I work as a concierge for a building in Central London. Recently we had a new window cleaner firm take over, as the old boy who had done the job for years, retired!
I noticed that the new guy (with assistant) was a JW because I asked for his business card and noticed the blood card nestled tightly in the wallet card holder compartment, as he reached for a card. I told him my mother was a JW and he said we would have to talk more about it. I did not reveal that I was and still am a baptised JW and that I had faded and no longer believed in the creed because theocratic warfare strategy works both ways in my view.
In the block of flats I run, there is a sizable Muslim community with many traditional Muslim garbs worn also. Since my own spirituality and interest in science has taught me that skin colour means nothing, I concentrate on the character of a person’s heart, as though trying to peer through the interference of cultural differences to that end as much as possible. This means trying to get to know people! Since leaving the JWs faith many moons ago now, I think I have come way further that I ever did as a JW in seeing the spirit within, as opposed to the outside of a person. The bad side of this, is that I am very much more sensitive to all the forms of racism that come into view and there are many of them.
With this as the background this is what occurred! The guy turned up to do the buildings windows as I said, and after our small conversation I left him to get on with the work. A few hours went by and he had more or less finished and so I met them in the main lobby of the building. They were coming and going to their vehicle in the car park as this is next to the main lobby. Now as I was standing next to the main entrance a Muslim lady in her traditional dress came down in the lift with her 3 years old child in a push chair. I opened the door for her to exit into the car part. I noticed however that her little child had on a pair of exceptionally thick lensed glasses. After they left I made comment to the JW window cleaner that the kid had very thick glasses on. He acknowledged my comment and took me to one side in the main lobby and quietly said to me the following:
“The reason for this is because Muslims sleep with their cousins”.
Now where do I start in commenting on such a generalisation! Speaking personally I would never take an individual and assume anything either medically, or in terms of marriage practices without knowing the individual in question. Also in the UK it is legal to marry even first cousins, not that I would personally want to do so because of my own yuck factor. However I don’t have any issue with others doing so because the risk to any offspring is very small, hence its legality. Thus I concluded that this was in fact a racist comment by a JW. Interestingly this JW window cleaner is Portuguese in origin.
Thoughts?