How to reduce ethno-religious groups to stereotypes and sleep well at night [An Excerpt]

A short guide for our multi-cultural society

Many of you may wonder why anyone would write a guide about a topic that by and large most frown upon. The reason is in a truly free society we should all be allowed to develop our skills and use them to foster understanding or at least pretend like we want to. But the fact of the matter is many of us just don’t care enough to spend time to learn about others. We take the easy way out by ordering ethnic food when we’re hungry and, with a straight face, tell our friends about it with the subtext being: “you see, I’m having burritos, I can’t be a racist”; or wish people happy Ramadan and Hanukkah while wishing we just had Christmas to contend with and not all these people with funny hats and razor shy faces (...) The idea is one can be ignorant, but still pretend to love others. Using stereotypes allows us to simulate knowledge and understanding of other cultures, albeit superficially. Here, we are going for optics, nothing else (...)

• Look at the most common traits in their gastronomy and apply it to all their food.

Sometimes tension may be neither ethnic or religious

We know that in many cultures there’s a vast variety of herbs, spices and vegetables used for nourishment. But do we really care? Of course not. Some of those spices smell weird and fill the hallways with odors no amount of Fabreze can get rid of. But we can’t say that to their faces, that would be insensitive and rude. Do you feel like vomiting at the sight of their side dish? No worries, just say you’re on a diet to avoid tasting raw crap on some other vomit looking substance with basil on top. To show your appreciation for their food, pick one item you like and side it with anything in your kitchen and call it ethnic (...) As an example, you should never be bothered with the great culture, civilization and history of Greece which nurtured such rich gastronomy. Just put feta on top of anything and call it Greek. 

• Pretend they have a proud history.

No matter who you talk to they will give you a long speech about the times gone by when they were a proud people, they greatest on earth until some half ass idiot brought their entire civilization to its knees. Don’t ask logical questions such as why was their amazing civilization brought down by a wimpy idiot if they were so great. Just play along and raise your eye brows as a sign of amazement and bewilderment. You can add words like “wow, I didn’t know that" (which for sure is true) and "what a pity" (which is not) for maximum effect (…)

• Act as if their language is beautiful:

You have probably lost count of the number of times you’ve listened to some unintelligible conversation in the subway or on the bus and you thought to yourself: "how on earth do these people understand this gibberish”, or, “what planet are these people from”. One of the rules of living in tolerant society is not to tolerate these thoughts going through your mind. If you feel guilty, go to your nearest Starbucks, order a flavoured coffee (preferably Mocha and non fat to avoid your ass getting wider), and pick up the latest literature on Kyoto agreement. This should cleanse you from the impure thoughts you had a bout the weird languages you heard on the public transit going to work. 

Once you feel ready, go back, find someone who speaks an unintelligible and weird language and say something like: “My God, your language sounds so beautiful! It’s like hearing two birds sing to each other (probably a crow, but don’t specify the type of bird in your mind), what language is that? Can you teach me some words?” Most likely the individual being asked will see right through you like a weatherman through the wind but will respond by teaching you a few profanities and tell you this is how they say hello, I love you. He’ll think you’re an idiot, and you’ll think “I can’t believe I am pretending to like this non-sense”. But the point is you’ve now learned to hide your true feelings with a smile and without spilling your flavoured drink (…)

• Pretend their civilization really contributed to arts and sciences:

OK, so here is one of the most critical and sensitive aspects of a multi-cultural society. By its very definition multi-cultural means that we celebrate what all cultures bring into the mix. But what if some of these cultures don’t bring in anything worth mentioning t? Is jerk chicken realty enough to be in included in the mix of great cultures contributing to the advancement of human civilization? What if some cultures, on a world scale, haven’t really been significant at all? What should you do?

First of all, you should purge yourself from such thoughts and go immediately to your local Starbucks for another flavored something and download the Kyoto agreement for a second reading ( refer to the previous bullet). Then, with a straight face listen to some ethnic dude explaining why if his culture hadn’t invented walking, Edison wouldn’t have discovered electricity. The point here is that we must pretend no one culture has contributed more to the advancement of civilization than any other. The fact that in reality this is completely false is utterly irrelevant. This is about your attitude, not facts, you views and not what really happened in history. Again, you should show complete amazement and surprise if the person mentions that the greatest artistic achievement of his culture has been banging their head against the wall. You should be as impressed as if you were witnessing the first landing on the moon (...)

• Look for the most obvious flaws and extend it to that entire population

This is really a very easy way of saying: “look, who you are and what you do is weird and I assume anybody else coming from where you have come from is also weird and does the things I don’t get”. Historically, we know that in many cases this is true (all middle-eastern women are hairy) and in some cases also true (all Scandinavian women are nymphomaniacs). But the fact remains we do not want to make things complicated. We’re just in need of quick analysis and we can’t be bothered with intricacies (...) 

Challenge Question:

Who is hairier?

[A] Middle eastern men

[B] Italian women

[C] A Scandinavian woman in a same sex partnership with a Middle eastern man

[D] Asian man

As you can tell one of the 4 answers is a giveaway to make it easier for you to go through the exercise (obviously D cannot be true)

(…)

Practice:

On your next trip to work take the subway and stand nearest ethnic looking person. Pay attention to what they are reading and whether you recognize the alphabet or characters. If you don’t, you have an opening. Ask a simple question like: what language is that? It looks really difficult. Continue with questions like: where are you from? Do you believe in polygamy? Spice the conversation with comments like: “I love spicy food”. If they tell you their food isn’t spicy, say something like: “oh, I meant food with a lot of spices in it not hot” (…)