“Wotchoo tawkin funny for?!”
I would like to recount to you a tale imparted to me by a dear chum. Don’t worry, it’s not nearly as faecal as that of Poo Finger Sue. The following is a story about a benefit scrounger and an immigrant; both figures equally reviled by The Daily Mail and yet, would you believe, also by each other.
The day was a day like any other in London, full of grey and bustle. Daylight had descended upon the masses and so all converged upon train stations to celebrate the unity of mutual hatred and to offer up the gift of sharpened elbows to the deity of public discomfort – which is where we meet our protagonist. Our protagonist in this case, happens to be The Immigrant – a handsome fellow from a far off land in the southern hemisphere of the Americas, blessed with fabulous fashion sense and a wit as sharp as his cheekbones.
Our protagonist had been in the country some time – time enough to find a job, a husband and a house, all legally and in perfect taste. His life was rich with all that London had to offer and he was delighted when some friends from his motherland graced him with a visit. He was proud to take a break from the job he loved to show these tourists about the merciless grimy metropolis that is now home, but it just so happened that at that particular hour, he would encounter The Benefit Scrounger.
Our immigrated hero strolled through the buzzing train station, clashing elbow-to-elbow with the natives and chatting gaily with his Hispanic hombres in the Latin tongue of their land, when from the crowd a great gargoyle did lumber past. A beast clad in ill-fitting sportswear, her sagging bosom besmirched with burger grease and stains of untold bodily wrong-doing. Her hair scraped back to reveal a face prematurely aged with nicotine and ignorance, a mouth crammed with decay and conflict. To her, this babbling happy group was an affront to her very being – their noise made no sense, their language was alien and as such, offensive.
She opened wide her British-born slackened jaw, allowing rogue consonants to drop to the floor and spewed forth a slur of indignant territorial claim, safe in the assumption that these “foreigns” could not understand. Our protagonist whirled round on a stylishly clad foot and with the perfectly clipped English words of an educated man asked the troglodyte to repeat herself. Gladly she did, spitting the words into his face, “you cahm a vis kanrry, you speak vis langwij.”
The Immigrant looked her up and down, his cool gaze assessing every undulation of her slovenly form, not one inch hanging in the right direction and entirely without purpose, and having surmised his opponent, coolly reposted “Darling, I live, work and pay taxes in this country. As long as I pay for your benefits, I’ll speak whatever language I damn well please.”
With that, he turned on his elegant suede heel and left the indignant xenophobe to catch flies and elbows with her dropped jaw. Game, set, immigrant match.
Pretty Feet, Pop Toe 
Glad to hear that he put her in his place! We get a lot of disgusting racism on our public transport here in Australia too, and its absolutely wonderful when someone tells them how much of a twat they’re being.
I wish I could think of things like that in the moment and not half an hour after they’re out of sight.
Spoken by a middle class white girl who has clearly never experienced:
A: Poverty, aspirational or fiscal, by an education system that doesn’t bother to educate them any more.
B: Social exclusion, mostly by smug middle class people who despise their ingratitude.
C: Growing up on a council estate, that is increasingly full of the joy of diversity.
D: Grooming, and not involving combs.
E: Unplanned pregnancy, or the possibility thereof.
F: Having her arrogance questioned.
Have you ever thought about moving to Rotherham and getting a job as a social worker? It is precisely this level of contempt that is the cause of everything that has gone on there. Because those scratty little white girls with their pony tails have only got themselves to blame for their situation, now don’t they?
Thank you for your assumptions as to my upbringing. I shan’t waste time pointing out where you are or are not wrong, or the irony of you making such assumptions as an attack on the assumptions you feel I’ve made. Instead, I’d like to point you back to where I inform the reader in the very first line that this is a tale told to me by a friend – not experienced firsthand by me, therefore any assumptions about scratty girls with or without ponytails is not mine.
Perhaps you would care to make assumptions about my friend, who grew up in poverty, who faces homophobia and racism and challenges on his intelligence (because he has an accent) daily – as well as ableist comments too. I neglected to mention that facet as it wasn’t relevant to the story.
You seem to have missed the point of the story, which is that even the marginalised and reviled, marginalise and revile others. That, and this particular cretin was most openly xenophobic and received what I felt to be a rather funny comeback.
As it was written as a piece of entertainment and not a political or factual observation, linguistic embellishments have been added for roundness of narrative and comic effect.
If you think I’ve never had my arrogance challenged, you clearly haven’t met my mother.
Anyway, thanks for reading.
Please consider that your repetition of this story constituted an endorsement to me, and hence, surely we are entitled to imply that you approve of it’s message.
“You seem to have missed the point of the story, which is that even the marginalised and reviled, marginalise and revile others.”
No. I simply have a problem, an irritation, with the idea that this constitutes news or that these people are wrong somehow, if you apply a touch of empathy to their situation..
Consider how they are xenophobic because they live in a society that quietly, nay, uniquely in Europe, has made a systematic and observant point of doing *nothing* for them. This includes the idea that it lectures them upon being dole scrounging lazy scumbags (Iain Duncan Smith) at the same time, as today’s Times notes, as having some of the slackest border controls in the developed world. America, Australia, Canada, Germany, you name it..
Their Xenophobia is not arguably natural, it is a reaction to their surroundings, which includes persons like yourself who insinuate that they are lazy when forced to compete with outside societies that have done such mundane things as teach them actual coherent English, with which they can articulate themselves, and even helped give them skills with which they can get a job. Their local schools do not.
“If you think I’ve never had my arrogance challenged, you clearly haven’t met my mother.”
By way of a conclusion to this exchange, please consider the following as a final idea, and do so with full seriousness.
As in:
Your mother is a nagging, mardy cow because she cares and wants the best for you. She badgers you so you actually get off your lazy backside and do something good with your life.
Their mothers just want to get shot of them because they are sixteen and there is no more child benefit. Any subsequent slack habits and wailing brats are basically society’s problem.
Over:
“You seem to have missed the point of the story, which is that even the marginalised and reviled, marginalise and revile others.”
Hardly, it IS the point. I would respectfully point out that you neglect to evaluate why they voice such sentiments.
Please consider how such convictions lead to a situation like that that has occurred in Rotherham, which is where we are learning the meaning of a country that does not give a stuff about it’s poor, literally to the point where it does not even deign to offer them legal protection against being sexually assaulted even when they report it, because that just does not fit with the government’s moral convictions.
That is why they hate immigrants, and that is why they swear at them on the tube, something I would respectfully suggest that as you comment upon their chavvy anger is potentially something you’ve mercifully never been anywhere near contemplating.
Forgive me if I make assumptions as to your upbringing, as in: Jarvis Cocker – “Common People”
Go on, get yourself down the Golden Lane Estate in the East End, hang around for a while and when the black boys on BMX bikes start to notice you, then admit it’s a wee bit intimidating, and then admit you’re middle class…..
Best wishes.
As you are clearly determined to ignore all I have said (all, as in “all”) I shall once again thank you for reading.
Oh my giddy aunt what a humourless angry young man! And such a shame that the froth of his ire swamps his ability to engage the reader, thus obliterating any meaningful point he might have made.
I guess he told her a thing or two, didn’t he?
With wit and flair. 🙂