All Intensive Purposes

It all centers on what happened several decades ago. The Pirates and the Ninjas had an altercation that they to this day, are still fighting about. Something about a pirate wench they both claimed, I dunno. She’s pretty old now, bruised and rough. But they are still fighting over her.

No, instead of flipping out and killing everyone as an unstoppable partnership that would leave robots, chickens, and robot chickens in fear, they remain divided. Unfortunately, despite our progressive-minded university’s best intentions, no one has curbed this hatred. While both groups speak of “pride” for their group and claim that they want “peace,” such statements always prelude bashing the other group. Being pro-Ninja means that you condone Ninja killings of Pirates, or that you are Anti-Piratical. It’s them or us. You can’t show pride in being a Pirate or a Ninja without then saying how “the Ninjas are yellow-bellied bastards” or “the Pirates lack honor or good hygiene.”

I’m tired of the scare tactics, too. Both sides try to play to our sympathies by depicting the horror of the other side. Posters and ads about ritualistic seppuku and walking the plank get grim after a while. As I walked around campus this last week, I felt really irritated. Both were claiming the others were saying hate-speech, but they turned a blind eye, or eye-patch, to their own group’s hateful words.

// posted by t.s. @ 6:08 PM