Of race and blue-eyed blondes

Disclaimer: This post is potentially disturbing. If in doubt, don’t read it. In my pre-defence, I don’t mean any harm.

I’d written up this huge (and yet somewhat unfinished) piece which eventually ended up in everyone’s favourite no-no, racism[1]. In particular, I’d seen a news article on TV about two paedophilic-thought-inducing darling-looking twin teens who “sing” extremely racially charged songs. I’ve quotesified “sing” because they’re so not talented.

I was intrigued by something, and being the good researcher type that I am, I began looking into this in greater detail. My primary beef being, apart from all the White-Supremacist and Neo-Nazi brouhaha that was tacked along with their seemingly angelic faces, there was also constant reference to negative connotations of the word “Aryan”.

Now this bothered me, because I have relatives a few generations up the ladder that have mentioned on occasion that they’re Aryan. Now they’re the very-sweet very-old lady types, so I was struggling to see what the media’s problem was. I mean, they don’t fit the profile of someone who’ll run out and get all violent.

After much reading, I realized what might be going on. Bookmark this representative article and read it at your leisure, and it will all make sense. According to numerous sub-classifications under Hinduism, I am apparently what’s called a Brahmin. Now this happens to be the priestly, scholarly class who’re[2] supposedly knowledgeable in the vedas and such. None of this is true or even valid anymore (or probably really even wasn’t eons ago), but the point is, the word “Aryan” stems from Sanskrit roots that sort of imply—spiritual, respect-worthy and stuff of that nature; which is the context in which Hindus, Jains and Buddhists used the word historically. Now, some might see it appropriate to use the word when referring to a scholar educated in religious texts. (You are supposed to respect your teachers you know.) And this is the context in which I’ve come across the word, in a totally innocuous sense.

Now what has happened is, some violent folk in Germany have:
a. Conveniently forgotten that this word has Indo-Iranian roots
b. Conveniently taken just the fun bits (the indication of nobility) and exponentially warped it—now feeling the need to “cleanse their world of the inferiors”
c. Used this as a rationale to do their dastardly deeds

It is this that the media takes offence to. They weren’t picking on my frail old great-grandma on her wheelchair.

There, I feel all better now.

[1] So I decided to sever that section and make it its own piece. You will get to read the longer (and somewhat more boring piece) soon enough.
[2] “Whore”, teehee. Juvenile humour never goes stale.