I headed to my beloved 15 minute break at work. (If you work a six hour shift you get a 15, if you work an eight hour shift you get a 15 AND a 30!!) As I arrive in the break room, which has an overwhelming stench of dying orchids, because for some reason they decided to dump all the extras in the break room as an incentive for employees to buy them. It was a terrible incentive in that my only urge to buy them came from the strong desire to remove them from the room so I could enjoy my coconut choc-chip cliff bar without a massive headache. No such luck.
However I did manage to tack myself on to the end of a conversation between a woman on the phone and her friend. I'll briefly add that if you don't want people doing this with their phone conversations, take it outside or perhaps even use your inside voice. This lady was being rather loud, not that it bothered me because it didn't, but the conversation needed a reality check. One that I was all too happy to provide. It went something like this:
The lady is talking on the phone to her friend, as I have stated, she is talking about the recent bill pushed through congress about detaining Americans indefinitely without trial. Something I happen to be a bit scared of myself, I suppose reading up on it would be a wise choice, but I digress. She then proceeds to tell her friend that this was what she was reading about in her Bible, but surprisingly was reluctant to give a more precise reference. She then told her friend that it is the end times and that Obama is to blame. She told her friend to "look it up", and that it would be listed under "Marshall's Law." I'm pretty sure she meant Martial Law, but who am I to judge? She then said that "Marshall's Law" was just a way for white people to kill black people and get away with it. (She is black. I am not) I'll copy and paste that again for the sake of blatant redundancy.
She then said that [the new congress bill] was just a way for white people to kill black people and get away with it.
This was the exact moment that I made myself a part of the conversation. You may think that it's none of my business and that I should stay out of such trivial affairs. And you would be correct, I should have. But I couldn't. I draw the line at people talking obnoxiously loud that white people only want to kill black people and will use any means necessary to do so. I was baffled. Here I am, a white guy, and I didn't want to kill anyone, much less the person sitting in front me spitting out anti-white malarkey.
She then justified this accusation by stating that it "makes sense" because the world population is out of control at "something like 70-80 billion people." She said the world population was "70-80 billion." Her margin of error was OVER THE AMOUNT OF PEOPLE THERE ACTUALLY ARE. And I really hate using caps lock.. or holding down Shift, whatever.
Not wanting to start an argument over such a horrid mistake, I told her that I was not sure about that. I politely suggested she google that when she got home, for the love of God, please google "world population" when you get home. I said I was pretty certain the world was around 6.5 billion at then end of 2010. She insisted I was wrong. I said "maybe I am, but you should definitely google it."
I have so little words at this point. I really can't believe a person will suggest to their friend to look something up online to further understand a topic you might not know so much about; and in the same minute insisting she is right on a well-known fact, and when I suggest she do the same, (google it!) she just wants to argue and makes it clear she already knows. Why...what.. who are you? Why are you doing this? I understand that the latest bit of political jargon you heard about on CNN is rather reminiscent of 1984. But, damn. Seriously?
Flip this entire scenario around. Put me in that room talking loudly to one of my white friends and put an unsuspecting black person in the room. Then make the words "black people only want to kill white people," come out of my mouth. Which would be very hard considering I try my utmost not to let generalized, borderline-racist garbage like that escape my lips, but for the sake of this hypothetical, let's assume I do say that. The aftermath of this event would be ridiculous. I would get my ass beaten and if that person goes to management, I would be fired. Immediately. I have no desire for this person to be fired, so don't misunderstand me. We are very friendly with one another and after our chat, we were saying "goodbye" and "have a nice day" and all that. It isn't my place to bring my personal feelings into where I work. That is why I only politely suggested she check her facts and not yell in her face, "You are seriously effed up in your head. You really are racist against white people if you honestly believe that. And your shot-in-the-dark on the world population was the worst guess I have ever witnessed. If that guess was on The Price is Right, it would have given Bob Barker a heart attack on the spot."
But I didn't say that. I just smiled and thought "this is so going on my blog later."
