothing is better than condescending bullshit. Hey, how about those Australians and how they think all of you here in NZ speak like stupid, backwards bumpkins? Isn’t that a hoot?”

When you transitioned onwards to your rant about bill 101, which you clearly don’t understand and never will, my smile was now the smile you reserve for the mentally infirm. At this point I was actually enjoying myself again, because all my hatred had evaporated and I now pitied you, in a sort of “oh look, she’s actually pieing herself. Over and over and over. How sad and funny.”

Now, I don’t know if you noticed, but I actually had the spine to turn off the conversation when you moved on to “So, are all the Muslims there still?” Because, honestly, I had more foreshadowing going on, and I just wasn’t able to figure out how we were going to wind up in a good place with this conversational gambit. So yes, there are muslims, and yes many of them came because they came from places where French was the second language. 

But most of them came for another reason. Because idiots like you are out numbered by people who don’t have their heads in their butts. 

Now, if you’ll excuse me, I have to go and live with my shame at not actually engaging you about yoru stupid. I suppose this shame will fade. Sadly your dumb will not. 

Good day.

So the saying goes: What has been seen cannot be unseen. 

Living in Dunedin at this time of year (orientation week) provides clear proof of the truth in this saying. 

Highlights of Monday were:

1. Watching a young man puke from chugging beer/wine/some kind of swamp booze from a mylar bag. At 9:35. AM.
2. Walking home with Christine and Lucas and having what must have been the ugliest pair of breasts known to all mankind shaken at me from an upstairs window. Money quote “Oh shit, there’s a kid” Yes there is you fucking prat, and thank god I’m large and blocked his view or I’d be coming up to take all your shit to pay for the therapy. 
3. Going down into town later that evening and watching a young man dressed as some sort of mummy (underwear and saranwrap) flashing passing cars in what he seemed to believe was a sexy manner. A thought, the two cute girls you were talking to? The were laughing at you. Not with you. Assuming you remember meeting them, they will pretend that they have never met you. I promise you this. 

Otago University students seem to like dressing up (perhaps this is a NZ thing, but I can only speak to Otago) and then getting drunk. This makes for amusing moments… drunk penguins, drunk elves, drunk half-naked people, drunk flappers, drunk people who clearly created their costumes whilst drunk… the permutations go on and on… 

Tuesday’s fun ended with the annual toga party parade. In years past this was, apparently, a mostly peaceable event with happy drunken students going down the main street to other events. It has been billed to students as a sort of welcome to the city version to the graduation parades that the University holds down the same street when they are finished their degrees. 

This year however students got sent to the marshaling point an hour early and the shit hit the fan. Actually the shit hit them. 

People (older students/locals/random people beamed down from spaceships) were lying in wait for them. With puke. And shit. And eggs. And beer bottles. And (in one case) a frozen orange. And garbage. And WheatBix in liquids (one doesn’t really want to think what liquid). And then they threw them at the marching students. 

Now, let’s leave aside for a moment that fact that there are no marches to protest the living conditions of the average undergrad here in Dunedin, and move on to the simple facts. No matter who it was that was throwing stuff, no matter who it was that wound up breaking some shop windows, no matter who it was that caused all this stuff to be flung around George Street, there are two words to describe what happened: riot and assault. 

Now, in the media here there is a lot of hand wringing going on: it’s not all the students (see comments here), we have to wait and see, let’s not be hasty, kick them out (the Otago Daily Times editorial from this morning) etc etc.

What I don’t understand is how is there even a discussion going on? Let the police do their job. Throwing things at other people, causing people to get hurt (reports of cuts to hands, feet and faces, one report of a serious injury to tendons, bad bruising from the afore mentioned frozen orange), and causing property damage are all crimes of one kind or another. They are not just “students being students”. It’s not something that you can write off as “sowing their wild oats”. It’s stupidity, and as long as the University and the City don’t crack down on it people will continue to think that this sort of behavior is acceptable.

Sometimes you see design so stupifyingly bad that you wonder if it was done on purpose… to that end I present you with this.

I would suggest you wear goggles, but they will probably do nothing.

I don’t like to engage in the “my OS is better than your OS” holy wars, but why is it that every time I launch Parallels Windows needs to update something?