I haven’t been giving the site my usual level of care and feeding lately because my days have been occupied with an extensive consulting job (extensive = 9 to 5 daily plus two weekends so far.)

The experience has provided me with more than cash. There’s also an insight into what I guess is… my own naïveté.

Example: broadband was installed at the site last week by a Jamaican-born part-time D.J. He took a bit of a fancy to one of the workers there and asked me to pass on his number. I did so (with reservations; matchmaker is not my forté) and her only comment was “what is it with black guys and fat chicks?”

While a definitely stereotypical comment, that’s relatively harmless. But then her sister (who also works there) got wind of it. She hadn’t really seen the installer, so as she tried to recall him, she said: “Wasn’t he a nigger?”

For once, I was speechless. I honestly didn’t think anyone actually used that word anymore — I know it’s been years since it was spoken (maliciously) in my presence. So I expressed my disapproval to the woman.

Later, her sister backed up her usage, offering some sort of explanation that included an observation that “there’s black people, like the black business people, and then there’s niggers.” She went on to equate the phrase with “white trash” and then said “Yeah, I’m prejudiced” in a manner that can only be described as nonchalant .

All I could think was: what the fuck parallel universe am I on?

This entry was posted on Monday, February 17th, 2003 at 11:35 pm and is filed under Miscellany.. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. Both comments and pings are currently closed.