Archived posting to the Leica Users Group, 2008/09/17
[Author Prev] [Author Next] [Thread Prev] [Thread Next] [Author Index] [Topic Index] [Home] [Search]At 05:33 PM 9/17/2008, Tarek Charara wrote: >Wow. That's a) insulting and b) a very stupid remark > > >Le 17 sept. 08 ? 23:26, EPL a ?crit : > >> Germany = Racism R Us. Hmm. Germans are particularists to a fault -- those in Pomerania look down on those from Bavaria, and all Germans seem to sneer at "those crazy Swabians", the Newfies of the Fatherland. But trying to assign to the Germans a special state of disfavor for "racism" is just silly. The French are equally silly on such points as are the Russians and the British seem to viscerally believe that "wogs begin at Calais". I agree that Lee has probably had a shitload of culture shock to accommodate -- US management has trouble getting past the serving of beer in lunchrooms. And I suspect some of his subordinates probably do have a bias against him because of his origin but, I suspect, this might perhaps be more due to his USian roots than his Oriental genetic background. The Germans and Chinese had an extremely close relationship in the Interwar period, after all, and many German firms, from Mauser to Leitz to Zeiss Ikon, marketed there extensively. To be fair, it did take Zeiss more than twenty years to find an Oriental capable of serving as a final inspector in the "Round-Eye Room" at the Contax SLR lensworks in Kyoto, and he was a Chinese national from Hong Kong. The accusation that the Germans are racist is neither stupid nor dumb but it is a meaningless statement as it ignores the reality that most of us are racists and most of us live in racist nations. So what? Don't wait for others to do it but think for yourself. Shucks, I will admit to having some German friends (though I rarely repeat this in polite company) and, on several occasions, contrary to my Highland roots, I've even had actual ENGLISHMEN and ENGLISHWOMEN -- folks from the southern part of Britain, mind you, REAL Anglo-Saxons -- SLEEP UNDER MY ROOF! If I can rise to this, surely an occasional German can rise above particularism and, perhaps, there will come a day when a Parisian acknowledges that France includes Languedoc. For that matter, to most of those who live in the Western Hemisphere, we in the US and Canada are either "Nordamericanos" or "Anglos". Go figure. Marc msmall@aya.yale.edu Cha robh b?s fir gun ghr?s fir!