"Whitey go home" and other charming Asian proverbs

As annoying as teaching in Japan ever got - and believe me it got plenty annoying - I never had to contend with this kind of crap.

Korea activists target foreign English teachers
A South Korea group uses the Internet and other means to track foreign teachers, in an effort to ferret out illegal or unsavory behavior. The teachers say they're victims of stalkers and rumors.

There are lots of anti-foreigner groups around in Japan, but they don't bother to get quite so focused as these numbskulls in Korea. Mostly they just ride around in big black buses with loudspeakers demanding the people of Japan "Venerate the Emperor and expel the barbarians".

And I'll be the first to admit that there is plenty of unsavory behaviour going on that is related to English conversation schools. Starting with the school management that rip off teachers left, right and center in complete violation of the labour laws (but since the Japanese court system could take ten years to process your claim - and foreign devils rarely win - you might as well just suck it up). Yes, there are teachers who sleep with students and do drugs and drink their brains out every night - almost as many as in the regular Japanese school system. And don't lets get started on the number of people who take English lessons as a way of meeting foreigners to date or the student who stalk teachers or the large number of complete wackos some school's sign up.
I used to work at a school that sold lessons on credit that had a neighbouring branch in a large building just one floor below a mental health clinic. Lots of people would get off the elevator on the wrong floor and the school friendly staff of attractive young men and women - always under pressure to make their sales quota - were more than happy to sign them up for a package of lessons and then send them to our branch. No, there is nothing like being trapped in a glass broom closet with a schizophrenic who is off his medication and want to show you his karate kata or a delusional manic depressive who can't decide whether she desperately wants to have sex with all the teachers (male and female) or thinks they are all harrassing her.
Add to that the special classes of students who are studying English just to have someone to talk to, or as therapy for some sort of antisocial disorder, or who are just plain kooky --- or my personal favorite: students who study English so they can complain about how nasty foreigners are screwing up the country to the foreigners in their own language.
Don't get me wrong, the nuts only make up about 10% of the students I had, and I had some absolutely fantastic students of all ages and backgrounds here in Tokyo, but I don't really miss teaching.
As for the South Korean Foreign Virtue Police, they can bite me.

Failure to study stereotypes endangers teen bigot

If this kid was any kind of really serious bigot, he'd have looked past the immediate stereotype of asian immigrants as studious bookworms and looked at the older "all those people know kung fu" stereotype or the even older "godless communists for whom human life has no value" stereotype or the even older "all those people are inscrutable opium-peddling crime lords" stereotypes and steered clear. What is our nation coming to when we can't we even educate our bigots in proper racial stereotyping? I blame multiCULTuralism and LIEbrals and OMIGOD there are ChiComs under the bed! It's Mao and Ho Chi Minh! I think Fu Manchu sent them! Run for your lives!AAAHHHHHHHHHHH!!!!


Huh? Wha...unhhhh..Where am I? What just happened?
Sorry, I think I was possessed by the spirit of Ezra Levant or Kathy Shaide or Miller Freeman or James Phelan or something for a moment there, I hope I didn't get any bile on you. Where was I? Oh yeah, the ignorant teen bigot who got pwned. I first learned of this story a few days ago and I can't say the subsequent release of further information has done much to change my opinion. The young Korean-Canadian boy should get some sort of medal for showing restraint and not hospitalizing the nitwit bully:

"He had heard his white classmate throw an angry racial slur in his direction after an argument during a gym class game of speedball, and now the student was shoving him backward, refusing to retract the smear.
The white student swung first, hitting the 15-year-old with a punch to the mouth.
The 15-year-old heard his father's voice running through his head: Fight only as a last resort, only in self-defence, only if given no choice, and only with the left hand.
His swing was short and compact, a left-handed dart that hit the white student square on the nose.
The nose broke under his fist, igniting a sequence of events - from arrest to suspension to possible expulsion - that has left the Asian student and his family wondering whether they are welcome in this small, rural and mostly white community north of Toronto, one that has been touched by anti-Asian attacks in the past."

And his schoolmates deserve the same for walking out in support when he was suspended over the incident.

On Monday, 400 of his fellow students, wearing black in solidarity and carrying signs of support, walked out of Keswick High School to rally in protest in front of their school.
Organizer Mathew Winch, a Grade 12 student, said the school has fewer than 10 Asian students, but everyone wanted to stand up against bullying and racism. The story even hit the front page of local newspapers.
After the public outcry, the York Regional Police hate crimes unit reopened the case. Although the other student has not been charged, further charges are possible, a spokesman said yesterday.

And grudging kudos to the York School Board for doing the right thing in the end, even if it took them awhile to get around to it and they were backed into a corner by the students of Keswick High School, their parents and the media. Let just hope the local crown prosecutor sees things the same way.

However, aside from the obvious appeal of the "bully-finds-out-the-hard-way-that-Clark-Kent-is-Superman" angle of the story, there was another aspect of it that caught my eye. This family of recent immigrants clearly understand Canada and the essentials of the Canadian ideal better than a few people around Keswick (and a lot of blogging tories).

The day after the fight, an older cousin of their son's antagonist approached him in the school cafeteria and uttered a similar slur, compounding their sense of despair.
"He said, 'You punched my cousin you Chinese fuck,' " the 15-year-old said. That student was overheard by a teacher and suspended.
His father explains that the easiest course would be to move somewhere else and get a fresh start for his son. But he can't do it.
"I don't want to run away. If another Asian kid comes to this school, what happens to him? Will he run into problems? Will they think they can just kick him out? I don't want to set that example," he said.
"Personally, for my kid, I should move. But as a Canadian I cannot move."

How's that for "Canadian" Raphael?

(quoted material taken from the Globe and Mail)

"Well I'm not prejudiced, but..."
Reasonable people can and do disagree on whether certain comments or actions are racist or sexist, but only some kind of complete dope would deny that certain things are explicitly racist or sexist. So if you are a conservative who does not think of yourself as a racist, who is appalled by the recent hijinks of the racist shitheads at F0x News thinks, you really have to ask yourself why you are associating with the some of your fellow Republican and Conservative travellers - and these are the official functions and elected politicians the parties have some control over, let's not even get started on the bloggers and loose-cannon pundits.
Take a look at the comments on this story for an example of what I'm talking about. I'm sure many of the people here --I'm looking at you Diane72, Superpants and Peapod-- would blithely tell you that they don't have a prejudiced bone in their body, but that they know for a fact that (insert ridiculous racist claim here).

Clowns for all seasons
St. Thomas More, the man for all seasons, was entirely correct when he said "The devil, that proud spirit, cannot endure to be mocked"
Not bad for a bunch of clowns. As there may be a problem with the link, here's the whole thing from Neatorama

Here’s an excellent example of pwnage: when the white supremacist group VNN Vanguard Nazi/KKK tried to host a hate rally in Knoxville, Tennessee, they were foiled by … clowns!

Unfortunately for [VNN] the 100th ARA (Anti Racist Action) clown block came and handed them their asses by making them appear like the asses they were.

Alex Linder the founder of VNN and the lead organizer of the rally kicked off events by rushing the clowns in a fit of rage, and was promptly arrested by 4 Knoxville police officers who dropped him to the ground when he resisted and dragged him off past the red shiny shoes of the clowns. http://www.volunteertv.com/home/headlines/7704982.html

“White Power!” the Nazi’s shouted, “White Flour?” the clowns yelled back running in circles throwing flour in the air and raising separate letters which spelt “White Flour”.

“White Power!” the Nazi’s angrily shouted once more, “White flowers?” the clowns cheers and threw white flowers in the air and danced about merrily.

“White Power!” the Nazi’s tried once again in a doomed and somewhat funny attempt to clarify their message, “ohhhhhh!” the clowns yelled “Tight Shower!” and held a solar shower in the air and all tried to crowd under to get clean as per the Klan’s directions.

At this point several of the Nazi’s and Klan members began clutching their hearts as if they were about to have a heart attack. Their beady eyes bulged, and the veins in their tiny narrow foreheads beat in rage. One last time they screamed “White Power!”

The clown women thought they finally understood what the Klan was trying to say. “Ohhhhh…” the women clowns said. “Now we understand…”, “WIFE POWER!” they lifted the letters up in the air, grabbed the nearest male clowns and lifted them in their arms and ran about merrily chanting “WIFE POWER! WIFE POWER! WIFE POWER!”

A hat tip to Cowboys for Social Responsibility, second home of the Ponoka police blotter.