Index... Episode I: The Power of Equality —— Episode II: The Fear —— Episode III: Heard It All Before —— Episode IV: The Power of Love
The Temple of the Living God
Episode I: The Power of Equality
5:14pm - Wednesday 17th April 1996
He tried to puff on his cigar one more time, only to be interrupted by cough number umpteen zillion and five. (Over what time period is left as an exercise to the reader.) Then he left it to rest on the table's ashtray, and grabbed something else from it. It was a compact disc labelled OUTSIDE SPEAKER PROMOTES RACISM - PARKINSONS MP - FEBRAURY 96. "This... this, if you had to ask me, is pretty big," he noted.
"Bigger than you are?" asked the unsuspecting professional from some nondescript private company who was the only other person sharing that particular office with him.
"Big. The things they're saying where you work and where your Natalie goes to school - actually neither of those places, necessarily - are making people upset, disappointed, confused... yet "enlightened" and "more aware of their relationships with their less advantaged colleagues" at the same time? I'm calling bullshit on that. I work in the admin department of the place where this was recorded and I have a ton of correspondence to prove it."
He promptly loaded the CD in the player and started playing the video that had been recorded over it. It began with a couple of minutes of silence, mostly because the man or woman holding the camcorder had started filming a bit early. Then, the party began.
Hello, good evening, welcome. I'm Velechas Lorpeta, I am a woman who is a dual national of Soche and Saint Eleanor, I work for International Consultancy and I've talked to many people about a lot of important things. Today, however, I can say that the workers of the Parkinsons Meat Processing company will be some of the first people anywhere to receive our Diversity Promotion Training. As I have said, this is by no way a mandatory training, many of you have followed the request to come here, but I would appreciate it if you could listen to my following summary of what I will talk about before you leave or do anything like that.
Although many people in Saint Eleanor are white, they are light-skinned and mostly from Tinhampton originally, there are many people who do not meet that description of a "normal" Eleanorian. These are people from places like Soche, where I grew up, or Gladom Newion, and they make up something like... twenty-five, maybe thirty thousand of the population? Although the white people in Saint Eleanor work in many different jobs, the immigrants from the other former colonies mostly work in low-pay, low-skill jobs, such as meat processing!
In this talk, I will show you a lot of evidence about the pay, the life opportunities of people from different ethnic backgrounds, how they behave, their reactions to what other people say about them, what their ancestors did, what the Tinhamptonian imperialists did and now what the new self-government from 1975 is doing for immigrants, for disadvantaged people, why white people are destroying their prospects, and everything between that.
And really, what I'm going to show you is that the white people, the people who make up most of the country, are the real racists in Saint Eleanor today. They are thinking too often in terms of position in the company and status. What they should be thinking in terms of is how able, how often they have to face problems because of what they can't change.
Although many people in Saint Eleanor are white, they are light-skinned and mostly from Tinhampton originally, there are many people who do not meet that description of a "normal" Eleanorian. These are people from places like Soche, where I grew up, or Gladom Newion, and they make up something like... twenty-five, maybe thirty thousand of the population? Although the white people in Saint Eleanor work in many different jobs, the immigrants from the other former colonies mostly work in low-pay, low-skill jobs, such as meat processing!
In this talk, I will show you a lot of evidence about the pay, the life opportunities of people from different ethnic backgrounds, how they behave, their reactions to what other people say about them, what their ancestors did, what the Tinhamptonian imperialists did and now what the new self-government from 1975 is doing for immigrants, for disadvantaged people, why white people are destroying their prospects, and everything between that.
And really, what I'm going to show you is that the white people, the people who make up most of the country, are the real racists in Saint Eleanor today. They are thinking too often in terms of position in the company and status. What they should be thinking in terms of is how able, how often they have to face problems because of what they can't change.
The people in the video were mostly shocked - and had every reason to be. Wouldn't this make virtually everybody in Saint Eleanor, less a smattering of immigrants from other ex-Tinhamptonian colonies, a racist?
The cigar-wielder paused the video a few seconds later, perhaps conscious of his subject's need for free time. "Just remember," he added, "that you should not think that this problem will magically resolve itself if you divest your company of any holdings it may have in Parkinsons Meat Processing. What you just saw, and what everybody else is gonna see soon, is highly explosive bullshit. Anyone can get it... and anyone can spread it."
"Why the hell should I care, Derek?"
"If Nat tells you that she's a racist a few weeks down the line, don't be alarmed. If you don't mind me, I'm scramming to the Eleanorian's offices to tell them about this. They won't be thrilled, either."
Morten Clawbrand 
