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Friday, September 16, 2005
Well, That Took a Lot of Courage!
Just exactly how courageous does someone have to be to post a comment on a blog anonymously, saying that the author is racist?
Yup. I'm a racist, according to Anonymous. Well, Annie... can I call you Annie?... you are out of your gourd. You can ask anyone who knows me (start with my dad), and they'll tell you just how unracist I am.
To play a little catch-up, Annie was reading through my archives, and she came across this post, where I said I was going to boycott Jack in the Box because they have Spanish language commercials on English channels. Evidently, I offended Annie's sensibilities, and she left this comment:
I'm not a racist. I'm not against legal immigration. I'm not against people maintaining their cultural heritage if they choose to move to our great nation. I'm against people refusing to conform to the basics of civil decency and learning to speak the common language!
When I visited Germany, I lucked out because many of the people I encountered had learned English. I did, however, have my handy dandy pocket dictionary, just in case (and I had the all important "Where's the bathroom?" memorized). I turned on the tv once, but... all the shows and commercials were in... wait for it... German. For some reason, the Germans didn't realize that they needed to cater to my whims.
Amazingly, the same thing happened in the Czech Republic. And again in Austria. Not to mention Hungary and Slovakia. Even in Wales, I could only make out about half of what was said. The only place I could understand anything over there was in England, and they didn't even get everything right (potato chips are... get this... "crisps" and "chips" are french fries... what's up with that? And, evidently, the song "Skip to my loo" means you're running to the bathroom.)
All of that to say that it doesn't matter that the commercial I was annoyed at was in Spanish. It could have been in Dutch (sorry, Delfts), or Russian, or Mandarin Chinese or Urdu or Basque or Esperanto or Gaelic or Tagalog. It's the fact that the commercial was not in the common language of the country!!!!
And, since Jack in the Box is still airing the commercial, looks like I still won't be buying a Sourdough Jack or their yummy onion rings anytime soon.
But, you know, this really isn't about that commercial. It's about Annie not having enough guts to at least write her name. If you feel so strongly that my statements were racist, you should have enough courage of your convictions to let us know who you are.
Yup. I'm a racist, according to Anonymous. Well, Annie... can I call you Annie?... you are out of your gourd. You can ask anyone who knows me (start with my dad), and they'll tell you just how unracist I am.
To play a little catch-up, Annie was reading through my archives, and she came across this post, where I said I was going to boycott Jack in the Box because they have Spanish language commercials on English channels. Evidently, I offended Annie's sensibilities, and she left this comment:
That doesn't sound jingoistic, it sounds racist.I was going to just leave a comment, but... it's back in the archives, and the odds of Annie checking on the comment thread again were about nil, and I wanted to make my point perfectly clear. And I'm in a bit of a mood.
I'm not a racist. I'm not against legal immigration. I'm not against people maintaining their cultural heritage if they choose to move to our great nation. I'm against people refusing to conform to the basics of civil decency and learning to speak the common language!
When I visited Germany, I lucked out because many of the people I encountered had learned English. I did, however, have my handy dandy pocket dictionary, just in case (and I had the all important "Where's the bathroom?" memorized). I turned on the tv once, but... all the shows and commercials were in... wait for it... German. For some reason, the Germans didn't realize that they needed to cater to my whims.
Amazingly, the same thing happened in the Czech Republic. And again in Austria. Not to mention Hungary and Slovakia. Even in Wales, I could only make out about half of what was said. The only place I could understand anything over there was in England, and they didn't even get everything right (potato chips are... get this... "crisps" and "chips" are french fries... what's up with that? And, evidently, the song "Skip to my loo" means you're running to the bathroom.)
All of that to say that it doesn't matter that the commercial I was annoyed at was in Spanish. It could have been in Dutch (sorry, Delfts), or Russian, or Mandarin Chinese or Urdu or Basque or Esperanto or Gaelic or Tagalog. It's the fact that the commercial was not in the common language of the country!!!!
And, since Jack in the Box is still airing the commercial, looks like I still won't be buying a Sourdough Jack or their yummy onion rings anytime soon.
But, you know, this really isn't about that commercial. It's about Annie not having enough guts to at least write her name. If you feel so strongly that my statements were racist, you should have enough courage of your convictions to let us know who you are.
