Good GOD, I am feeling hungover. But shoop-doop-de-woop! Better backtrack and explain the events leading up to last night.
The past week or so has been one of unmitigated stress. No, guys, I’m serious. I know that we teens in our last year of school tend to fold under even the slightest of situations. ZOMG! Bad Hair Day! WTF?! Too much homework! BBQ! Parents being annoying! Holy religious syphillis, Batman. Well, I gotta admit that I haven’t had any of those particular problems as of late. My hair is wonderfully sculpted into a sleek finish that makes the ladies go all wobbly-kneed at the sheer sight of it. Seriously, if you ever saw my hair after I’ve been at work on it you would SHIT. BRICKS. Nor do I have too much homework. In fact I don’t have any and haven’t had for the past week or so. I’m living in a tide of easyness (is that even a word?) when it comes to schoolwork, I just need to get my thumb outta my ass and work a little harder. Oh, that’s metaphorically speaking. I’m not actually pleasuring myself with my thumb. And believe it or not, my parents are actually pretty cool. No, seriously. They don’t give me too much hassle and they send me money each month for food and shit. So I shouldn’t have much to complain about, right?
Wrong. First of all, a family member isn’t in tip-top form at the moment. She puts a brave face on things but from what I hear she’s not great at the moment. Kinda makes me feel bad because she’s been very supportive to me and my family when we had money problems and is helping me get through my university applications. And that’s another thing. Fucking University.
See I always figured that when I finished school in July, I’d have a clear run of everything. ZOMG no more school! I can finally live out my dreams of taking the phrase “all you can eat” to the extreme and getting some fat Italian guy who runs the buffet to throw me out into the street, where Japanese tourists would take my photo! Bachelor-ism FTW! But the English are horribly anal when it comes to university. It doesn’t help that I was pressured into applying for the socialist’s wet dream that is Cambridge University (that’s me being sarcastic, of course), as the application had to be in by the 31st of October. That wasn’t a problem, though I forgot to send in any work for them to pore over and reject so they’ve been up my ass about all that.
Then there’s the unmitigated disaster that is my relationship status. Women: the great mystery that I don’t try to understand. After the shit I went through trying to convince Her that I was well worth a shot (which went tits up) my opinion was considerably soured. I promised myself that I wouldn’t get myself down about women again, which left things a bit awkward for a while because I distanced myself from her so that I didn’t re-develop any feelings. Nevertheless, yesterday I proved to myself that I can have a platonic relationship with her without fucking myself over. So what did I do? I asked another girl if she wanted to go out with me. This was last Friday. She said what every bloke dreads to hear: “You’re a really nice guy… BUT”. But I’m not too pissed off about it, she let me down gently which was considerate. I’m just a little annoyed at the fact that I’m in my last year of school and I’m still celibate.
Something else happened on Friday. Every school seems to be having this problem at the moment, whether or not you live in the US, England or here in France. On Friday afternoon we had a philosophy test that finished early so we hung out in front of school waiting for afternoon recess to start. All of a sudden my buddy Florian said “turn around” and to our surprise there was a large group of chavs at the opposite end of the street carrying metal bars and the like. Can I be honest? Don’t mind if I do. I almost shat myself. I very nearly evacuated the contents of my bowels into my undies. Let me make this very, VERY clear. I go to school because I want to secure a future for myself that excludes the possibility of me working in McDonalds for the rest of my life. I do not go to school to be threatened, kicked by kids because I walk past them and generally wonder if I am going to be mugged or stabbed today. No child should have to go through that every day of their lives. School should be an overly positive experience, not a Vietnam reenactment. Also I would like to point out that adults do not understand what this is like. No, you did not go through something similar when you were kids. No, you didn’t. Being accosted by a couple of “rowdy youths” on the way home from school because they want your lunch money is not the same as being mugged at knife-point for your MP3 player by a kid probably no older than 14. I would like to point out that this has personally not happened to me, but I do know people it has happened to.
Adults’ attitudes over this situation also greatly annoys me. The conversation I have had with some people generally goes along these lines. Rhy will fill in for adult in question.
O Hai! Glad you could join the Not-So-Royal Shakespeare Company for our stunning adaptation of James’ best selling play “ZOMG UR A RACIST!!!????111!!” Shall we begin?
Oh, Napoleon will also be filling in stage directions.
Ah-hem! Ze curtains go up. We join JAMES having a conversation with your typical contemporary adult.
…so they beat the shit out of him? Good god, that’s insane!
Yeah, I know. His face was pretty puffed up. Some nasty shit.
Which kids were these? I mean were they French or what?
Well, they were the Arab kids who hang around there. We’ve had a few problems with them in front of school, too.
Racist! You’re a racist! You can’t use that word!
What, Arab?
HE SAID IT AGAIN! Racist, here folks! There’s a racist sitting here!
But they were Arabs. I’m not using the word “Arab” as an insult. I’m just using it to show you that the kids were Arabs.
You don’t understand what a hard time they have of it all! They can’t get proper jobs, they’re put in council flats, they’re thrown out of schools so them being overtly aggressive is just a reaction to the hard time they get from all of you racist bastards!
Ze political correctness police arrive to throw James in ze prison for having offended every soul on Earth who just wants everybodee to get along.
Fin.
Let me make something very, VERY clear to anyone who is intending to give me backlash over my comments here. Please listen because this is very, VERY important and if you try and say that I sound a “bit racist”, I will hit you because I am sick to the back teeth of getting this.
I am not racist. I know very well that “Arab” and “violent” are not mutually exclusive adjectives. I have several Arabic friends who prove this. I get on well with them. When I say that I have problems with the Arabs at school, I am under NO circumstances trying to imply that I have problems with them solely because they are Arabic. There are several white kids who severely get on my tits, too. I have simply noticed that the majority of the kids who hang out around school and who threaten my friends and I are predominantly minorities. I am not implying we should get rid of all of the “immigrants”. This is stupid. I myself am an immigrant, but I try to get along with the French. Whether you be European, Asian, Hispanic, Black, Arabic… WHATEVER… I do not see the point of coming to a country and being violent and aggressive to people because they are not like you, because they dress funny… WHATEVER. I do not try and understand the reasons for their attitude towards my friends and I or towards the rest of the students in general. I have given up on that, but I do not think it is as a result of being poor or underpriviledged. I say this because up until very recently I was in a very VERY tight situation financially, I lived in a shitty home with depressed parents and it did not make me want to mug, stab or beat up people. It could be the parents, I don’t know and I am passed caring. If they wanted to get along with me, I would welcome that. Hell, it’d be nice if EVERYONE could get along, but this is not the case. Whenever I try to voice these opinions to the majority of adults, I am branded an ignorant racist and I am fucking sick of it. The people who call me “racist” have no idea what I have to go through every day of my life because times have changed since they were kids.
This Political Correctness lark is really getting on my nerves. It’s fine to blame us whites for all the woes in the world, but if you hint that SOME of the perpetrators represent an ethnic minority, you are fucked. I recognize that there are a lot of assholes who are White and are French. I recognize there are a lot of assholes who are British… whatever. I realize that maybe the fact we try and avoid these kids may exacerbate the situation, as they feel ostracized. Hell, I even admit that there’s some inherent racism within the System that prevents minorities from getting many of the chances that you get from being White. But I do not understand why instead of working to overcome these obstacles, they just make things worse on themselves by threatening anyone who walks past them.
Let me make it abundantly clear that I am NOT a racist. I will not go out and join the BNP, I will not go out and join the National Front or a Nazi Skinhead gang. They are violent idiots who judge people based on the colour of their skin. I am not going to firebomb an Arabic home, I am not going to suggest we tell them all to fuck off. I am not suggesting we fight them, I want to avoid violence and I just want to be left alone. I am saying what I say because I am sick of walking to school every day and being scared shitless when I walk past these kids. I am sick of wondering whether or not I will come home that day. The majority of adults will not understand this because no matter how dire their situation was when they were kids, it is MUCH worse now.
So if you do decide to go off and play the “racist” card on me, whether or not you be a parent of mine, a family member or a reader of this blog, you can FUCK RIGHT OFF because I don’t think I’ll be speaking to you for a while. You can see why I usually try to skirt past this subject, because it gets me worked up. Everything you need to know is written here, and unless you are willing to have a conversation that doesn’t include the word “racist” with me, you can piss off.
And I went off on a tangent. So to bring this post back to where it started, last night I drank heavily. This was partly due to my situation and partly because I don’t want Jean Marie finding the booze when he comes over on Saturday. I felt fine until I went to lie down. I woke up this morning trying to remember if I’d been sick or not. The fact that some of it seems to have spilled onto my Ramones T-shirt indicates that I most likely have. My head is pounding.
My apologies for the long post, I’m happy to hear your comments, hell even have a civilized debate with you about your opinions. Please don’t be put off by the fact I seem to be quite aggressive over the subject, it just gets me worked up. I’m actually a pretty nice guy who’s willing to have a chilled conversation with you. Just be nice.
And to those who want to comment but don’t have a wordpress addy, you should be able to comment without one, so please feel free.
Till next time,
James
