Attitude Attitude

“It’s hard to organise Indian labour…”

I couldn’t help but gawk in disbelief as these words were just so nonchalantly spat out by that big-headed, pea-brained, oh-c’mon-look-at-me-I’m-so-beyond -your-league wanker Rob from The Amazing Race. I apologise for the crass manner in which I refer to this person but there could be no other term more apt than that.

R and his partner Amber have been coming out first in many of the legs of the game. Good on them. It’s a game, everyone is going for each other’s neck; they’re all out to win, and the pressure is on. Fine by me. That however doesn’t give any of them the excuse to act like pompous arses and spew out derogatory comments towards those who are not part of the game, and what’s more, not there to benefit from any 1 million dollars anyway! Going back to Rob, the above comment came out when they had to push and transfer a huge statue of an elephant from one point to another. They were in India. The streets are packed with Indians. Indian kids seem to be everywhere. R and A needed help to quickly move this huge-ass thing to find their next clue. While A was doing her share of work, R was bellowing to the locals to lend a hand in pushing. Now, these people have no obligation to help them, nor are they required to give way and make things easy for these tourists in a competition. But for some reasons, in many non-Western developing countries, having white skinned visitors around is a marvel to behold, being able to be “of assistance” may feel like glory to some. The local kids were happily pushing R and A’s load, although of course still not up to R’s standards, thus his comment.

The remark was definitely loaded, not just a harmless quip, borne out of a feeling of dominance. I was annoyed at how commanding R was to these people. Hello??? They are not your hired help! I was likewise riled with his scornful aside, giving off an insinuation that these people are fit for labour work alone, and nothing more. To also be frustrated with the organisation of how they are voluntarily helping him out is just too thick-skinned of him. Shouldn’t he be grateful instead that the locals didn’t see them as nuisance to their everyday busy lives?

I couldn’t help but grit my teeth in infuriation when I see or encounter such kind of attitude. True, there will always be those who are more educated, more privileged, prettier, and richer. Likewise, there will be those who lack certain privileges, disadvantaged in life, etc. But people who deem themselves to be at a higher plane than others may well be doing us all a favour by not flaunting themselves as demigods. Perhaps it can’t be helped that superiority complex in some people surface. Then again it’s a different thing when it surfaces in concurrence with belittling another. That feeling of self-importance ticks a lot of people off. Others are just too polite to tell them off.

Someone should get a stick out and go about curbing those attitudes.