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stella41b -> Agree to disagree? (11/23/2007 8:01:11 AM)
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L:ast night whilst chatting to Mistress on IM something came up which may become a major conflict or it may not..
She expressed views which were racist. This gives me a conflict situation. I had a similar situation in my childhood with my grandmother, my family's Scottish, I was born in West Yorkshire, raised initially in Glasgow (I think I was meant to be born in Glasgow but being me I wasn't born at the right time) and neither my parents nor my grandmother (who others in the family perceived as a real battleaxe but I saw a different side of me) could agree on my name - so I spent the first couple of months of my life as 'it', 'the bairn', 'the baby', 'the wayne'. I was raised by my grandparents in Glasgow until school age, and then returned to my parents in West Yorkshire.
The first couple of years at school was horrible. I had this 'hoots mon' Glaswegian accent and not only would the kids make fun of me, but sometimes the teachers wouldn't understand me. I would get into trouble with my father for claiming to be Scottish as I was born in England, and I would get into trouble for claiming to be English with my mother and grandmother. To them I was a Scot. You could be any nationality, colour, tribe or race for my grandmother, only don't be English.
I grew up through the 1970's in West Yorkshire, in a predominantly white area which was quite racist. We had two Paki shops, there was a Paki bus driver. We would see the odd black person. This was the outer suburbs of Leeds, it was our own UK 'segregation' after the 'banana boat' people had come from the West Indies and the Asian subcontinent in the 1950's and 1960's to fill the labour shortages in Britain after the Second World War. My first contact with people of a different race were the Vietnamese refugees who came into Britain in the late 1970's. You had to be careful that the Pakistani shopkeeper didn't 'jew' you (short change you) or put your cat or small dog in his curry. It was acceptable to talk like this. My father was also deeply racist and prejudiced towards any minority and I grew up learning about hatred and words like 'wog', 'Paki', 'dago', 'poofter', 'faggot', 'beanflicker'. He didn't accept me. Fortunately the old bastard is dead.
In 1979 my parents split up, and I went to live with my mother in Bradford. I only got beat half the time before, I didn't have to hide in my bedroom listening to my parents shouting, screaming, beating each other up or trashing the house (up until the age of 12 I had a very strong phobia of crockery) in the inner city district of Manningham near the city centre. Everybody was a Pakistani. I was the only white child in the class for two years. All the boys I made friends with had the same first name - Mohammed. My mother started having relationships with Pakistani men. We ate Pakistani food. My father went ballistic as I was being 'pakified' (his word) and turned into a Pakistani. I got to know the black people in the neighbourhood, discovered Gregory Isaacs, reggae, caught the second generation of SKA, and through this found jazz.
I'm British, and proud of it, I'm proud to be British because I know that it doesn't matter how you look, you can be black, white, Oriental, Arabic, Asian, even Latino, and still be British. I've travelled extensively throughout Europe, going beyond and have got as far as Irkutsk a station on the Trans-Siberian express route playing meaningless card games with Mongolians, one of the most insane and lovable nationalities in the world. Mongolia is communist, everybody gets a small concrete apartment in a block but everyone lives in a tent outside the block. The Mongolian diet is 95% meat - yak, pork, lamb, chicken, and yes, I've sat with them and chewed the fat as we travelled through a frozen Siberia on a train which took 8 days to get from Kiev.
I am not racist. I love people, no matter where they come from. Ancestry is fascinating. People say Americans don't have much culture, maybe not, I disagree, American culture is rich and comes from everyone having so many different backgrounds and ancestries.
I am not bigoted. I even like heterosexuals. Heterosexuals are nice people, my family is full of them, some of my friends are heterosexual, many of my neighbours, and they don't cause any trouble.
But I do have prejudices, and quite strong ones. Margaret Thatcher should be tried for war crimes, because it is she who started the conflict in Iraq in 1990. I don't like corporate businessmen, people with extreme right wing views. Joseph Stalin had the right ideas with such people, getting his secret police to come round and tell them to shut up or else they would be thrown into prison, sent to a camp, or simply disappear.
I am against the death penalty, but hold unusual views on criminal justice. I think labour camps and gulags are a good idea. I think those that abuse and kill children should be sent to them, for life, and worked to death in hard labour. I feel Pro-Dommes should be part of the criminal justice system. Let's see how much Mr Businessman exceeds the speed limit after being sent to Goddess Bitchface twice for a judicial caning. You want to work illegally in another country? Okay, go ahead. But be sure you have enough raised for the $450,000 fine when you get caught.
I probably would not make a very good political leader. But seeing that George W. Bush has done two terms as US President, I'm not discounting this option.
My question is this. How do you respond when you discover that your partner has opposing views on a subject, and they hold a view which you find to be unacceptable? Has anyone else been in such a situation? What do you do, if anything? And how do you react?
Do you up and walk away? Does it become a taboo subject area for you both? Would you try and seek to change your partner's views? Or do you simply just accept that it's part of them?
Your thoughts and views please.
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