Today I got into a heated argument with two women at work. One woman started to kvetch how America was a poor innocent victim and the terrorists were picking on us and we needed to stop being walked all over. We should be more forceful. This, of course, was incredibly offensive and a violation to my liberal ears. As we argued, I noticed that she was verbally dancing, she was Mohammed Ali, floating like a butterfly but failing to sting me like a bee. That's not quite true, she did sting me with her bigotry. Her bigotry against brown people. This was not the first conversation that she and I had engaged in where she was a bigot. She has said hateful things against South Asian people "I feel like a foreigner on my own country", things against the American Idol Fantasia "All of Africa must have voted for her" and against Jews, a group of which she is part of. This was the first time that the curtains of naivete parted and I saw the maliciousness behind her words. It wasn't just a generational gap, the archie bunker generation as I like to think of them. They are offensive but goodhearted underneath. This was mean. And scared. Fear of a brown planet.

The second woman tried to explain it to me. "You don't understand," She said simply, "If the Muslims take over, you won't have the priviledges that you have now." I wondered how it was that she thought the Muslims might take over, when the Christian Right Wing is doing such a fabulous job already in taking away my priviledges. What I realized was that as a white person, I am able to sneak undetected into these impromptu Klan rallies because it is assumed that because of the color of my skin I feel the same way that they do about the "other."

I was completely stumped as to how I am supposed to respond in these situations. I either fly into a rage and then storm off feeling nauseas or I remain quiet and feel guilty and sick that I didn't defend the oppressed. I spoke to a friend that does a bunch of work with the Theatre of the Oppressed, and she told me to do this for example:

A Sikh man leaves the office.

"Oh, I feel like I was in a taxi cab," Person A.

"Yeah, I feel like a foreigner in my own country," Person B.

Me: (Laughs) I don't get it. What do you mean?

By forcing them to explain it they will then be forced to admit their own prejudice out loud.

Person B: "Well, he was Indian. A lot of Taxi Drivers are Indian, get it?"

Me: No, but that seems kind of mean. It wouldn't be fair to say 'Wow, I suddenly felt like I was in Auschwitz' when a Jewish person leaves the office, would it?"

I think that would be a very different and effective way to turn a situation around without yelling "RACIST!" and running to the bathroom which has been my personal approach.

If any one has any other suggestions, please write me --- thescarletpaper@hotmail.com

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