Don’t Oppress My People With Your Norms Of Punctuality
From Tulane University, the very heart of White Devil Babylon – uptown New Orleans – student Shahamat Uddin – pronouns “he, him, his” – howls in protest:
Punctuality centres whiteness. It is far easier for white men to get to work on time than Black people who are having to change their hair to fit the workplace’s professionalism standards.
It’s a hair thing, yes, and therefore terribly political, a hill to die on. But it’s even more than that. It’s also the devastating suspicion that you might be more likely to get hired if you remove your nose piercing, if only during office hours:
I remember the cultural pride I felt when I got my gold studded nose piercing, admiring my ancestors who donned the same kind of jewellery. I take it out now because I know I need a job, and I have learned from the Brown and Black people before me what I have to sacrifice to get one.
You see, wondering whether that nose piercing will be frowned upon, by employers or their customers, constitutes “systemic white supremacy,” a crushing phenomenon “that is barring us from maximal success.” It’s a “sacrifice,” an outrage, proof of being downtrodden. Because nose jewellery is pivotal to both optimal functioning and mental wellbeing. And questions of whether such piercings are ideal for a given workplace – however unspecified and theoretical those questions may be – amount to further, damning proof that “this country was not made for me.”
I have learned when and where it is to my own disadvantage to be too Brown or too gay or too immigrant.
One more time, Tulane University. Where tuition is a mere $60,000 a year. And where the oppressed huddle for comfort against the Cold Winds of Whiteness.
Western business professionalism is rooted in white supremacy. The practice of professionalism is shaped to advance the careers of white, straight, married men.
You see,
The 40-hour work week was built to allow white men to succeed at work while their wives would care for all of the family’s child and home responsibilities. The reason “coloured people time” exists is because non-Western cultures tend to have more polychronic work environments, and there is a different prioritisation of family and relationships over capitalist productivity and work demands.
Which is obviously what every employer wants to hear. And pay for. Every month.
A “polychronic” culture, since you ask, is one in which chatting and distractions are both commonplace and encouraged, and in which “issues such as promptness,” and reliability and productivity, are not prioritised. As favoured in, say, sub-Saharan Africa, that engine of civilisational blossoming and human betterment.
And if such indignities are insufficient,
Interviewers would much rather listen to the stories of my parents’ immigration struggle coming from Bangladesh than the time I organised all the people of colour in my organisation to fight back against our racist boss.
The details of this alleged racism – mentioned twice, rather proudly – are left somewhat unclear, indeed entirely mysterious, but you can imagine how such recollections would be catnip for employers. Employers who will likewise be impressed by a state of exquisite moral enlightenment in which injustice is measured in nose piercings and the cruelties of being expected to arrive for work on time.
And let’s not forget this one.
The Winds of Whiteness
— a novel by Herman Woke.
“How long oh Lord, how long will we suffer like this? Let my people go!”
– Well, your boss DID let one of your people go… { – sorry – couldn’t resist; I’ll show myself out.}
The Winds of Whiteness
— a novel by Herman Woke
I thought it was a song by Paul Sermon
I don’t mean to imply that the topic is taboo here.
I thought so. And I wasn’t making a race-based observation in re London vs. Pakistan. It’s more that living near the equator takes a lot out of you during the day. Even a Bangladesh native can tell that he was much more productive in cooler weather.
It’s more that living near the equator takes a lot out of you during the day.
Sounds like a cop out. Hot and sticky Singapore has a culture of hard work and punctuality.
Sounds like a cop out. Hot and sticky Singapore has a culture of hard work and punctuality.
Disparities are stubborn things.
It’s more that living near the equator takes a lot out of you during the day.
And living near the poles, what with their long winter nights, gives you depression and turns you into an alcoholic. Somehow this doesn’t affect Santa. Some of his helpers however…
I thought so.
Not entirely unrelated, an interview with Charles Murray.
…as if being black or gay or whatever were the most important and interesting thing about a person…
This always gets my goat. (Apologies if I’m repeating a previous rant.) I have queer friends who are lovely and interesting people. They travel, they play musical instruments, they have cute kids and lovely homes where we get together for dinners.
There are other people I know who are Queer, and that’s it — full stop. They have no interesting stories, no interesting hobbies, no amusing holiday snapshots. They’re just queer. And brother, if your orientation is the only “interesting” thing about you, I’m sorry to have to tell you that you’re simply a crashing bore (or boor; take your pick!).
It’s one of those things that I have to remind myself of regularly: the people we make fun of here are not exemplars of their identity group. (I don’t even like thinking in terms of identity groups.) They’re usually individuals who are damaged in some fashion, and deeply unhappy, and because they belong to some particular demographic they’ve decided to blame their issues and their unhappiness on The World’s terrible bigotry toward whatever trait they’ve decided is central to their sense of self.
It might be tragic, if only these people weren’t so annoying and destructive.
Hot and sticky Singapore has a culture of hard work and punctuality.
Ah – but did they develop this culture from Chinese immigration or from their British Colonial Masters? /sarc
In both Sri Lanka and Malyasia there are certain ethnic groups (cultures?) that are industrious and punctual and who do well economically compared to other ethnic groups in those countries who aren’t as industrious and who tend to be poorer economically. This has caused some strife – in Sri Lanka, violent civil war – and yet if I am not mistaken, all groups involved are some variation of light to very dark “Brown”.
This idea that only white people or westerners can be hard working and punctual is an insult to the Chinese and Japanese and other Asian cultures that have historically prided themselves on these values. And quite forcefully sometimes!
if your orientation is the only “interesting” thing about you, I’m sorry to have to tell you that you’re simply a crashing bore
As I said regarding the professionally oppressed Anthony Oliveira,
It does seem rather neotenous, like an off-the-peg identity clung to by people who suspect, not without cause, that they might otherwise be uninteresting. As if being gay or whatever were some kind of accomplishment, a feat, something to applaud or be fascinated by, over and over again. But I somehow doubt that pretentious identitarian victimhood is something that will age well.
Hey, I hate 40-hour workweeks too — but that’s probably because I probably have some degree of chronic fatigue syndrome, and I think it affects my work performance. That, and I’d rather spend time working on mathematics, and every hour I spend making money to support my family is an hour less that I can research weird mathematics and computer science ideas.
Clearly, this is the work of the Anti-Math and Anti-Fatigue Patriarchy!
This idea that only white people or westerners can be hard working and punctual is an insult to the Chinese and Japanese and other Asian cultures that have historically prided themselves on these values.
It is a reflection of Liberal America’s spectacular ignorance about the rest of the world.
I probably have some degree of chronic fatigue syndrome, and I think it affects my work performance. That, and I’d rather spend time working on mathematics
Doing stuff you don’t want to do is tiring…
I probably have some degree of chronic fatigue syndrome…
I have some degree of chronic near retirement age syndrome. 🙂
Doing stuff you don’t want to do is tiring…
But we moderns are pretty damn lucky: most of us have jobs doing stuff we don’t want to do or don’t want to do for 40-60 hours per week, but we’re vastly better off than our ancestors who had to work so much harder often at jobs that might wear out our bodies by middle age and might even kill us.
…we’re vastly better off than our ancestors…
I recall being told, repeatedly, by anthropologists that our hunter-gatherer forebears lived an idyllic existence. The word ‘idyllic’ had evidently undergone a semantic shift at some point, as many of the ethnographies of hunter-gatherers I read described peoples who entered middle-age at 25 and whose women became crones at 40, often widowed by their mates suffering accidents or murder.
Funny things, words.
The word ‘idyllic’ had evidently undergone a semantic shift at some point, as many of the ethnographies of hunter-gatherers I read described peoples who entered middle-age at 25 and whose women became crones at 40, often widowed by their mates suffering accidents or murder.
Ah, but consider that they didn’t waste so much time bathing or brushing their teeth or going to the dentist. And they didn’t have corporate advertising to tell them how bad they smelled. So, you know, paradise.