My Brother Hate

It's very depressing watching the decline of our society. I see it everywhere: the malaise mixed with a frustration that borders on malevolence. Everyone, as human beings, senses there is something amiss but few seem to understand what it is and fewer care enough to want change. People are all too comfortable with divisive TV rubbish, binge drinking and jingoism.

It's sa to see this affect people I know. Ever since my friend, who isn't even someone I'm desperately close to, got with his current partner I've perceived a change. It's not that she's the root of all evil, but she's just that kind of ignorant: she spends her time glued to Facebook gossiping while some god awful rubbish is on the TV - such as Benefits Street. She also reads the Sun!

People like this don't seem to bother to criticise what they read, they just consume. They passively interact with the information that is beamed into their consciousness and rarely question it, and that is very dangerous. As a result they become defensive when questioned, which leads to a divisive mentality mixed iwth a persecution complex. As a result I find it very difficult to quesiton the resulting values: I do not want to be seen as arrogant or patronising, but when you have someone that, when their kid asks who got booted off the Apprentice, refers to that candidate, being Asian, as 'poppadom', you have a problem.

Unfortunately he, my friend, has picked up on this kind of intolerance. His attitude towards muslims is troubling. For example reference was made to a muslim that his partner works with (she's a 'raghead' apparently, because...foreigner innit). This person is apparently demanding and unreasonable because of her religious values, but in the context of who is telling me this I have to wonder where the real intolerance lies.

Recently he got into a, thankfully non-serious, RTA involving a lad who he inadvertently hit. It seems there was no injury and, from what he tells me, the kid wasn't watching where he was going. That's entirely believable, but when the N word is used, in reference to the ethnicity of the kid problems arise. He now seems comfortable using that word and was dismissive of the kid and what he perceived his background to be.

This is casual racism and it is something I find desperately difficult to confront. I do not want to be a guest in someone's home and then find myself in a position where I'm telling them how to behave, but racism is unacceptable. I call it casual because it isn't a conscious attempt to hate on people and stir trouble - like Hitler proselytising from the Reichstag. Instead it's an attitude bred by divisive simplistic and ignorant media putting the blame for the ills of a complicated fast pressured society on the minority groups within. So his attitude toward Muslims comes from his perceptions surrounding immigration; they are getting all the new houses. It's nothing of course to do with the fact there aren't enough houses being built.

It's sad to see this happening and I don't know how to deal with it, but I sure as hell do not want to associate with it. I can't be around people like that long term.