I'm reading "I’m putting my foot down – only barbarians wear shoes inside" by Arwa Mahdawi in The Guardian, and it ends like this:
Dear white people reading this, I’m going to say this as delicately as possible but I’m afraid you have something of a reputation when it comes to cleanliness. Last year, for example, there was a heated online debate about white people not washing their legs in the shower. This followed on from a debate, instigated by a white person, about whether swimming counts as bathing. Then there are all the rich white celebrities who love boasting about how they don’t like washing themselves (Jake Gyllenhaal), their kids (Ashton Kutcher), or their clothes (Stella McCartney). When you are a non-white person who has to deal with stereotypes about “dirty foreigners” it can be grating, to say the least, to see privileged white people revel in being disgusting. But, you know what? I’m not going into the racialised aspects of hygiene discourse here. Instead, I would like to ask a member of the white community to come forward and condemn the grotesque actions of some of your wearing-boots-inside brethren. If white people want to be good allies, it’s time to take a stand! But not in your dirty shoes, obviously.
Somehow this reminds me of how Whoopi Goldberg positioned herself with respect to the Holocaust: I stand back and watch when white people fight each other. But Whoopi wasn't saying she wanted that particular fight, Mahdawi is asking for a fight; and berating other people as disgustingly dirty is nowhere near as bad as the Holocaust; but race-based disgust is not a good way to go. And I realize Mahdawi probably believes this is funny. You can say very funny things if you take the liberty to go racial.
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81 comments:
That's the most racist and bigoted thing I've read all day. Thanks for sharing.
Does she want people to then wash them?
https://www.opindia.com/2021/01/meet-arwa-mahdawi-the-guardian-columnist-who-has-turned-into-a-joke/
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Madhawi IS funny. He’s giving a truly brilliant impersonation of a race-obsessed POC with a gigantic inferiority complex and real anger issues. Whatever happened to the Madhawi we thought we knew, that smiling fellow with the bland (even unctuous) manner and that charming lilt in his voice when he said “Sahib”?
I suggest that no one go there. As we all know, stereotypes are based in reality.
These people are so utterly insufferable. Their obsession with racial issues is like a personality disorder. I just don't get it. What on earth is the benefit of looking at the world this way? I guess combining self-righteousness with perpetual victimhood is an intoxication. But who would want to live that way, always finding something trivial to get snide about? Just live your life. Find some hobby to enjoy.
My granddaughter was adamant about no one wearing shoes into her apartment. She had two cats and a litter box in that apartment. She now has her MD, is married, and has cats plus two great Pyrenees, and I wonder if she still takes her shoes off at the door and insists everyone else do so as well. they are all indoor "babies."
"Or is the floor on the shit?" is what Kierkegaard would say."
NSFW
I realize you can't always just flip the races and ask, How would we react if...? Sometimes it's a lot more complicated. Not here, though.
Just imagine this from a white writer: "Dear Persons of Color reading this, I’m going to say this as delicately as possible [lays out stereotype rooted in racialized disgust, held together by Availability Bias]." No doubt that writer would have a bright future with The Guardian.
Just tiresome race-obsessed click bait.
Its just another variation of The Althouse Rule (If you compare women and men, the comparison must favor women).
If you compare anyone to white people, the comparison must favor the non-white people.
Anything else is white supremacy, by definition.
I wear slippers inside, so I guess I'm a half-barbarian.
Cleanliness and environmentalism are white supremacy, in case you are wondering.
Mahdi is a common Brahmin surname. Miss Thing should be more concerned about the caste slaves her family owns than the problems of race in America.
How is it okay to call white people dirty but if a white person said anything similar about another race, it would be the end of their career. I'm just trying to figure out how that is even close to okay.
Does she offer consideration to shoes of color, and other minority footwear, perhaps pink? Orange? Weird. Does she offer shoe-equivalents as socially-aware emoluments to her guest laborers?
Racist.
I wash with specially imported "Raw Ganges Water"! It's also great for drinking, the throwing into of dead people, and making Pooja.
How is it okay to call white people dirty but
White privilege is diversity dogma of the Pro-Choice religion that is used to avoid reconciliation of politically congruent constructs. Now, take a knee, beg, good boy, girl, fetus, whatever.
I was under the impression that Americans and the Japanese were the world's clean freaks.
"Don't take off your shoes!"
But don't worry, don't worry.
Your food, housing, insecurity will be guaranteed by your Department of Redundancy Department and the Natural Guard.
And remember — trusswrappers will be persecuted.
So please, stay where you are. Don't panic.
Don't take off your shoes!
Jobs is on the way!
shes one of those defiant L's, who dissed Melania and slobbered over Dr, Jill, among other things,
It seems like she should be complaining to the Celebrities she mentions, not suggesting that because Celebrities do this, everyone does it too.
Filed under: One more columnist I can ignore.
Can I say out laud that I don't want to a be an "ally"? I'm not at war with anyone. I just want to be a person who has friends, acquaintances, some people I don't care for, etc. Do we have to join an army now? And, do my footwear habits really determine which side I'm on? This is beyond ridiculous. Its idiotic, childish, and an example of the dearth of thoughtful social commentary that has now befallen us.
For a while I had the idea that Midwest people (prairie people in Canada) take shoes off at the door, even on a dry summer day when the shoes are not particularly dirty. Politeness, with memories of trekking across a farmyard to get to the front door? East coast people on the other hand (Toronto people in Canada) regard this as silly at best. I was at a home in Minnesota, our hostess to some extent from there (originally a military brat who had time in Europe), and she asked us to take off our shoes. One visitor said: what is this, a Japanese thing? No one in this story was Japanese.
Jeez, looking at the link from NorthOfTheOneOhOne, she's more crazy-eyes than AOC.
Your ideas of hygiene change if you own a dog.
There is some correlation between places where it is common to remove shoes before entering a house and places where squat toilets predominate.
I spend time in Asian-American homes. They provide simple indoor sandals at the front door.
I don't reciprocate and they keep shoes on. Meaning to ask which they prefer.
"Dear White People..."
Because one white person's the same as any other.
Now do black ppl and tipping.
Re the tqeet that started a firestorm on swimming equalling bathing, internet tip - "asking for a friend" equals sarcasm. Also, no identification by the author that they were qhite. Asshats.
Dear Arwa Mahdawi,
I’m going to say this as delicately as possible ... fuck off.
I don’t like removing my shoes at other people’s houses. Who knows what their floors are like, or what condition my socks or feet are? I have only encountered this expectation to remove your shoes at homes of Southeast Asian Indians and white academics. Once, I was at a party at the home of a white academic, when a Black family arrived. They did not remove their shoes. No one said a thing. (Should “white” be capitalized?)
Asian-American (i.e. 1/2 American) as in Indian? Chinese? Russian, perhaps? People of Yellow, Red, Black, White (POW), too, have culturally... nay, individually disparate values, and are hardly the color blocs that meet the color quotas of affirmative discrimination under the Pro-Choice religion of Progressive Churches, Synagogues, Clinics, Corporations, Agencies, etc.
LatinX? Dumb, dumber, and dumberer. That said, diversity breeds adversity. #HateLovesAbortion
"In late stage capitalism, access to hygiene is fraught; even if someone can afford hygiene products, many disabilities can make it difficult for one to shower regularly."
What I wonder, is how she gets that much stupid into her tiny little skull. I'd think it would be leaking out her ears.
You want me to say Ashton Kutcher is nasty. Ok. Now tell me who Stella McCartney is.
That's the most racist and bigoted thing I've read all day.
Concur.
Don't take off your shoes!
The Firesign Theater reference is pretty cool, Wince. I must have listened to Don't Crush that Dwarf. Hand me the Pliers about 200 times my freshman year of college.
I have not smoked dope in over 40 years and I wonder if the old records would still elicit laughter, particularly in these absurd times.
Commie Martyrs High School is a classic as is the name George R. Tirebiter. We need FT to be here today.
In every aspect of life I ask myself one question. What would AOC do? Then I do the opposite. Its all about percentages.
White. Sorry, I was born this way.
Blogger Rabel said...
There is some correlation between places where it is common to remove shoes before entering a house and places where squat toilets predominate.
I believe in this instance correlation= causation.
Myself, I would like a member of the Indian community to deal with their disgusting practice of allowing cows to roam the streets, depositing their shit everywhere and thus making it mandatory to take off their shoes and sandals before entering their homess.
Wypepo stopped doing that when we no longer used horses for transportation.
"I was under the impression that Americans and the Japanese were the world's clean freaks."
The Guardian is a UK newspaper.
I guess a lot of Althouse readers enjoy vacuuming and mopping their floors. And refinishing wood floors when they getscratched from stones in treads and grit on the bottom of their shoes.
I grew poor-to-blue-collar in Western NY and we never wore outdoor shoes inside. Seems to me that people who wear outdoor shoes inside either are too lazy to remove them (and put on slippers if they like) or they’re tacitly admitting that their floors are as filthy as the ground outside.
I know it way over the top.
I always ask if I should remove my shoes.
Then I honor my host. With never a thought, ever.
On the subject of Asian-Americans, I was at a small group dinner last weekend, which included an Indonesian-American woman. We had a candid conversation, because everyone there was on the same page politically. This woman said how tired she was of being an "Asian-American" as an identity. She said rarely do people from her country, or neighboring Malaysia, figure in to most American's perspective of "Asian." She said that Indonesia has more than 250 million people, with hundreds of ethnic groups. It's the largest chain of islands in the world - a gigantic country. But she is relegated to somewhere several items down after Chinese, Japanese, Korean, Indian, ... As she pointed out, her country has plenty of "diversity" all on its own.
"And refinishing wood floors when they getscratched from stones in treads and grit on the bottom of their shoes."
When I got my floors refinished in 1991, the floor person told me that shoes that have been outdoors have grit that is *like sandpaper* on the floors. That's when I switched to the shoes off approach. I had so many people in and out of the house in the 1990s — my sons' friends — and I'm glad I had the no-shoes rule. And they were all completely good about shoe removal. It wasn't hard to have that policy and I observed complete respect for the rule. It's something people understand and follow. People appreciate being allowed to go into someone's home and act accordingly.
Taking shoes off makes keeping the house clean much easier, so it shows consideration for the person who cleans it. I think it's important for young people to learn not to make the house cleaner's job harder. There's a simple thing you can do, take off your shoes, and not to do it is to shift work onto the person who does the cleaning.
As a teenager, I realised one day that I didn't know what point Whites took their shoes off. I knew they didn't take their shoes off at the entrance -- I had White relatives after all. But did they wear them into their bedrooms? Into bed? And what about poor Whites? Our home, and my White grandparents' home, were large enough that I could imagine a clean division between the public and private spaces of the house, where perhaps you might leave shoes on in the public spaces like the dining room, the kitchen, the living room, or the sitting room (we occasionally hosted dinner parties attended by Whites and Blacks, and I recall we did this), but take them off before entering the hallway to the private spaces. But did poor Whites have enough space in their houses to do this? Did they wear their boots in bed, like the song said? I have some sense of how American Whites negotiate the transition into indoor spaces today, but even now, in my middle age, it is difficult for me to imagine actually living like that.
Although by the same token, I rarely use house slippers or bathroom slippers, and don't keep any pairs handy for guests, but I know people who can't imagine going about at home in just their socks or bare feet, and probably find it rude if I didn't lay out house slippers for them when they visit. I also know someone who finds it utterly intolerable when people take their shoes off and don't line them up and turn them around to face out neatly. She would probably have a seizure if someone walked in with his shoes on. I'm comparatively laid back about this sort of thing -- I don't make White workmen take their shoes off when they come in, etc., unless it's muddy out. And I don't care about visitors lining up their shoes to look orderly.
But am I racist about this? Yeah, kind of. It's like how a lot of Whites view public spitting (China), slurping (Japan), and burping (Korea). It's hard not to react with instinctive disgust to something that feels dirty to you. And sure, it's not an innate racial trait (there's European cultures that take their shoes off), but it's something that broke down along pretty clear racial lines during my childhood, and I think of it as a weird "White" custom, even if it isn't unique to or universal among Whites.
This piece may be intended as humour, but it probably falls in the category of not really joking.
"the person who does the cleaning" — that was usually me.
My knees are shot. Taking off and putting on shoes is hell for me. I buy shoes that make it easier but it’s still hell. Further, I have always had foot odor and often wear socks past their prime. I hate de-shoeing. My Canadian relatives (BC) demand it. My Asian-American church mates do as well.
So when I go their houses, I de-shoe … because of what a virtuous person I am, simmering with rage the entire time.
The big question is: does Joe Biden wash his hairy legs in the shower-- or is that his daughter's job? Inquiring minds need to know.
We had the living room floor refinished when we bought our house going on 20 years ago. Still looks new. We don’t wear shoes on it and no dogs.
We have disposable boot covers when workers/repairmen etc come in the house, it they usually bring their own.
It seems so disrespectful to wear dirty shoes into someone’s home. I never do it. At the same time, I realize some people don’t like to take off their shoes. That’s one of the reasons we have never had a big holiday party or the like. We wait until summer to have any big parties and everyone can stay outside (except for trips to the bathroom that is conveniently located a few short steps across a tile floor that gets mopped the next day.
Imagine a NYC pedestrian walking into a Manhattan apartment with whatever accumulated bum juice is on the soles of the shoes. Off at the door!!!
- Krumhorn
(my preferred adjectives: brilliant/awesome)
I've lived in Japan...I get it.
But anyone who starts anything with 'Dear white people' can fuck right off.
'White people' pretty much built the modern world that she lives in.
Maybe show a little fucking gratitude.
Did I say fuck off?
Remember this... Cleanliness is next to impossible.
effinayright said...
Myself, I would like a member of the Indian community to deal with their disgusting practice of allowing cows to roam the streets, depositing their shit everywhere and thus making it mandatory to take off their shoes and sandals before entering their homess.
They're too busy trying to combat their problem with the citizenry defecating in public. (This is from 2014).
This was an interesting post.
Different cultures attach quite different significance to footwear. Recall the Iraqi journalist who hurled his shoes at President Bush. The gesture conveyed deep contempt. For residents of dusty, fecally rich cultures, the shoe is a vector of, and metaphor for, every sort of pollution. Many ancient biblical passages refer to the placing of one's shoes upon another as the ultimate signature of dominance.
For myself, I have never observed a difference between the cleanliness standards of homes that allow shoes, and those that insist upon an awkward ritual of de-shoeing as a condition of entrance. We would run the Roomba on the same schedule, without regard to the socked or shoed status of our guests. But if I were a guest of Madawhi or his confreres, I would pay much more attention to my hosiery choices.
Germ phobia and excessive hygiene generally seem to me to be based upon an ignorance with regard to the ubiquity of microcosmic life forms. You can't escape the biological microcosm, and you shouldn't want to.
Ampersand, you are reading way too much into this when it comes to Americans who remove shoes and those who don’t. I think we can all agree that the ground outside is dirty. See Krumhorn’s post above. You don’t have to be a germphobe to realize that you are tracking dirt into your home when you wear shoes inside. At the very least, that will require more frequent vacuuming and mopping. Less work to slip off you shoes. You have to take them off eventually anyway unless you wear them to bed.
Request. Accommodation. Allegations of diversity breed adversity.
Her claim is that she is responding to a WSJ article or blog post entitled, "Here’s Why I’ll Be Keeping My Shoes on in Your Shoeless Home," and that commenters had already remarked that only a white person could have written the article. I'm not sure that's any excuse or justification, but it does show she's not alone, or unprovoked, or very original.
Jonathan Haidt wrote that Indians (in India) take off their shoes in homes because they defecate outside and so they frequently have poop on their shoes, like San Franciscans. So we really need to take off shoes in offices and grocery stores as well as homes. But the bums will steal your shoes. So we should use crime scene plastic shoe covers while at work and while shopping.
My wife is from Europe and it is the custom in her country to take your shoes off inside. It makes sense. Her country gets really muddy and you don't want to track that all over the house. It's a good habit, but one that many of us lost because our country is relatively clean.
There is a door mat outside my front door. That’s where people rub the dirt off the bottoms of their shoes before they enter the house. It says “Welcome.”
My wife is from India, and while taking your shoes off before entering is commom practice I've still been to plenty of homes in India where the residents said 'oh don't worry about it.' We mostly took our shoes off anyway, but more just whatever the host was doing so occasionally not. And for Indians living in the US generally even less of a big deal. My wife likes to keep the shoes by the door so we don't track dirt all ove the place, but she's not obsessive about it, more just not wanting dirty footprints on her clean floor when I come in from walking the dog. And she's never asked a guest to take off their shoes. But I guess different people are affected differently, you have a right to set up your own home how you want. Anyway the main point is that while not wanting shoes in the home is a real thing among Indians, the extreme feeling by this writer is not representative.
"...I’m not going into the racialised aspects of hygiene discourse here. "
You just did. Was it supposed to be funny?
Oh, Good Lord, when will Americans understand that almost every culture has its own vein of incredibly self-righteous & self-important people?
We're talking Indians here, people. You know, Indians, as in castes, with the Brahmins at the top. This is a society obsessed with ritual cleanliness & purity, since the people at the bottom do dirty jobs like bury the dead, tan hides, and take away the garbage, including human wastes.
We as Americans come from a culture that is Christian rapidly becoming post-Christian (if not there already). Christianity is the outlier among the world's faiths in that it did away with uncleanliness/impurity in the religious sense, and only sin remains. All sins, except for Original Sin, are for Christianity caused by acts of will, while impurity/uncleanliness for other faiths is a state caused by the necessities of the human conditions, e.g. the ritual impurity of menstruating women under rabbinic Judaism & Islam.
These notions of impurity are everywhere in other cultures & Americans need to be more cognizant of when they are being expressed, often in ways that are not honest about the sources of the disgust.
Shoes off in our house, for reasons Ann Althouse noted above.
This writer needs some prayers to be said for her, she is in need.
'White people' pretty much built the modern world that she lives in.
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did they not retrn from crusades with knoledge of importance of washing and cleanliness and sanitation?
or is my history wrong?
I'm not putting my feet on your disgusting floor. Yuck.
Narayanan said...
'White people' pretty much built the modern world that she lives in.
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did they not retrn from crusades with knoledge of importance of washing and cleanliness and sanitation?
********************
NO. the Romans had running water, baths, toilets and sewer systems.
https://quatr.us/romans/roman-sewage-ancient-roman-toilets-poop-pipes.htm
A Roman sewer system was found in Turkey.
https://www.archaeology.org/news/9995-210915-turkey-roman-sewer
And besides, the people the Crusaders fought were also Caucasians, to use the old-fashioned term.
My rule for guests is that kids have to take off their shoes, adults do not.
I've never heard of "shoe rules" growing up or in my adult life, except for maybe two or three times when I visited distant family or acquaintances. I just thought that those folks were being weird. I get that people don't want you wearing your work boots in their house, but who visits anyone wearing their work attire?
These days I rarely wear shoes at all, inside or out. The only exception is if I have to enter a store, restaurant, or fitness center.
I live in Hong Kong. We ALL take off our shoes when we go inside. It’s a cultural thing, not racial.
(Same as many of the issues in US — more cultural than racial)
I have a "Welcome" mat outside my front door and one immediately inside to wipe off those "outside" shoes. I won't ask you to take your shoes off. (now, clothes, that's a different story) Before you invite me over, let me know ALL the rules so I can make a decision whether or not to accept the invitation. I try not to be rude. I will remove my shoes if asked. But I will never return.
theoldman
Anger casting about for something to be angry about. The funny thing is, I don't know anybody who wears shoes inside. Every house I go into, literally every house, has a mat by the door where people put their shoes when they come in. You'd never get the floors clean otherwise.
"But, you know what? I’m not going into the racialised aspects of hygiene discourse"
He says in the middle of a racialized rant about hygiene.
Being from the rural upper Midwest I pretty much always remove my shoes when entering a private residence. As most comments have noted it would be pretty unusual for your shoes not to contain objectional material, especially when you live where I grew up. That said, barefoot is not good either because the oils, sweat, and dead skin from your feet will also degrade and dirty up your floors.
On a tangent, my black wife has related a story from her adolescence of washing her hair daily in imitation of her teenage white friends, and wondering why that didn't work out well until she was told that lighter finer hair can stand to, and needs to, have natural oils removed more often than her thick dark hair. So there is some basis for thinking hygienic requirements may vary by race but, of course, noticing this fact would be raycccissss.
did they not retrn from crusades with knoledge of importance of washing and cleanliness and sanitation?
or is my history wrong?
Perhaps you could explain all of those roman public baths?
When I think of a Left Winger, I think of a normal person, then I take away reason and accountability.
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