by Elessar » Sat Mar 04, 2017 5:08 pm
Context.
The context is a nation with a rapidly growing number of hate crimes against minorities, and a world in which there is an ongoing humanitarian crisis relating to people (who would be a minority in the UK) fleeing their homes, literally fearing for their lives.
The context is a white male anouncing his opinion that anyone who wants to enter this country should share his own set of morals (which, incidentally, his fellow citizens do not all share), and if they don't, they can "fuck off".
These morals, he says, are tolerance towards all sexualities, genders and races. The context of those morals are that this country only legalised gay marriage in 2014, still has a gender pay gap of 18%, and has seen a rise in racially-motivated hate crimes of 41% in the last 12 months.
So in a nation with ongoing problems of homophobia, sexism and racism, this white male wants people who are fleeing war-torn nations for their lives to adopt his own particular set of morals, which his country doesn't share, and if they don't, he would like them to "fuck off". To put their own morals into context, many will have held them since birth, and due to their upbringing and education and through no fault of their own, they may be quite firmly held. Until recently they had no intention of ever leaving their homes, but now they have no choice. And not only do they need to keep this white male happy to avoid being told to "fuck off", but there are hundreds of thousands of other white men (and women, and men and women of other ethnicities), all with their own expectations and conditions that they expect these people to adhere to.
So there's the context.
People fleeing their war-torn homes, being told to "fuck off" because they cannot live up to an ideal that many of the current inhabitants of this country can't live up to, and which even the law itself didn't support until 3 years ago.
How important is THEIR 'life experience' in this context? And what's more important right now: Standing up for them, or standing up against 'political correctness'?
Personally, I dislike a lot of Islamic culture, and find the burkha distasteful and offensive, I find their beliefs laughable and I find their attitude towards Western values concerning. And I would rather have thousands of them here, annoying me, than have them in their home countries, being killed. Because my morals, as dearly as I hold them, fall into complete irrelevance when people are dying overseas. And the same goes for my safety. The chances of being killed by a terrorist in the UK is roughly 1-in-9.3million. I would happily see my own chances go up to 1-in-1million if it saves thousands of others from certain death.
And I don't think anyone can disagree with any of what I've said unless they believe that their life is more important than thousands of others. And if that's not because of their race, then fine, they're not racist. But they're still selfish monsters, and in my opinion that's just as bad.