I AM THE LAW!

Quite some time ago I found myself in a class at ACBT. The student population in that class was all Sri Lankans and one Chinese girl. During the casual idle moments of the class where people would just chit chat, the conversation amidst the group I was in went to what I felt was an inappropriate place.

They started saying all this stuff about Chinese people and calling out 'Chinaman' and having conversation saying that all Chinese women are prostitutes. Worst of all that person could hear all of that, sitting only a single row in front. The group of people was both male and female and they were having a good laugh. The Chinese person stayed still like nothing was happening.

It took me a few seconds before I turned on those guys with an outburst and told them to stop. 'It's not funny' I said. They all went in to a quiet mumble mumble and stopped. But I ended up being the 'fun' killer. I have my rules and according to those what they were doing was wrong. All moral play. Yay!

But you see come the next class they were at it again and under the same setting. But you know what? I didn't say anything after that. Why? Well quite simply I felt odd. Like I was the lone guy who actually cared. I mean who the heck am I to go about 'enforcing' things? At the end of the day all I ended up becoming was the buzz kill. By doing that I was alienating myself from everyone else which wasn't something I wanted to do... and hell I didn't even know this Chinese person. So what was the point? There was a class full of people in there... what were they doing?

Looking back, what I did the first time was the right thing. If I was in that same situation today I'd keep doing what I did. I guess that would put me at odds with the mob, but I wouldn't really want to be part of the mob.

The question is, can you really do the right thing when everyone doesn't want to? I've always found you'll be on loose ground if you do and ultimately heading for trouble. All those guys had to do was throw a big "APOOOOO" my way or "Who Cares?" and then what am I supposed to say? "I am the law?"