Aresye, on 19 August 2012 - 07:41 AM, said:
So...to be clear, you know everything about this family's son in his mid-twenties without actually interacting with him?
Can I use your reply for the definition of prejudice?
If that was me with my parents, we would probably look very similar to you as this family.
Except instead of living in the basement I was on home on military leave.
I was growing out my facial hair because it's the only time in military life I can do that.
The somber expressions was because I had to go back to duty soon (last few days of leave = depressing time for all).
This is the exact kind of prejudice and judgement that sickens me. You don't know this family. You don't know this young man. You view this family, and especially this young man, in a negative light, because of what he was wearing and a comment from the father that was extremely vague.
Well to reply to your reply:
1. No, I don't know everything about the young man and family without interacting with them. I can merely try to paint a picture of what I observed and experienced through the use of commonly understandable stereo typical descriptions.
2. Never did I say they wore "somber expressions" until describing that the dad had seen me looking at his son, so your logic of the family looking somber if it was yours because you would be returning to service soon does not apply.
3. I did not view nor paint the family in a negative light, in fact I stated that I looked back at the father because he appeared to be a "solid, upstanding gentleman".
4. As for the young man's appearance I would hope you would not let yourself go that far even when on leave especially since the growing of facial hair, even on leave, has been expressly banned since the Oct. 2010 uniform and conduct rewrite.
5. As for using my reply as the definition of prejudice, go ahead as long as you don't mind me using yours as a definition of double standards and closed minded, knee jerk bias. Rather than presenting your points in an articulate fashion and debating alternate perceptions and interpretations to what I saw you went and got offensive. You put words in my mouth fitting your own hated and inflexibility towards anyone not conforming to your mentality. Yes i judged the young man by what he wore and how he carried himself, but then again if you saw a guy on the street with a "kill all ****" T-shirt on and carrying a baseball bat you would not assume he was going to batting practice to look for a boy friend. It was an interesting situation I wished to share in which I had nothing to judge it by except the young man's attire, how he carried himself, and the change in mood to one of embarrassment and defeat by the father when he noticed someone had taken notice of how his son did indeed carry himself. By your response though you showed your intollerance and double standards not only in your aggressive and belittling response but in pointing out by your own admittance of how you conduct yourself off duty that you do not care about rules and opinions unless they are yours, agree with yours or fit your vision of how and what things should be.
All that aside, good luck back on duty, if you are deploying or returning to deployment stay safe and keep your head down.