today i was asked a new ‘stupid american’ question. by that, i mean questions asked that are stupid that i only have to endure because of where i was born (and have the nerve to interact with people who didn’t grow up there).
today’s was from a 19ish year old girl who’s lived in melbourne all that time. she asked
‘what are the dangerous parts of america?’
damn. wow. that one left me speechless. just how do u even consider answering that one.
i thought about going down the ‘how do u define dangerous? you mean compared to here?’ route. or the ‘america is a big place’ route. or even the ‘why do u ask?’ route but none seemed right.
finally i said
‘what are the dangerous parts of australia?’
and she laughed and stammered and didn’t know how to answer that.
until a few minutes later when she said
‘oh! i know! it’s sydney’
why?
‘because on the tv that’s where there’s always shootings and murders’
well then. settles that.
btw, there was a great article in the paper today (in the ny post equiv).
talked about how that chick in the iraqi pix is from some small town in west virginia. had interviews with people from her town. talked about how it’s such a backwards place that anyone who is different than they are (ie not american, not white, not christian) are considered ‘sub-human’ so of course there was nothing wrong with what she did. also a good quote about how they go hunting… for deer or birds or whatever… and now this chick is iraqi hunting. while they didn’t say it, they were really saying that taking the pix of the dead deer strapped to the car hood was the same thing as the pix of these guys with hoods and in chains. showing off your prize.
i tried to find the article online but they must already have it in their (for pay) archives.