Of curls and culture

[Tabouli]

(the salad bravely attempts to plait together three disparate threads...)

Charis Julia:
> I've got a friend who has one of the reddest heads of hair ever 
possessed by man.<

Red hair and corkscrew curls (misty sigh).  Glorious, both of them.  That said, both red hair and corkscrew curls are assets which the bearer almost *inevitably* loathes, at least as a child.

Take the man with the most beautiful head of hair I have yet witnessed.  Oh, but it was beautiful.  Beautiful!  Thick straight silky deep red hair you could drown in.  Not a hint of baldness in his mid-thirties despite a thoroughly disreputable lifestyle.  He claimed that despite rumours about the prevalence of redheads in Scotland (where he grew up), it immediately marked him out at school, earned him countless "Gingers" and "Carrots" and sundry other vegetable goods (er... Radish?  Persimmon?  Pumpkin?).  He *hated* it.  Until, of course, he reached his mid-teens and discovered that women thought it was gorgeous, whereupon he became very vain about it and started grooming and preening it carefully.  Well worth the effort, I say.

The same man, always one for Scottish Pride, declared Scotland a comparatively racism-free zone.  He claimed that there are indeed many immigrants in Scotland, but that they're tolerated until they've developed an Scottish accent and then embraced as their own.  I was sceptical, but he was adamant.  "We Scots know who our enemies are, and they're not the immigrants from Pakistan or Kenya or Hong Kong.  They're the *English*."

Any Scottish comments?

Petra Pan:
> Y'know, on the one hand, public 
displays of prejudice appall me.  
But OTOH, driving the bigots 
underground only hides such 
tendencies, which is surely more 
insidious.<
>
> The question of how a society can 
nudge bigots into shedding 
prejudices without triggering the 
defense mechanism and the digging 
in of heels has no easy answers<

Aha and oho!  This is both my profession (cross-cultural training) and the very topic of my detested but blessedly finished postgrad degree.  I'm inclined to agree that gagging bigots, while cosmetically effective in the short term at reducing overt prejudice (which is good in itself), just creates silent resentful bigots.  I'd rather reform people than gag them.  Not an easy task, as you say, but not triggering the defence mechanism is, in my experience, absolutely *CRUCIAL*.

The problem with a lot of campaigning against prejudice is not the message, or the intention.  Both are (usually) great.  The problem is with the *marketing*.  I've seen so many depressing "cultural diversity" sessions where the presenter gets up and starts a sermon telling people that they are Prejudiced Without Knowing It by virtue of being members of the majority culture, and illustrates this point with ten case studies of hidden prejudice caused by people like them which caused terrible suffering, and then hits them with a long list of ambiguous rules and terms which must be followed to the letter lest the wrath of the Discrimination Act fall upon their heads.

 I mean, sure, the well-meaning converted may listen earnestly and earnestly do their best.  But how many prejudiced political correctness-rejecting cynics are you going to convert like this?  Start by attacking them and their culture and the behaviour they consider reasonable and normal, attempt to blackmail them with emotional appeals and then threaten them with litigation if they fail to follow rules they consider confusing and intrusive and pointless... honestly!  If anything, this will *increase* their prejudice!

Sigh.

Sometimes, though, the answers *can* be quite easy.  Take the workshop I ran today, for example.  In it, I briefly mentioned the way English speakers use indirect phrasing and complex grammar to phrase things politely (e.g. "I was wondering whether you could possibly lend me a book?" versus "I want your book."), and explained that most East Asian languages do not do this.  Instead, the politeness is often built into the pronouns and verbs, and the phrasing is quite direct and simple.  Hence international students from some Asian countries speaking English as a second language can come across as very abrupt, because they are translating directly from their own, direct language and losing their "politeness coding", without knowing how to use the complex politeness coding used in English (with its tricky tenses and question forms and so on).

In the tea break, a woman from the workshop came rushing up to me and told me that just telling her that made her view her interactions with students in a completely different light.  She'd always disliked dealing with Asian students, because she found them abrupt and rude and demanding.  Had often snapped back that they should show a little more courtesy, etc.  Now, understanding that this was probably a language issue not a courtesy, she felt guilty about her prejudices and vowed to be more tolerant in future (I suggested that she also try to model appropriate English for her students where possible and, if they were coming across really badly, to take them aside if she had time and explain how to ask for things politely and effectively in an English speaking country.  Or send 'em to my workshops on Australian culture for new international students so I could teach 'em :D).

OK, so perhaps not a great triumph over prejudice, but a nudge, I feel.

Tabouli.


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