Getting rid of nastiness

So, I’m sure you all heard about the horrific attack that took place in South London on Wednesday. It was truly, truly disturbing and almost unbelievable. These are sick times we live in. For a man to be hacked to death in the middle of the street for nothing other than being a British soldier is bad enough. But then for the attackers to be able to make a video about it and wait around 20 minutes for the police to turn up is beyond belief. Shudder.

As to be expected, Facebook became the place to vent. It’s only natural I guess. My issue is that you get FRANKLY IDIOTIC people talking about complete and utter bollocks. Seriously. The amount of posts I saw stating they were up for going to march with the EDL. The amount I saw talking about p*ki cunts (laughable really since the attackers were actually black, of Nigerian descent but hey, what do I know?). I cleansed my friends list by quite a few. Most of them I’m not bothered about, but there was one that got me really angry.

A friend, or so I thought, who I’ve known for oooooh, I dunno. Maybe six years? She was the  girlfriend of The Ex’s best friend so we spent a lot of time together, even went on holiday together and split up with our respective partners within a matter of weeks of each other. We don’t see each other all the time, but she’s definitely someone I would have counted as someone I could go to if I needed to. In other words, a friend. She’d shared an update from a page called ‘ban islam.’ Bad enough in itself. This status was basically saying not to use any ‘muslim’ businesses and listed some, for example, taxi services, corner shops etc etc. It said we shouldn’t be so dumb as to give them our money. We should STARVE THEM OUT. In caps, just like that.

I asked if she was being serious. After all, for one, those businesses are not inherently muslim. It’s not like you can say that because a guy who runs a business looks like he could be from a predominantly muslim country and therefore we should boycott it and I said so. I gave her a chance. She replied, saying that to be fair, the status did say muslims (therefore my argument was invalid) and not everyone might agree. But she did. And that’s why she shared it.

This coming from someone who was happy enough to sit in a house, eating food, socialising with me and my MUSLIM ex. Fuck. That. Shit. I was angry but I just replied with ‘fair enough.’ She was deleted and blocked. Her contact details are gone from my phone. Drastic? I don’t think so. 

I’ve had enough of seeing racist, xenophobic, homophobic – everythingphobic – on my Facebook. I don’t need to see that kind of negativity. And I don’t want to. What makes me angry is that if I were to ask any of these people anything about politics or foreign policy, they wouldn’t be able to say fuck all. Interestingly enough, it was the military friends I have, some of whom have had multiple tours in Afghanistan and Iraq who were the ones speaking the most sense. One said that the kind of behaviour and rhetoric he was seeing on his Facebook from so called family and friends was not the reason he put his life on the line. He didn’t make the choice to protect and serve morons who can barely tell the difference between Europe and the Middle East.

I definitely wont be mourning the ‘friendships’ I’ve ended.

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An apology to Cots, Racism and…Eeek!

OK. I’m clearly a bit hyperactive. And perhaps a bit tipsy too. Let’s do this in stages.

1. So following on from my mini rant earlier, I need to make a public apology to Cots Girl. Because if WordPress wasn’t broken before it’s probably broken now. After speed reading, I’ve now caught up on what, a dozen posts? And commented on most of them. Oops. Sorry! And while we’re on the subject of WordPress things not working properly, I’d really like to have a notification on my mobile app when someone replies to a comment I’ve left on their post because a – it looks like I’m ignoring them and being rude, b – I forget to tick the little box at the end of the comment and c – I rarely ever log onto the site on my laptop. By which time, the comment’s been lost.

2. The reason for my hyperness. I just had a massive, ginormous rant on Facebook. Like, really bad. People don’t seem to realise when they like posts from pages, it shows up in the news feed and someone liked a fairly inconspicuous picture. Because I’m curious, I clicked onto the group page to see posts decreeing that I’m basically a barbarian because I’m a third generation immigrant and therefore responsible for all the murdering, burglary, shoplifting, raping, pillaging, unemployment, economical crises, NHS, scandals misjustice and probably all the road traffic accidents in England (some of these are me being sarcastic, I’m sure you can tell which ones). Well why don’t you just fuck right off and do us all a favour. Twat. So I had a huge, huge rant on my status and deleted her. Then she messaged me, apologising and saying it was a friend of hers who liked the photo which she then saw and liked too. She was horrified since she’s from a place which is renowned for being a hot bed of racism and quick to disassociate herself from it. To be fair, she handled it well. If it was me (which clearly it would never be), I’d have thrown a barrage of abuse from myself. Clearly a lesson to look more deeply into what you’re liking in Facebook land and I felt bad afterwards, but my message still stands. So my adrenaline is still pumping, hence the hyperactive jitteriness. Especially because all I could do was report the page which is probably pointless. I really wanted to comment on it and tell them I thought they were inbred, backwards and illiterate (think of people who spell lyk dis innit) but I didn’t. Because I now have a kind of business venture with a Facebook page and I have to be respectable kind of. And because it would be me against hundreds of mean horrible ogre racist types and I’d get so angry I’d probably self combust or have a hernia.

3. The eek? Well, I have some major news. But I can’t say what it is yet, mainly because Miss Yoyo will kill me if I tell you all before I tell her. After we’ve caught up over dinner tomorrow, I’ll spill.

Phew. And breathe.

Once you go black…

There’s a saying: once you go black, you don’t go back. But how true is it really?

I read a post on DatingPlanet’s blog today about black men who don’t date black women and I have to say, I was fascinated. For anyone who wants it, the post is here http://datingplanet.wordpress.com/2012/02/01/black-dating/

For me anyway, I couldn’t do anything other than shake my head at the stereotypes listed. I don’t identify with any of them and I’ve always been told I’m ‘white on the inside’. Whatever the hell that means. The idea that there are a group of men who actively stay away from a particular ethnic group is madness to me, particularly when they’re from that group themselves. To me, it’s just another form of racism.

I understand that people have their types. I’m no different. I’ve never dated a black guy, never even kissed one, but that doesn’t mean to say I never would. I like my men to be hard working, smart, independent, well dressed, respectful – all the good stuff. Doesn’t matter if he’s white, black, asian, whatever. I do admit that my head is more likely to turn when I see a hot white guy, but I’d never dismiss someone based on the colour of their skin. On the other hand, I know people who only go for black men. I remember overhearing a phone conversation on the train – a young girl, maybe 16/17 years old was talking to her friend who, obviously had just announced she was pregnant. When the girl said ‘aww, you’ll finally get a brown baby like you always wanted’ I couldn’t believe my ears.

Imagine if I said I’d never date a black guy because they’re all only interested in sex, will cheat, will run out on me if I get pregnant…people would go crazy. There is a stereotype of black girls, particularly in the US, that we’re all loud, full of attitude, high maintenance etc etc. Maybe it’s just me and my friends, but I couldn’t be more different. I’m probably the most accommodating girlfriend I know, I work hard, and yes I have attitude but only when it’s called for.

I guess what pissed me off about the post (not the blogger but the men who’d contributed to it) was that I’d hate to feel like there was a guy out there who’d dismiss me purely based on the colour of my skin. I live in the real world, I know racism is alive and well against all ethnic groups, but still. People are so much deeper than their skin colour. The saving grace is that men with these views aren’t worth the air I breathe and if there are guys out there who’d miss out on a good thing for something so stupid then good luck to them I say.