[OT] What the hell is up with France?

Hey. It's been a while since I've posted something off-topic and inflammatory around here, so I figured I'd give this a go.

This is in regard to the situation over in France. I'll be honest: it confuses the hell out of me. I seriously don't get it. I figured that some of you European folk might illuminate the situation there and in Europe generally for me. (This is obviously not an invitation to start spewing acid social/political viewpoints; I mean, you can if you want (far be it from me to suggest otherwise), but all I'm after is information from the horse's mouth.)

As a member of a visible minority in Canada, I certainly can't say I've never experienced racism, but then again I've never been approached by the police, beaten or shot at, so at the same time I can't say I've been treated badly overall (at least on that score). So maybe lack of personal experience clouds my judgment. It doesn't help that as a Canadian child born to mid-'80s attitudes I've been raised with an incredibly tolerant world view.

I can honestly say that when I started Junior Kindergarten in 1989, I didn't see colour. The same goes for pretty much any other kid growing up in the multicultural smorgasbord that is Greater Toronto. The only thing you care about in that situation is whether a kid will play with you and play fair. That was the time: we all just ran around in our colourless microcosm, fighting with each other over toys and learning how to print the alphabet between the guidelines on those practice sheets the teacher handed out. Colour was nothing if you even noticed it, and chances are you didn't. I really miss those days.

Of course, a few years later, we learned about racism. At the same time, teachers qualified it as "bad", but that doesn't change the fact that they introduced us to this alien notion. This is around the time when parents of the Old Skool could get pissed off and teach you to hate people who have a different complexion than you since you're finally old enough to understand what hate is. Thankfully that was a minority of parents, whether of the visible majority or minority. But then there are all kinds of other sources to indoctrinate kids with bull***. Of course, more common than racism these days is sexism, classism, homophobia, all that crap, let alone the popularity contest that ensues in adolescence. I don't know what to think. Kids are on the right track and then when they hit about 7 or 8 years old everyone decides the time is right to poison them.

It's probably a good thing that teachers tell us all that stuff is bad, though; if they don't, nobody would, then we'd be exposed to it later and be utterly traumatized. I'm not kidding. If it weren't for the few people making an effort, discrimination would be a lot worse in Canada than it is. I'd been thinking lately that, even though it's nowhere near perfect, Canada has to be the best place in the world to live, and, frankly, at the moment I'm certain I'm right.

I don't know why I wrote all that... I was probably just venting. But this also sheds a little light on the way Canadians live. Hopefully that will help you understand why France's situation is so confusing to me.

For one, if anyone feels the need to run from police, then they deserve to die. Any politically correct folks who object to this sentiment can go off and love themselves. According to what I've heard and read, the police weren't chasing those two punks at all, and they certainly didn't shove them into the transformer station. And of all places to hide, really, a transformer station? (This includes a report I read from the Toronto Star. Let me tell you about the Star: among Toronto papers, it's what a Canadian might call the *** disturber. It's basically self-righteous, pseudo-Marxist hogwash, and even they say the police weren't chasing the kids.) What it comes down to for me is that these kids had done something that deserved to be punished. That's why they ran from the uninterested police. So they electrocuted themselves. All the jerks who are citing police racism or whatever are all just *** disturbers who have been waiting for an excuse to burn stuff. Those kids basically committed suicide.

But suppose for argument's sake that the fuzz really was on their asses. If you cooperate with the cops, then your chances of death in that situation basically drop to zero. I mean this is France; this is not a place where the corrupt police will just shoot you in the back of the head for no reason.

This whole thing is hauntingly reminiscent of the Timothy Thomas shooting in 2001 in Cincinnati, which I studied for a class in the winter term. Thomas saw one Officer Roach, who had him ID'd as a big bundle of outstanding warrants, and proceeded to flee. Roach pursued him for a while, calling in for backup but getting none. Thomas got himself caught in a dead-end alley, made an about-face, and (from Roach's viewpoint) reached to his waist. Roach calculated that he was reaching for a weapon and reacted, shooting Thomas in the chest once and killing him. His reaction was definitely hasty, given that it turned out Thomas was unarmed, and one wonders why the *** he didn't shoot the guy in the arm or leg instead, but Roach's stupidity is only worth so much blame. Thomas /did/ run, and it wasn't even the first time he had run from police. And what was he running for? Yes, there were fourteen warrants on him, but they were /all/ misdemeanours, no felonies. Running from cops implicates you immediately. It's just about the stupidest thing you can do. In the current case, there wasn't even a chase. These kids implicated themselves in some crime or other running from their own shadows, stupidly hiding in an electrical transformer and killing themselves, knocking out power to many hard-working utility customers. If there were a blackout suddenly and I found out that the cause was two punks running from a self-perceived police threat hiding in a box of electricity, I would be consummately pissed. If I were more low-brow I would relieve that piss on their graves.

But then again, maybe I just don't get it.

My understanding is that France and the rest of Europe are not particularly immigrant-friendly, what with their homogeneity and xenophobia. But if the minority in Europe is anything like the minority here, then the minority itself is just as much at fault for its own situation as anyone else. If they think the majority are snubbing them, then there's no way in hell that rioting is going to improve the perception. I'm sorry: lower-quality education is one thing, but riot ideology is simply the product of a blatantly stupid mind. To wish to improve a class's status by literally burning down the infrastructure of the country, the schools and hospitals and essentially the glue that keeps a progressive France a progressive France, just passes the bounds of stupidity.

What's worse is that the politically correct think that France had this coming. Bull***. PC is the biggest sham since the Holy Roman Empire. When somebody spouts PC rhetoric, it sets off the load-of alarm. I'll never call myself a "South Asian Canadian", and I'll never buy into riot ideology. Some Canadians will, but that's mostly because they're high on British Columbian wacky tobacky (which I understand is a fine product as contraband goes). Once the high wears off, the rioting stops. Canadians couldn't sustain rioting for weeks at a time.

Not that I'm saying Canadians are morally superior, but... we are. The only way you'll get us riled up and uninhibited is by getting us intoxicated first. Of course that's not hard to do, but that's beside the point.

Be aware as always that all this is gross generalization... gross, disgusting, absofrigginglutely filthy generalization. Most members of minorities I know, including North/East African immigrants, are fine individuals insofar as they don't go around blaming the White Man for all their problems, if they even have any problems of note since their lives are so great in Canada. My father is an exception to this, but he's a senile and unbalanced *** disturber so he's not worth considering.

Anyway, I forget what my point was so I'll leave this open to the floor. I want a better understanding of how society works in Europe so I can have a better understanding of why the hell the rioting has gone on so long. This whole thing is just too weird to grasp. But maybe I've got it right? I sure as hell hope not, because if I'm right then the human race is pretty much doomed.

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