Well here I go, ready to be slammed, labeled, ostracised and abused.  (I don’t know wether to say sorry in advance or apologise?)

I just watched ‘Gran Torino’ the movie with Clint Eastwood that has more racial vilifications and politically incorrect moments than the David Chappelle Show or a Steady Eddie comedy routine or the latest (not funny) comedy show on SBS Legally Brown.  But, I have worked out that any comedy routine is okay and funny (even if it’s not) if you do it about yourself, or your own race (no matter how stereotypical the joke), or your disability, or your sex…. Just don’t have no white man doing no black joke or misogynistic joke or visa versa!  (I used the word misogynistic just to let you know that if you are a man do not do woman jokes – no matter how funny, I’m taking even if they hilarious – as it means that now and for ever more you hate women, and discriminate against them, and suppress them… be warmed).

Of course, I was thinking about all this after Gran Torino and watching the football a few weeks ago where the biggest story of the day was calling for the heads of players who had ‘defaced’ a poster of two players with the highly scandalous comments of ‘going to the Mardi Gras’ or similar…. The details really aren’t important. I thought it was funny, as it was.

What is important is that I am a white Anglo Saxon male, and it’s probably my fault anyway.

I am sometimes ashamed and often confused at my whiteness.

I read up on political correctness, as I realised not being politically correct was somehow all my fault. In my reading I started to think perhaps it was not created how I thought: perhaps it was not even what I thought. I also wondered how come there are all these politically incorrect jokes, which I think are sometimes really funny, still being created that don’t actually destroy society. Below (I understand if you want to skip it) is the history of political correctness and to tell you the truth – I don’t get how we got from that to this? (sometimes I don’t even know what this is?):

• Historically the term “politically correct” was used disparagingly, to refer to someone whose loyalty to the Communist Party line overrode compassion, and led to bad politics. It was used by Socialists against Communists, and was meant to separate out Socialists who believed in egalitarian moral ideas from dogmatic Communists who would advocate and defend party positions regardless of their moral substance. Reference – “Uncommon Differences”, The Lion and the Unicorn Journal

• In the 1970’s according to one version, political correctness actually began as an in-joke on the left: radical students on American campuses acting out an ironic replay of the Bad Old Days BS (Before the Sixties) when every revolutionary groupuscule had a party line about everything. They would address some glaring examples of sexist or racist behaviour by their fellow students in imitation of the tone of voice of the Red Guards or Cultural Revolution Commissar: ‘Not very “politically correct”, Comrade!’ Reference – Hall, S. (1994) “Some ‘Politically Incorrect’ Pathways Through PC”

• In the 1990’s political correctness is one of the brilliant tools that the American Right developed in the mid–1980s, as part of its demolition of American liberalism…. What the sharpest thinkers on the American Right saw quickly was that by declaring war on the cultural manifestations of liberalism – by levelling the charge of “political correctness” against its exponents – they could discredit the whole political project. —“Words Really are Important, Mr Blunkett”, The Observer (16 December 2001)

I also note that not being politically correct often is used to exclude groups from things, a sort of discrimination for everyone except the minority. But, I wondered considering the above brief and probably not totally correct history if in fact political correctness and racism are both things that we don’t understand.

I was thinking, that surely thinking is a matter for me and only saying or doing can possibly be something wrong, well at least as viewed by the rest of the world as opposed to someone reading my mind.

I got to thinking about my career and realised that I had been called a ‘white cunt’ more times than I had publicly vilified another race, which when I think about it is never. I think about the time I have discriminated against another person, for any reason, and there is a void of examples.

I got to thinking about the time I was having a smoke and was asked by a group of Aboriginal people for one and said I had just popped down from my office with one, and sorry I didn’t have any others. I was called a white cunt, abused and threatened with violence. I rang the Police and the abuser was arrested. I was approached by one of the group afterwards and asked very politely why I had called the Police and I told them. They said they were very sorry it had happened. They stood there for a moment, obviously thinking, and then said, if I hadn’t invaded their country in the first place, and made them speak English, then I couldn’t have been sworn at and I should be ashamed of being a Captain Cook invader. I couldn’t argue with that and went back to my office. I was confused as I did somehow feel guilty. Should my guilt be more than a passing thought or should I be ashamed.

I got to thinking about all the things I am ashamed of for being white.

• I am ashamed of the Anagu Pitjantjajara Yankunytjatjara (APY) Lands. If you have been there you will know that it is a third world country in the middle of our country and we ignore it.  Also if you only say APY and can’t pronounce the full title – perhaps you should be ashamed.
• I am ashamed of not being able to identify the difference between sorry and an apology. I am sorry a lot of things happened but how do I apologise for things that happend before I was born and I had no control over. I am more sorry because I have worked on the APY lands.
• I am ashamed I have never been in a mosque, an Australian Hindu or Buhdist temple, a Synagogue and lately a church.
• I am ashamed that languages are lost, stories are lost and history is forgotten.
• I am ashamed I speak only one language.
• I am ashamed that I don’t know any boat people.
• I am ashamed that our country is so vast and yet so empty.
• I am ashamed that maybe the wars the we fought didn’t give us the results they were fought for, other than victory.
• I am ashamed of multiculturalism, because I don’t know what it means.  I don’t know what Australian culture is either, is it multicultural or are we multi cultures living separate in the one country.  Am I part of the multi cultural society as my ancestors were German or am I Australian – am I an oppressor, an invader?  I cant remember doing any of those thing though? I sorry my ancestors came here and who should I apologise to?

I suppose I could do something, so I am, I am writing this and putting my name to it.

I am saying three men walk into a bar, and they are friends and they take the piss out of each other, because that is being Australian; yet none of them were born in Australia.

I watch the movie ‘They’re a Weird Mob‘ and am grateful that there is no more ‘six o’clock swill’ and laugh at the stereotypes of the era, who when I come to think about it, built our country.

I wonder why ‘Gran Torino’ wasn’t banned and realise it is a movie about values not racism or vilification or hurt feelings.

I want a more peaceful life, but it is often too complicated and filled with messages I don’t understand anymore: perhaps I am just getting to the same point as Walt in Gran Torino. It was what I wrote about What is Being a Man, well, my definition of being a man.   But, it is not about being a man, it is about being part of the human race. It is so much about what we say and not what we do, that in the end we say nothing and do nothing.

Can white men really jump. We can jump to conclusions, we can also jump to the defence of others, we can also jump out of the way and let it all happen because we’ll get blamed for it anyway. Sorry.

I have decided that being a racist, or politically incorrect are not the same thing. I am politically incorrect, but I am also Australian and we give everyone…. Read that everyone, a fair go. That fair go is also about giving it to ourselves, along with an entire diatribe of genuine, heartfelt, witty, funny piss taking.

Call me a ‘snowflake’ a ‘Captain Cook’ a ‘white cunt’ and I’ll reckon you must be a mate, an Australian, as no body takes the piss as good as we do.

But, discriminate against my mate, suppress my mate, threaten my mate, take away my mate’s stuff, hurt my mate and I will defend their wurlie, their tent, their igloo, their adobe, their home…. I will stand by their side and fight for them with all that is mine against any foe.

After all, I am Australian and when we are not taking the piss out of each other we are usually fighting side by side…. And even then we are taking the piss out of each other!

Just one last thing. I am truly sorry. I am sorry that in trying to become a better man I still find it necessary to want the rest of the world to be better as well, albeit accompanied by a good long piss take without filling in a hurt feelings report!

I think I will be a better man by paying more attention to what people do and not what they say: sticks and stones and all that…..