Well, a couple of points that occur to me:
1. I have come across similar in "white" Irish people buying and selling on classifieds ads. I thought I observed it was not related to socio-economic background or similar. Rather I thought it was related to how out of control someone feels their life to be. I.e. It is a psychological phenomenon that people feel like they are exercising control over the world by being late, and other types of behaviour such as you describe. Well that is the theory I have about it.
I'm confining that it's only in relation to the sales of items in person-to-person
here in this specific culture of Helsinki Finland. Many of my workmates are persons of colour. I have zero problems with any of them. They show up on time, like I do. They arrive prepared, like we all do. We all rely on each other to respect each others schedules and I particularly apply this to myself as I'm the only guy without kids. So I wouldn't presume to keep any husband/wife waiting especially when they show a poverty of spare time. Show up, plug in, work on it, finish it, then leave. I'll even take care of the post-session clean-up and then leave for home.
2. No doubt "typing" is something we all do. It enables us to make decisions and judgements more quickly. Should we call it racism? A personal example - I am a nervous flyer, and when I see someone dressed in Islamic clothes on a flight I am doubly nervous, and wish they were not on the same flight as me.
Well, in this case it's specific to non-white immigrant people from outside the EU. So Africa, Asia, Latin American. Not Orientals, not Chinese, not Japanese, but Russians? Yes, definitely. In fact, I'll leave the Russian buyer until last option because I don't have the time to be hanging around waiting for some cunt to come and collect something at a knock-down price and when he does he's totally unprepared: wrong cash, no cash, bank card, visit a shopping centre ATM, argue about a price that's already so low I might as well fuck it in the bin than put up with the frustration.
Regular Finns don't do that. They have it all boxed-off after the deal is made. Then it's a quick hello, an exchange of items/cash, thank you, and goodbye. Finland is covered with second hand outlets, they hate to waste anything and are extremely efficient and thorough when it comes to dealing with unwanted items. This morning one chap was selling a pair of original Gretsch snare drum heads (in mint condition) that I'd love to get my hands on. But before I finished a message to him, a
reserved notice was applied to the post. So I messaged him again and said that if the other buyer messes up that I'll be there in thirty minutes. With the cash, and with a fresh pair of sticks as a trade-gift. That way he'll think of me first when selling other bits and pieces. I have box-loads of sticks, far far too many. It's something that I'd have loved when I was starting out: two hundred and fifty-off pairs of sticks, most virgin, all high-end brands, and all free for me.
The fact that I use jazz brushes, plastic brushes, several home-made versions of brushes I created myself, and other eccentric bits and pieces like washing-up brushes for the kitchen sink, items from the hardware stores augmented and put to uses other than what they were created for. There must be around two and a half to three grand's worth of branded sticks in my flight cases and store room. Fuck all use to me these days, mind.
3. Therefore I think there's a spectrum of racism that occurs in all human beings. What is the measure of that spectrum, or to put it another way, when does it cross over into something that ought to be of concern to wider society and the wider attempt to have a relatively civilised society?
Yes, I definitely suffer with lasting/imprinted first impressions, and I also learn from experience, so I try to remind myself to be patient and to remind myself that not everyone gives a shit about these simple human interactions. But still I can't help but not trust some fuckers to act on their word. And again, there's a consistent element of mistrust based on repeated experiences of certain cultures and backgrounds.
I like to help people, it's in my nature to do so. I dislike waste, so I recycle diligently: I know which bins what items belong to. Items with decent lifespans still in them get passed along to the next guy to use. But I resent standing at a meeting point looking high and low for some brainless prat to get his head out of his arse and show up promptly to collect what truly is bargain prices.
Well I think a good measure is how illogical your thinking can become under the influence of conveniently "typing" people and so on.
I often wonder too what the other guy thinks of me. Does he think I'm rich/stupid for selling xyz at crazy prices? Does he think I'm rich and therefore open to some further hustling post-deal? Does he think he can pull the wool over my eyes? Or does he think I
AM racist because when he showed up fifteen minutes later than the text he sent me half an hour ago, that I drill him and remind him of where he is. This ain't the jungle, mate - this is the First World. Fit in or fuck off. That's how it works up here: Finnish culture bends to the will of no foreign person or power.
We're already at peak performance, just look at our standing in the global quality of life statistics?
We can't do much better than we are at the moment, even with a scumbag liar like Peteri Orpo in the hot seat: everyone fucking hates the cunt now.
4. Another measure is when does it becomes systemic, increasinly ubiquitous, amplified by communications to a point where the effects are much more than what they might be if each individual was left solely to their own devices. Take the illustration of poor Jambo. He has built these pictures and ideas up in his mind solely on what he has read online. His "logic" for what it is is basically based on US white supremacist ideology.
Exactly: real world experiences often trump online rabbit-holing. Jambo has, at best, a handful of token terms he loves to play with. He thinks his 'counter-jihad' FLERF lols are cute. He collects them like little girls collect sea shells on the beach. Like boys with bees in jars. Actually applying them in the real world is not a part of his masterplan. His plan is find something to help him pass the time while he's growing into his current hair-shirt, a game to play with people. The same fucking game he's been playing for around five or six years by now.
And he still hasn't left the house to see how his fancy word-soup actually functions in the real world.
LOL for sure.
6. Keeping with Jambo for illustration, you can see that the worst effects of racism occur in those who succumb to the extremes of the spectrum of racism.
I often wonder why he bothers. The poor deluded chap isn't stupid, he's just looking in all the wrong places for some guidance as to what's happening in the world around him. Observation has a place in it, but refusing to apply it to real world terms is another thing altogether. He's effectively a lock-in type mentality. Like many, he has no reason to leave the house. He can run it all through his phone/laptop if he had the money, which he doesn't. If he actually had anything at all bar bar some trendy phrases that mean fuck outside of the context of online banter.
Nobody else speaks, thinks, or acts like such an intolerable buffoon.
And no amount of references to MENSA make even a puddle of piss of a difference. What's the point of having a relatively high IQ and only using it to play word games all day and night with total strangers from the other side of the planet? He's of zero benefit to anyone, not even himself. His apparently high IQ included. I'm sure there are even higher IQs in your prisons, but of what benefit are they if they're locked up? Like Jambo? He locks himself into that room, nobody sent him there - he chose it for himself.
He's like the protagonist in Paul Auster's 'New York Trilogy' where he locks the child into a darkened and windowless room all alone and fed through a hole in the door to keep it away from society to see if the original language of mankind will manifest itself in the child's isolated condition. The mother is dead, the father is losing his mind, the child takes the brunt of it all.
But imagine when the father dies and the authorities see his life's work for the first time?
A feral little animal that neither speaks nor thinks, it merely tries to destroy everything that comes in its path.
That's how I see him, sadly enough: a failed experiment in trying to thwart human nature.
He constitutes a prophetic warning to us all perhaps that while the germs of typing and racism exist in us all, it behoves someone of intellience to carefully observe themselves, just to be careful of those type of currents operating in oneself (that are in my opinion probably a part of the whole human experience).
Again, I only apply this to the strange phenomenon of person to person sales of items. Another example from last week: I'm selling a Nokia non-smart phone. Rather one that isn't a touch screen model. It can access internet, but I never used it for that. So I chose to sell it to someone who might need it and put it to use. Jamal's spotted my ad, he messages me that he wants this phone asap, desperately needs it, in fact. So I give him a price and scheduled pick-up point. We negotiate and he agrees. I go there, but he's not around. Then he calls me: sorry, I am lost/late/stupid/etc.
So I wait until he shows up and then I ask him how he managed to both message me on Facebook marketplace and call me directly. He said he didn't have a phone at all and needed this one for his studies. So what did he use to contact me while I was standing waiting? A smart phone, right? He grins a bit and I ask did he think I was a fool to have cut the price so much and make the collection as easy as possible for him? Show me the phone you used to call me. He refuses. So I ask how often does he manage to turn a small profit by acting like a gouging cunt wherein he sources items at a decent price, asks for a reduction, gets offered one, shows up and buys the items then puts it back on sale again at twice the price? He's trying not to grin and I'm refusing to blink.
He's rumbled and he knows it so the grin appears and that's when I tell him that a lady arrived by car a few minutes ago: you lost the deal, the item is gone. Then the brow furrows, the yellows of the eyes appear, the smile turns into a frown, the heckling starts:
'
You are racist to me. You don't like me because where I come from to Feenland. You sell me phone. Then you sell another person. It is racism'.
Except the phone is still in my pocket. With the charger, in a nice bag he can carry on his wrist like it's a happy shopping trip for some retail therapy. There are also a number of free sampler glass phials of trendy after shaves of several different brands (my ex worked in cosmetics) I tossed in for free seeing as I still have box-loads of them and rarely wear after-shave. So he's lost the whole lot and now has time to kill and no phone to sell on at a profit.
And you know what? Fuck him, that's what: I'd rather fuck the damned thing into the trash than sell it to a lying cunt trying to fuck with me.
So I hop onto the tram and as we're driving away, I wave the phone at him, the attached charger dangling - and my middle finger erect.
Have a nice day, cock-sucker.