It’s Not Racist To Want A Better Job

But the Victim Creation Committee might call it a microaggression

Good news!

You know I said I’m the wife of an Uber driver… well, not anymore!

My husband’s found a real job and it’s time to celebrate with a spa day for the pets and a new hair-do for me. Hello, high life!

He’s driven around 3000 people since he became a driver in Summer 2020. He’s talked to more people in a year than I have in my entire existence (past lives not included because I don’t remember if I was popular in any of them.)

Some of his passengers were the hussies, drunks and racists I’d been worried about.

But most were the same old strangers me and you walk past every day: a motley collection of colours, intellects, socio-economic classes, cultures, cross-cultures and religions.

He says the job was always more about avoiding traffic fines, accidents and vomity-types.

Someone called me a micro-aggressive racist

When I told my friends my husband’s got a real job, one said I’m being micro-aggressive and racist to Uber drivers because I’m implying what they do isn’t real because Uber drivers are mostly non-white immigrants and it’s not their fault they can’t get a realllll….. oh, she faded out the rest of the sentence… lol

Microaggression’s the latest way to make sure people still have lots of things to fight about.

Twitter’s always a good place to educate oneself about the latest bandwagon. Look what I found:

Microaggressions are dangerous and can cause serious harm

— says a Social Justice account on Twitter

Here’s the picture they posted to out the terrible dangers.

If this is true, I’m a proper micro-aggressive little harlot. My badassery has dipped a toe into every one of these bubbles:

• I’ve asked a Colm why he pronounces Colin with an “m” — he didn’t even try to get me fired because somehow he understood I wasn’t being an arse.
• I always leave my coat in the car when I visit my aunt otherwise it soaks up the smell of her curries and no-one will sit next to me on the train (she doesn’t know I do this — see what a subversive racist badass I am?)
• I organised a social at a pub and we all sat in the beer garden and if there had been any non-drinkers around, they’d have knocked back the water (unless they were adventurous and then they’d have lashed the mocktails.) That pub does the best lamb shank, by the way.
• Sometimes (often) I don’t make eye contact when people are speaking — too busy scrolling my phone or checking myself out on zoom or thinking or multi-tasking. Or taking notes about the speakers crap sentence structures. Daydreaming even. Eye contact is for lovers and Toastmasters!

As for the microaggression of “subjecting an individual to more criticism and harsher judgement compared to their white counterparts” — that’s just incendiary without context!

It’s Not Racist To Have Opinions About Your Competence

People are complex. Context is essential!

Blanket rules are stupid... but are they useful in a world where people have lost their manners?

No, where are you REALLY from?

Apparently it’s micro-aggressive and racist for a white person to ask a person of colour where they’re really from.

I don’t know if this “rule” was decided by white people or if the ethnics put their foot down and said no, we’re not answering.

Ten, fifteen years ago, it was a normal question and a handy conversation starter. But no white person asks me anymore —I’ve never found it an offensive question — I mean, we all want to know the origins of things… bread, onions, t-shirts, why not people?

Granted, it can be irritating sometimes because when you’re patriotic to the UK, it’s a jolt to be reminded people see you as really from somewhere else. But being irritated by the question doesn’t change the fact my skin colour is handed down by ancestors who weren’t brought up on bread and dripping, jellied eels and meat paste. Thank God. Think I’ll go round my aunt’s tonight (without my coat) to get that thought out of my head.

But you know who does ask where we’re really from and who won’t stop asking until they’ve drilled right down? Yep, ethnics. And they’re so gratuitously nosey about it.

My husband experienced this too. Out of the thousands of people he’s driven around in the last year, only around one in fifty white people asked where he’s from.

However, eight out of ten ethnics (all shades of brown and black) ask about his origin and they all dig further when he answers, UK. They all want to know where he’s really from.

Ethnics see and discuss each others racial differences openly. Some ask rudely, others don’t. Some have an agenda, others don’t.

The question in itself is not micro-aggression! The motive matters.

Step away from the Victim Creation Committee

The great and the good are being encouraged to use microaggression “danger lists” like the one above to CSI-profile themselves as victims based on perceived slights.

Do a search on Twitter for microaggression and you’ll see victims creating themselves in real time. Critical thinking’s buried deep under snappy me-me-centric insults.

My friend says I’m micro-aggressive and racist to immigrant Uber drivers because she’s been conditioned to look at a skin colour or a certain job and see a poor little victim without ambitions or the skills to pursue them.

• She thinks private-hire drivers get offended when one of them gets a job that doesn’t involve risking traffic fines and accidents all day long
• She thinks it’s micro-aggressive to suggest cleaning up people’s sick isn’t a dream job

My husband’s not an immigrant. Even if he was, he’d have been working any job to build a better life with better opportunities. That’s what people do. Sometimes it suits them and they stay in it, other times they move on.

Even now, he’d go back to driving a taxi in a heartbeat if he needed to — it’s the easiest job to get into when you need one!

Everyone’s doing this. From factory workers to CEO’s. People are working where they’re working because it’s the right job at the right time. FOR NOW.

There’s sod all racist or micro-aggressive about it. Context and motive matter.

Also read:

• It’s Not Racist to Have Opinions About Your Culture
• I’m the Wife of an Uber Driver and I Have Stories

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