ETHNIC - Tuesday 8 September

Here we go. It's time to talk about it then put it in a box and fire it back through time to where it belongs, on the pile of obsolete redundancies alongside witch-burning, DDT and Limp Bizkit.

What am I talking about?

I'm talking about the way people talk about their own or other people's ethnicities like they mean any little thing at all. It seems to crop up all the time... the phrase, 'Oh don't mind me... that's just my Greek/Italian/German/Russian coming through.'

Bear with me... your ethnicity has nothing to do with your personality, opinion or moral code. Your CULTURE does but your ETHNICITY does not. It may seem like a small distinction to make but it drives me up the fucking wall to hear people say things like, 'Of course I'm a stubborn prick! I'm Italian!' or 'I love Spanish women. They're so firey!'. The faux-humour that feebly flavours such statements only serves to perpetuate bullshit divisions among us. Like I said, it seems like a small thing... but bear with me.

My problem with the whole thing is not a 'We are one but we are many' desire for cultural togetherness. It is a frustration at constantly coming up against the idea that certain elements of an individual's personality are somehow the product of genetics. I think that German guy in the forties had something to say along similar lines.

If we start looking at our upbringings as cultural rather than anything to do with specific ethnicity we might start to get somehwere.

The culture you grew up in may be thousands of years deep, or it could be like mine and barely reach back three generations. I've always been a day-dreamy, staunch individual with little regard for ceremony or the judgemental opinions of others. This has nothing to do with my German/Polish/Welsh/Irish background... its got to do with the individuals who bred, made me and raised me. It's got to do with my own experiences; choices made, and lessons learned. A lot of the time I like me. Sometimes these things make me a real pain in the arse to know. I'd never say, 'Of course I'm a cold-blooded misanthrope. I'm German.' No, sometimes I'm just an A-hole.

But I can change that. Nothing about you is set. Nothing is set in stone. It is our job as the generation about to take this planet over to put that shit aside and get on with evolution.