I’m back on one of my pet hates. And I know that it will not change the world one tiny bit. But here goes anyway …
Discrimination has (officially) been outlawed on the grounds of race, gender, creed. You can’t (officially) discriminate against anyone because they are, for example, Jewish, or any other ethnic origin. Not allowed. Unless, of course, you happen to belong to a vociferous minority, in which case, if you make a film about say … King Arthur, then a representative proportion of the cast must be black. Shirley Bassey came from Cardiff but I don’t think the Queen Guinevere (also Welsh) was related. Even distantly.
Scottish is not determined to be a racial difference, so it is OK to discriminate. One of last week’s tabloid rags (my choice of insult) thought it fine, that a columnist could refer to Scotland as ‘Jockestan’ with its inhabitants all subsidized in the British (English?) payroll.
Dear Mr Columnist …
Start reading your Rudyard Kipling. It may be quite relevant soon.
Red hair, of course, is the current figure of fun. If you want to show an idiot on an advert, give him a bad tweed suit, a comic dog and red hair.
So far, that is Scottish and red hair that you can trash in public.
Now try a supermarket. In this particular case – Asda. (Tesco and Sainsbury are practice equality on this issue!).
If you are a woman – no real problem. Apart from the usual selection of dippit assistants. (Scots word. I’m sure that non-redheads can guess the meaning.)
If you are a man. Oh Lord. Save us!
I have been shopping in supermarkets in Britain and other countries, since they first became popular. I know what to do, and have been doing it longer than most supermarket assistants (and their parents) have been alive.
So why do you assume that men cannot shop, or pack a bag? Why do you chat to the woman in front, or the woman behind, but never to the man that you are supposed to be assisting? (You are an assistant. Look up the word!)
Why do you insist that I have to ask for a few of your miserable, flimsy carrier bags? Why do you try to shove my groceries at me as if it were a race, or leave them building up around the till like a fortress?
And why do you start filling the carrier bags AFTER I have told you, several times, that I will pack myself?
Stop chatting to your gender buddies. Stop putting the eggs at the bottom, and the tins at the top. And please, please, accept the order that I first placed my groceries on the belt. That is the order that I chose to prepare for packing – I would rather that you did not play at mix and un-match.
This is not Eastenders or Coronation Street. Not all ‘MEN!’ are testosterone-driven morons who can barely read. Some of us are actually literate. And some of us occasionally do the weekly shop at a supermarket.
I do appreciate that not all supermarket assistants are biased in this way. Some are very efficient and helpful. I am grateful for the times when I encounter such paragons. I also know for a fact that some assistants treat every customer as badly as they treat me.
Times have changed. And a red-haired Scotsman can look forward to being a discriminated minority in supermarkets, and the world in general. That is the march of progress.
Just remember this.
When a red-haired Jamaican cross-dressing Jew called McTaggart, turns up in the counter queue at your supermarket, be very careful! Your chances of getting away with selective discrimination are practically nil.
Let the assistant beware!