All Things Patrick - Working Hard to be Lazy!

I pre-empt this mild & catatonic racial etc discussion and state I've had a glass of vodka and I'm an Aquarius. Yes I'm white, stupid, a complete ass, & I don't care if you're green or purple. If I say something that offends you I'm sorry. It's quite possible that I'm vodka challenged at the moment and can't quite phrase what I meant correctly. Please give me the benefit of the doubt and realize I simply put my foot in my mouth due to vodka and not because I purposefully meant some insult...

Tonight I met parents, sis, niece, nephew, & a friend of my sister's at the NAIA men's basketball game. My dad has been volunteering the last couple of years so I've been able to go and it's 1 of the few opportunities I find myself where I feel like I'm definitely in a crowd that somewhat matches generic population statistics for the Kansas City area. It's somewhat statistically annoying that due to statistics most groupings I deal with are overly small; mostly white or at least our groupings are advanced and I've not noticed specifically *racial* bias; & mostly male. I don't tolerate sincere hatred, but my assumption is you're joking about a French "truth" and you'll laugh about the Irish "truth" they'll throw back in your face... Yes, I'm Irish and French. Or more definitively Celtic & Germanic (the assumption is Irish & French, long stories). If I know it's on purpose I will either go off on you or spread my displeasure about your rude comments to every person I come across and hope karma bites you in the ass.

My niece & nephew were all kinds of cute tonight drawing all sorts of helpful information. I honestly hope it was sincerely due to the fact that they're kids & had nothing to do with skin color of either parents or children. A few that I've seen before were true & consistent to how I've seen them react to people before which I appreciate. I only hope the same is true with others I did not recognize tonight & I give them the benefit of the doubt as they were mostly volunteers. Yes, I recognize people in the ticket booths, at the doors checking tickets, and even the various helpful people in hallways and entrances helping people find a seat. This is mostly subconscious and I couldn't describe them, but I definitely recognize them a year later at the next NAIA conference. Even if they actually hate something they have enough courtesy to leave it at home and not bring it to the conference.

I find the contrast between my sister and brother-in-law and my neice and nephew interesting, funny, and a blessing in so many ways. They had to adopt and Russia and China closed on them, but Africa opened. My sister and brother-in-law provide a strange and interesting contrast to the historically "typical" southerner which I hope becomes closer to the norm rather than staying the exception. I don't want to bring much more attention to them than they already have with various things they've posted online. I just want to state that I'm glad that so far my worst fears have not surfaced and I hope the weird contrast of personalities continues, but keeps them together. Cheerleader, motorcyclist, artistic talker, and trains! (think squirrel!) should all be able to exist together.

This bias thing... It's 1 of those things I typically don't notice or assume is a personal bias of something rather than jumping on the $issue train. I'm an Aquarius, preferably friends with everybody... why can't we all get along? However, I do have biases based on people who have caused me security issues. Issues with people with a notable quality being a hair style & definitely others I'm not consciously aware of or have an immediate example of cause me pause. Even if I'm not familiar with the person I'm currently dealing with if they have something similar to something notable somebody else that I'm leery of has I will probably be biased against them.

Wow, that wasn't complex or anything at all. Example time?

A friend of mine's current wife... When he initially asked me what I thought of her she had a particular hair style that exactly matched a hair style I was overly biased against. I couldn't believe it when he pointed her out as the person he was interested in. I flat out told him he was nuts & I didn't like her. I also told him it was because of her hair style and a particular woman I had known that had had that exact same hair style had been very bad news...

It was a good thing he didn't listen to me... A short while later she'd changed hair style and other than the lingering feeling due to the previous hair style I noticed her for who she was. Several years later they're married & we're all friends.

Funny thing is I just see him as a friend. Another guy trying to make it through life. Every once in a while when I'm feeling weird or awkward he points out the fact that he's actually a minority, but he doesn't feel that way. Sure, he states that he feels safer walking down certain streets that I'm terrified of walking down specifically because I'm a white male... But I'm not sure if that's because he is a minority (after pointing that out) or if he's just giving me a bad time. Please note that I have no clue who actually lives on or near said streets, I just know there's been gang activity consistently reported in those areas.

I brought a woman into this... As I have various biases maybe I should bring up sexism vs bias, but... I already touched this slightly with a previous facebook post/response on a recent issue from github. Short version - reminds me of some crap I've encountered; spouse aggro; & anger due to rebuttal of an expression of love from a douche... Granted, I wasn't there. I didn't sit through hostile meetings. The way the article that I read stated what happened simply reminds me of various hostile working environments that I've been in or near. Can I wave the flag of sexism? No, I'm a white male asshole... But like I said, I didn't sit through the hostile meetings. Maybe they called her all sorts of sexist names?

Back to "racism"... I could be an ass and go through a specific list of friends that fall into minority groups hoping to assuage my inadequacies due to the massive number of white male friends, but statistics are against me... So yes, the majority of my friends over the years have been white and male. So too have the majority of assholes that have made my life a living hell been white and male. Yay statistics.

I like hanging out with at least halfway intelligent and wise people (I hate intellectuals with a passion) as well as people that share various passions of mine - computers, programming, space, comic books, science fiction, etc. I tend to keep to myself, but sometimes I make noise throwing mud on the wall to see what will stick. Sometimes I'm ignored, sometimes they deign to make noise in my general direction, and rarely it sticks and becomes a long friendship.

Lately I've been commenting on how the LGBTQIA community drives me nuts. It's not necessarily that I'm anti-whatever, but more that I'm sick of hearing complaints about the wrong kind of rights or whatever. Ziauddin Yousafzai's TED talk about his daughter is more in line with what makes me furious. On the LGBTQIA side, hey, backwoods lunatics - stop beating up people because whatever your brain dead, close minded, crazy mentality is saying gives you the right to beat people that make you feel inferior. There are already laws on the books about beating people (at least here in the States) - it's wrong. Enforce the fucking laws that already exist. As to marriage? I think that's simply kludging the system and instead we need toss out the old & bring in the new. Why the hell is insurance based on whether you're married or not? Fuck that. Fix the shitty system, stop kludging it. With each new kludge it simply makes the system more of a monolithic pile of shit nobody wants to touch because it might collapse like the dung heap it is.

True and honest racism, sexism, whatever annoys the hell out of me. You have the right to be disgusted with purple pants & flamingo pink hair, you don't have the right to beat the crap out of the person wearing it, make rude & hurtful comments in front of them, etc. Then again I live in an alternate dimension of the future that typically exists in the realm of internet obscurity and anonymity. I don't care if you're green (yes, Star Trek reference) or purple. I do care when you bring something relevant, intelligent, or funny to the IRC conversation.

Yes, I'm human. I have biases... I don't like certain noses, hair styles, odors, voice pitches, etc. Does that make me racist, sexist, genderist, whatever? Or simply human?