From time to time I get a caller that shares his racist beliefs with me. This puts me in a conundrum-do I criticize his racist comment and risk losing him as a customer or do I let his words slide to ensure that he stays a long term client?
One of my recent callers is a pretty bad racist. Early on in our calls he told me “I’m not racist but I sure do hate them Arabs.” I cringed but said nothing. I tried to justify my silence. He talks for hours at a time and is quite the devoted client. But his slurs didn’t stop. He talked about Arabs as “towelheads”, African Americans as “niggers”, Hispanics as “spics” and according to him “those Jews control everything”.
It would have been easier if he was a continuous asshole. But he’s not. Sometimes he’s nice, friendly, even entertaining. I felt conflicted on what to do.
This last week Racist Caller was complaining about his job. At the end of his ranting he said “Hell, I should just move down south to work on border patrol and chase off them Mexicans.”
The proverbial straw, my friends, had snapped. I couldn’t let such a comment go by without comment. Racist Caller gave me a perfect entry. I was quiet, contemplating what to say when he asked, “That’d be fun right?”
“No, “ I told him, “it wouldn’t be fun. You would be a foot soldier enforcing fascism.”
Before he could comment I sucked in breath and stepped firmly onto my soapbox.
I told him it was hypocritical for politicians to attack illegal immigrants since the very nature of capitalism requires a class of people to be slaves. The system needs cheap labor and the reality is illegals are willing to work for slave wages and under slave conditions. They are the foundation that hold up the very system that the politicians stand on.
But I wasn’t done ranting. Not even close. Purposely keeping my voice sexy so he wouldn’t think I was yelling at him I continued on.
I told him how the Nazis cracked down on illegal immigration and drummed up hatred of homosexuals way before they put Jews into death camps. Just a mere glance at what our country was doing now was enough to see that we were unfortunately starting to follow in those horrid footsteps.
His response? “I sure do love talking to you. You think different.”
Sigh. Did he even hear me?
Posted by Vixen in PSO Confessions