:: Wog Blog ::

:: WHAT AM I THINKING ABOUT? ::

:: Friday, 22 May 2009 ::

O. Mo. Go. Ocarnbuhleevi.

UPDATE: O. Mo. Go. Oshouldnabuhleevedi.

She made the whole thing up for fun cos she's a camera happy bogan from the Northern Beaches and she didn't mean anything by it, not even the 'wog' thing. Clare reckons that it just isn't the bad word it used to be - 'wog' - and it can't be a bad word if you're proud of your background. She's proud to be a bogan. I'm proud to wog. Okay then. No racism here - just a media hungry girlie who wasted police time, media time and my time. Whatever. And a wog did get shot - question is, was the shooter a wog too?

If anything's gonna get this wog out of self-imposed semi-kinda-retirement, it's matters of wogdom. And sure nuff, there's wogness in the news of late. All care of a nice teen (with a wog name, good girlie) who witnessed a horrible shooting in Kings Cross. Perpetrated by a wog. Upon. Another. Wog.

She's asked the basic question: 'Wha'ppen?"

And in reply she goes: "There was these two wogs fighting ....fat wog (shooter) ... skinny wog (shot) ..." and she does accents quoting the shooter and the shot fellow.

She had the decency to observe the shooter and the shot fellow and to bother to identify them publicly. Community minded, is what it was. She had the decency to identify correctly and properly that they would not be found amongst the skippy population of the Cross that night/early morning. I guess she could have said "there were these two non-skippies fighting" but quite frankly, that's hardly gonna help in finding the shooter now, is it? Mebbe she coulda said "there were these two guys fighting' but, in the Cross, what on earth would be the point? It's the Cross fer pity's sake. There's always some guys fighting.

Now, a lotta nice folks, many of them skips, are outraged on behalf of wogs that this teen dared use the word 'wog' in her descriptions of a shooting in Kings Cross perpetrated by a wog. They go "she's racist". Whoa, kemosabe, they were wogs. Since when is it 'racist' just to notice that? What, are we all living in some skippy whitebread Star Trek "why can't we be friends?" wonderland where everybody sounds and acts all the same? If we are, youse can shove it. I like the difference. Wogs. And skips.

They go "wog is a bad word, just as bad as 'n*gg*r' ". Zif. To think that, you gotta have no clue just how bad black people had it in the States and elsewhere under slavery and segregation. Wogs got called 'wog' a lot by skips, overlooked for jobs, excluded from clubs, but hello, none of us got lynched. And we all made the wine anyway so, soon as we start that up, sure nuff, along come the skips for a taste Everybody gets along.

If it was me done the witnessing, I'da said exactly what she said (my accent woulda bin better, but, natch). In fact I witnessed the culmination of a car chase, car driven at serious speed through (I shit you not - through) the trees in the median strip of a busy road, into footpath, driver takes a sec then gets out and starts running. I stopped to help the coppers out and when asked to describe the driver I go 'wog'. The copper goes "Leb wog or, like Greek wog?" I go "Leb. The hair". Raaacist, right? Gi. Fa. Accurate. Helpful.

It's not racist to notice persons of a race doing something. It's just noticing them doing things - that's all it is. Bothering to notice someone's difference and how they do things acknowledges their identity and their behaviour. Crediting them as human beings who do things, people with memory, culture, background, habits, recipes, songs etc etc is a good thing to acknowledge your fellow man. Noticing. Good behaviour and the bad. For better or worse. Mostly it's for better. Ignoring who someone is is surely worse.

Martin Luther King Junior. A big fat black Yank philanderer - I'm just noticing - who hit upon a universal truth and expressed it exceptionally beautifully- judge people by the content of their character, not their [race]. Bravo Martin.

Judge.

He never said nothing about stopping noticing race, but.

Real racism is in the judging. In judging certain wogs to be of one stripe and a lousy and unchangeable stripe at that - all greedy, all shifty, all chauvanistic, all self-pitying, all bad tempered, all the time, all living in stuccoed columned monumental villas of appalling gilt-edged baroque horribleness, and never crediting they could ever be civil and behave well. And real racism includes the do-gooders who judge certain wogs to be weak and in need of assistance against epiphets like 'wog'.

It's not racism to notice some wog's behaviour. It's the right thing to do. To notice everyone's behaviour. It's fair.

I could go on and on about this, natch, but nevermind. Here's a test peeps. Be careful now. You laff at this? You might be raaacist!

(God, I posted this in 2002 - man, I bin blogging a long time! Anyhoo I digress. Got it in an email from a skippy friend, comedian. His business is noticing. I've never found the true author - if I do I'll credit him or her, cos this really is genius.)
:: WB 4:46 am [link+] ::