The Assumption of Prejudice in Writing

[slyc_willie]

When we, as writers, craft a story, we endeavor to look at the world through the lens of our characters' eyes. Regardless of point of view, whether it be first or second person, third person limited or third person omniscient, we color the narrative based upon whoever is talking. Doing so gives the reader a feel for whichever character is dominating the action.

The story I am currently working on has as the main character a working class anti-hero. He's rude, gruff, blunt and has more than a few character flaws as well as some pretty tragic life experiences. He doesn't care about anyone, much less himself, and is more or less simply waiting to die (but only under the right circumstances). That's a far cry, of course, from myself, but I find the character compelling. He's the sort of person who always says what we want to say to the rude woman in the grocery store checkout line, and always possesses the wit to creatively express an insult in such a way as to truly hammer it home. Basically, he's the human Id in action.

But such a character isn't indicative of how I personally view the world, as much as I would like to sometimes. He has prejudices I don't -- and am glad I don't -- possess. He sees things in simple terms until they become more convoluted, and is able to adapt and still find a way to be right. In the end, though, he's really just a schlep that is only righteous because I create the scenarios that allow him to be so.

In writing from this character's point of view, though, I wonder how many readers will identify with him. How much of my assumption of this character's prejudice is actually echoed among the general populace? He's a hard-working, flawed, uncompromising son of a bitch with both a criminal and military past who, as I describe in the story, has "eschewed the simplicities of racism in favor of a doctrine of equal opportunity derision." In other words, he neither likes nor dislikes anybody until they somehow prove themselves in his eyes. But, while he would not want to admit it, he is governed by prejudices.

I think we writers sometimes get bogged down in the intricacies of our own creations and wind up consumed, for the sake of the story at hand, by the vision of the world we have given our characters. There's a certain sense of catharsis in doing so, but it also brings the possibility of alienation from our readers. I'm reminded of Quentin Tarantino and his reliance upon prejudicial viewpoints in many of his films. Relying on prejudice can certainly give a striking feel to a story, even if the views expressed aren't universal.

I suppose that what I am getting at is this fundamental question: what defines the tone of the story? A) The viewpoints of the characters involved, with whatever frailties and prejudices they may have that try to pull the reader in alongside them, or B) the overall objectionist viewpoint of the outside pair of eyes looking in, with no assumptions of prejudice and a sort of clinical appraisal of what transpires throughout the story?

And which is better? What really grabs the reader? My antihero will probably resound with the blue-collar crowd, but will he find a home in the heart of the professional mindset? Should I even care?

Well, to answer that last question, I can already tell you I don't. I'm going to write my characters however I wish, and damn the critics. But I remain curious as to the reception of a character from readers across different walks of life. I suppose that I, like many writers, simply want to know if I'm good at portraying someone who is something I am not. Being a good writer, after all, is not unlike being a good actor; you have to be able to be convincing even when the material falls outside your comfort zone.

 

[JAMESBJOHNSON]

With 66 years of life under my belt I go with what I know is the real deal. Mencken usta call cynics 'realists,' and I always look for funerals when I smell fresh flowers.

About the only humans I approve of are construction workers, any more military are as often pussies as not. Fags, niggers, and gals I have no use for. I have no use for them because most of them are card carrying Nazi assholes compulsed to follow party dogma. It makes my life simpler to paint all with the same brush, the exceptions are delightful surprises, and I wanna see whats up your skirt before we trade spit and phone numbers.

So I don't wanna depict 'nice' people, because all whom I know are frauds and closet monsters.

 

[slyc_willie]

I have to say I am not at all surprised by your response, Jimbo. In fact, I expected it, and you said pretty much what I assumed you would.

It doesn't really answer the question though. How do you think people outside the blue-collar, self-pitying, hard-working mindset would respond to such a character?

 

[JAMESBJOHNSON]

I have to say I am not at all surprised by your response, Jimbo. In fact, I expected it, and you said pretty much what I assumed you would.

It doesn't really answer the question though. How do you think people outside the blue-collar, self-pitying, hard-working mindset would respond to such a character?

Fuck you Willie, I aint playing YES BUT with you. The response you got is the response you got, and if it doesn't jive with your template, fuck you.

 

[DeYaKen]

I have to say I am not at all surprised by your response, Jimbo. In fact, I expected it, and you said pretty much what I assumed you would.

It doesn't really answer the question though. How do you think people outside the blue-collar, self-pitying, hard-working mindset would respond to such a character?

I would say that comment says more about your prejudices than your original post.

As for who identifies with your character and who doesn't, why does it matter. Some people may love him and others may hate him. From a writers point of view both are good, it keeps the reader interested. The worst character is one that no one gives a damn about.

If they hate your main character, they will read on hoping they get their just desserts. If they love or identify with your character they will read on hoping to see him triumph over adversity. I've read books where I haven't liked either of the main characters who are involved in a conflict. Gone Girl is a classic example. Not liking the characters doesn't stop you wanting to know who comes out on top.

 

[slyc_willie]

Fuck you Willie, I aint playing YES BUT with you. The response you got is the response you got, and if it doesn't jive with your template, fuck you.

Translation: "I didn't understand, so I decided to wing it after a quick perusal of the original post."

Fuck you, too, Jimbo.

I would say that comment says more about your prejudices than your original post.

Maybe, but only in response to Jimbo.

As for who identifies with your character and who doesn't, why does it matter. Some people may love him and others may hate him. From a writers point of view both are good, it keeps the reader interested. The worst character is one that no one gives a damn about.

If they hate your main character, they will read on hoping they get their just desserts. If they love or identify with your character they will read on hoping to see him triumph over adversity. I've read books where I haven't liked either of the main characters who are involved in a conflict. Gone Girl is a classic example. Not liking the characters doesn't stop you wanting to know who comes out on top.

I've done the same. A classic example for me is Batman. I can't stand the character as a whole, mainly because of what popular media has turned him into. He was much more interesting in the Tim Burton films, when he and everyone around him was portrayed as deeply psychologically flawed. Everyone in the Batman universe was crazy, including Batman himself.

I agree that the worst character is someone no one cares about, or, to extend the philosophy, someone no one either cares about or feels compelled to argue with.

 

[lovecraft68]

No character will gain universal appeal, not in my opinion. Anti-heroes are popular these days, we live in dark times and the white hat/black hat cowboys are long gone, everything now is grey.

Your character sounds like the me from my early teens to early thirties, blunt, nasty, apathetic, yet with a bit of flawed nobility where I would do the right thing, but still always for my motivations. I did not have an outright death wish, but had more than a little crash and burn mentality.

Not quite sure if blue collar describes who he would appeal to, income and job description does not really equate with your MC personality traits, but I get your point he would be more popular with the ;everyday man/woman who can identify with life being a struggle and not always conforming the way it should than he would with an elitist snot who has no clue what real life is about-btw that last sentence shows I am your target audience

But back to my first point you will not score with every demographic no matter what type of person you write so what I do is just write it and figure the right audience will find it and enjoy it.

In SWB I created two characters who on the surface were despicable for a variety of reasons, yet they had a certain appeal to people with a fuck you attitude. As time went on and the story progressed and you learn how they became what they are, I noticed different people commenting and different types of comments and feedback as I slowly won some people over. So it is possible through your writing to reshape opinions, but it will never be universally accepted.

So just go with what you do and let the chips fall and if some wonder if the MC is "you" and you're an asshole, let them. What does it really matter? I'm also of the opinion that universal acceptance is the sign of a lack of creativity and being a conformist, the "sheeple" theory.

 

[JAMESBJOHNSON]

Translation: "I didn't understand, so I decided to wing it after a quick perusal of the original post."

Fuck you, too, Jimbo.



Maybe, but only in response to Jimbo.



I've done the same. A classic example for me is Batman. I can't stand the character as a whole, mainly because of what popular media has turned him into. He was much more interesting in the Tim Burton films, when he and everyone around him was portrayed as deeply psychologically flawed. Everyone in the Batman universe was crazy, including Batman himself.

I agree that the worst character is someone no one cares about, or, to extend the philosophy, someone no one either cares about or feels compelled to argue with.

I understand you clearly. You offer respondents choices of YES or NO. NO earns a discount as it never matches your opinion. Your discount takes the form of YES, but your idea eats shit.

 

[elfin_odalisque]

I suppose that what I am getting at is this fundamental question: what defines the tone of the story? A) The viewpoints of the characters involved, with whatever frailties and prejudices they may have that try to pull the reader in alongside them, or B) the overall objectionist viewpoint of the outside pair of eyes looking in, with no assumptions of prejudice and a sort of clinical appraisal of what transpires throughout the story?

And which is better? What really grabs the reader? My antihero will probably resound with the blue-collar crowd, but will he find a home in the heart of the professional mindset? Should I even care?

Well, to answer that last question, I can already tell you I don't. I'm going to write my characters however I wish, and damn the critics. But I remain curious as to the reception of a character from readers across different walks of life. I suppose that I, like many writers, simply want to know if I'm good at portraying someone who is something I am not. Being a good writer, after all, is not unlike being a good actor; you have to be able to be convincing even when the material falls outside your comfort zone.

A thoughtful post, thank you.

Authors, like playwrights and screenwriters, like Zeus on Olympus, manipulate their characters as puppeteers. Actors on the other hand, like characters, are the puppets, always dancing to the director's tune.

The only issue I think you might face in going outside your comfort zone is having enough research to give reality to your characters.

I think you're wrong to worry about 'different walks of life'.

 

[JAMESBJOHNSON]

No character will gain universal appeal, not in my opinion. Anti-heroes are popular these days, we live in dark times and the white hat/black hat cowboys are long gone, everything now is grey.

Your character sounds like the me from my early teens to early thirties, blunt, nasty, apathetic, yet with a bit of flawed nobility where I would do the right thing, but still always for my motivations. I did not have an outright death wish, but had more than a little crash and burn mentality.

Not quite sure if blue collar describes who he would appeal to, income and job description does not really equate with your MC personality traits, but I get your point he would be more popular with the ;everyday man/woman who can identify with life being a struggle and not always conforming the way it should than he would with an elitist snot who has no clue what real life is about-btw that last sentence shows I am your target audience

But back to my first point you will not score with every demographic no matter what type of person you write so what I do is just write it and figure the right audience will find it and enjoy it.

In SWB I created two characters who on the surface were despicable for a variety of reasons, yet they had a certain appeal to people with a fuck you attitude. As time went on and the story progressed and you learn how they became what they are, I noticed different people commenting and different types of comments and feedback as I slowly won some people over. So it is possible through your writing to reshape opinions, but it will never be universally accepted.

So just go with what you do and let the chips fall and if some wonder if the MC is "you" and you're an asshole, let them. What does it really matter? I'm also of the opinion that universal acceptance is the sign of a lack of creativity and being a conformist, the "sheeple" theory.

I cant imagine navel-gazing books selling but I know blue collar readers and they go for action adventures with enough imagination stimulation, GODFATHER comes to mind. When I was 18, in Vietnam, GODFATHER and 2001 were tops. COOL HAND LUKE, MISTER MAJESTYK, HOMBRE were equally popular.

 

[DirtyAllie]

I cant imagine navel-gazing books selling but I know blue collar readers and they go for action adventures with enough imagination stimulation, GODFATHER comes to mind. When I was 18, in Vietnam, GODFATHER and 2001 were tops. COOL HAND LUKE, MISTER MAJESTYK, HOMBRE were equally popular.

Guy stuff....cool

 

[JAMESBJOHNSON]

Guy stuff....cool

Write your own girly books or go fuck yourself.

 

[jomar]

I think you're overthinking it. All kinds of folk are drawn to all kinds of books. Gritty, highbrow, allegory, action...the readers will find you so just write.

 

[CyranoJ]

As far as casual, white working-class nigger-this and Paki-that and Kike-the-other-thing racism goes, I think it's pretty common to soften it at the edges a bit in fiction on account of the real thing is pretty tiresome, ugly and uncomfortable for anyone to watch, even -- perhaps especially -- for a lot of the people who think and talk that way in real life but don't care to see themselves in a mirror.

Even Tarantino doesn't really push it to the edge of realism; most of his usage of the N-bomb is in a way -- excepting Django Unchained -- more like a white middle-class kid tittering at getting to use a bad word without getting his wrist slapped than anything else. But I think his work does provide a pretty good guide to how far you can push the envelope toward a kind of faux verisimilitude before a lot of viewers will check out.

In the meantime, the Bigot With a Heart of Gold is almost as venerable a trope as the Hooker With a Heart of Gold, and I don't see any reason to expect that readers of any walk of life won't connect with it. It's been a solid ratings winner from the days of Archie Bunker through the days of Gran Torino, because it brings something to the table for everyone. People who don't think of themselves as bigots like the fantasy reassurance that bigots have a reachable core of genuine empathy and humaneness under all the apparent meanness and ignorance; and people who know they're perceived as bigots like to be reassured that no matter how obnoxious they get, other people -- especially people from the groups they vilify, of course -- will see through it all to the Good Person and Straight Shooter they assume themselves to be underneath.

(This is all mostly bullshit, of course, but it can be charming bullshit and many an entertaining story has been built out of it -- As Good As It Gets is a genuinely funny movie, for instance, but is essentially about how a wealthy old misogynistic homophobe is able to purchase himself a wife and gay best friend because the American health system is fucked. Guess that one wouldn't work today; thanks, Obama. )

Bigotry as it is in real life, because it comes in all sorts of shades and variants and endless degrees of self-consciousness and denial, is a lot harder to portray in fiction and a lot harder for readers or viewers to accept because it gets uncomfortably close to home no matter who you are (a movie on the topic won an Oscar in '04, and deserved it too, but I don't think a lot of viewers were really that into it). Even treating just open, crude and casual bigotry, I think it's a lot harder to sell the realistic dynamics of what goes on, because they're a lot more depressing and much more about how people often desperately want to be reassured that they're good and noble and socially acceptable without really having to change too much; hence you have ex-Skins who often have That Story about the one person (an elderly Negro three times in five for some reason) from the "other side" of life who showed them kindness and set them on the right track... except after you talk to them for a while you come to realize that all they've really left behind is "organized" White supremacism and listening to Skrewdriver, and that most of their workaday bigotries are still perfectly intact.

 

[lovecraft68]

As far as casual, white working-class nigger-this and Paki-that and Kike-the-other-thing racism goes, I think it's pretty common to soften it at the edges a bit in fiction on account of the real thing is pretty tiresome, ugly and uncomfortable for anyone to watch, even -- perhaps especially -- for a lot of the people who think and talk that way in real life but don't care to see themselves in a mirror.

Even Tarantino doesn't really push it to the edge of realism; most of his usage of the N-bomb is in a way -- excepting Django Unchained -- more like a white middle-class kid tittering at getting to use a bad word without getting his wrist slapped than anything else. But I think his work does provide a pretty good guide to how far you can push the envelope toward a kind of faux verisimilitude before a lot of viewers will check out.

In the meantime, the Bigot With a Heart of Gold is almost as venerable a trope as the Hooker With a Heart of Gold, and I don't see any reason to expect that readers of any walk of life won't connect with it. It's been a solid ratings winner from the days of Archie Bunker through the days of Gran Torino, because it brings something to the table for everyone. People who don't think of themselves as bigots like the fantasy reassurance that bigots have a reachable core of genuine empathy and humaneness under all the apparent meanness and ignorance; and people who know they're perceived as bigots like to be reassured that no matter how obnoxious they get, other people -- especially people from the groups they vilify, of course -- will see through it all to the Good Person and Straight Shooter they assume themselves to be underneath.

(This is all mostly bullshit, of course, but it can be charming bullshit and many an entertaining story has been built out of it -- As Good As It Gets is a genuinely funny movie, for instance, but is essentially about how a wealthy old misogynistic homophobe is able to purchase himself a wife and gay best friend because the American health system is fucked. Guess that one wouldn't work today; thanks, Obama. )

Bigotry as it is in real life, because it comes in all sorts of shades and variants and endless degrees of self-consciousness and denial, is a lot harder to portray in fiction and a lot harder for readers or viewer to accept (a movie on the topic won an Oscar in '04, and deserved it too, but I don't think a lot of viewers were really that into it). Even treating just open, crude and casual bigotry, I think it's a lot harder to sell the realistic dynamics of what goes on, because they're a lot more depressing and much more about how people often desperately want to be reassured that they're good and noble and socially acceptable without really having to change too much; hence you have ex-Skins who often have That Story about the one person (an elderly Negro three times in five for some reason) from the "other side" of life who showed them kindness and set them on the right track... except after you talk to them for a while you come to realize that all they've really left behind is "organized" White supremacism and listening to Skrewdriver, and that most of their workaday bigotries are still perfectly intact.

Tarantino is a 14 year old mind that got himself into directing movies. he appeals to pretty much high school mentality. In general his movies bore and annoy me. But Obviously I am in the minority in that opinion.

 

[CyranoJ]

I like a lot of his stuff, but for most of it you have to be into his style and flair because there's not much else going on. (The more recent stuff I tend to like better, Django Unchained is pretty solidly entertaining both as a shoot-em-up Western and as a movie about slavery, which isn't a line most directors could walk.)

 

[lovecraft68]

On a side note of racism...I love how readers assume you are racist if you use a racist term/slur.

I used the n word in a story a couple of times because the character was a crude ignorant punk and...well that type would use it.

I used it once in a fight scene between white and black characters because the MC was trying to gad his opponent into getting pissed and making a mistake, so two realistic uses.

I received more "racist pig" comments than I could believe. Seriously? Not that it offends me, my take is :Its called realism, try it sometime."

But then it got me thinking....Lovecraft is called racist, Twain...many others, but were they?

They were products of their time. They wrote according to how they were raised and the society around them.

There is a cool billboard here that shows three young kids playing together, black, whir, Asian and it says "no one is born a racist" and its true, its learned behavior based on what you are exposed to.

So for a writer like HPL who lived in a time when all immigrants were seen as evil and around people who still saw blacks as inferior his writing is considered racist. I don't think so, its what he knew.

Now writing a novel in this day and age with a cat name niggerman...now that would be different.

 

[CyranoJ]

Well, readers will sometimes confuse portraying racism with endorsing it because many readers are just not that bright, we all know that. Same thing happens with all sorts of things.

Old H.P. really was a vile, loathesome little racist shit, though, unfortunately; he was bad even for a time in which open racism wasn't remarkable, in much the same way that Snoop Dogg was a notable misogynist even among rappers of the Nineties. That much isn't really in dispute, I don't think. (The upside of H.P. is that his imagination was capacious enough that you can skate past the racist slime therein with enough motivation, but boy howdy is it ever unmistakable.)

 

[lovecraft68]

Well, readers will sometimes confuse portraying racism with endorsing it because many readers are just not that bright, we all know that. Same thing happens with all sorts of things.

Old H.P. really was a vile, loathesome little racist shit, though, unfortunately; he was bad even for a time in which open racism wasn't remarkable, in much the same way that Snoop Dogg was a notable misogynist even among rappers of the Nineties. That much isn't really in dispute, I don't think. (The upside of H.P. is that his imagination was capacious enough that you can skate past the racist slime therein with enough motivation, but boy howdy is it ever unmistakable.)

Having read a lot about him I wonder sometimes if he was racist or phobic.

The guy seemed to be a borderline agoraphobic, he was afraid of everything different, even himself if you read the story The Outsider with that mind set.

Fortunately he used his fears in his stories. His fear of seafood gave us Innsmouth, his fear of age and that anything old-especially people-was evil gave birth to Terrible Old Man Picture in the House and the concept that all evil was millions of years old.

The casual racism is what stuck out though, the cat named NM because it was black, things like that. I think Horror at Red Hook was one of his most racist the way he protracted immigrants, Call of Cthulhu has some of that as well,

But I guess racism is ignorance and ignorance is a form of fear and...

I'm thinking too much this morning I should just have a bloody Mary and write some smut

 

[CyranoJ]

Having read a lot about him I wonder sometimes if he was racist or phobic.

I got the distinct sense that the first was related to the second.

I'm thinking too much this morning I should just have a bloody Mary and write some smut

That's the spirit!

 

[robertreams]

I have to say, you put your point across rather succinctly. I think you need to make up your mind, or rather your character does. I have no problem hating your character, or loving him. I also would have no problem being ambivalent about him. (But in that case I probably would cease reading him. I am a romantic (in my writing). But I do not suffer fools well. So let your character be loved or hated or loved and hated, anything but ignored. But if you create an asshole, do not expect us to love him. Ignorance is the lack of knowledge. Stupidity is the rejection of knowledge. Please do not let him proclaim stupidity, though I assume he would be loved in this America where stupidity is king and knowledge is considered a detriment.

 

[JAMESBJOHNSON]

I have to say, you put your point across rather succinctly. I think you need to make up your mind, or rather your character does. I have no problem hating your character, or loving him. I also would have no problem being ambivalent about him. (But in that case I probably would cease reading him. I am a romantic (in my writing). But I do not suffer fools well. So let your character be loved or hated or loved and hated, anything but ignored. But if you create an asshole, do not expect us to love him. Ignorance is the lack of knowledge. Stupidity is the rejection of knowledge. Please do not let him proclaim stupidity, though I assume he would be loved in this America where stupidity is king and knowledge is considered a detriment.

Yo, shit for brains? Check the words you use. STUPID isn't willful ignorance, its a senseless, unexpected surprise, bewilderment. Like when I give you a clue.

 

[NaokoSmith]

What defines the tone of the story? A) The viewpoints of the characters involved, with whatever frailties and prejudices they may have that try to pull the reader in alongside them, or B) the overall objectionist viewpoint of the outside pair of eyes looking in, with no assumptions of prejudice and a sort of clinical appraisal of what transpires throughout the story?

There is a debate between Chomsky and Foucault on Justice vs Power which touches on this. (You can find it on Youtube, it's an hour long but I can't tell what is the best version because of my audio being disabled right now! and it's available in book format too.) Chomsky argues that you can have a moral viewpoint that over-arches others, that takes a neutral moral stand and from which you can make decisions about what is right/wrong. Foucault claims that we are all immersed in power such that there can be no such neutral place from which we might make a considered judgement. We are all in a particular subject position, which influences profoundly how we think.

Then the way to work with this is to accept the prejudices, to acknowledge them and realise them. If you write a character whose racism and sexism are evident to the reader while the reader is positioned in the character's person, you have an opportunity to combine those prejudices with the distance created because that is not really you-the-reader, or you-the-writer. You can write something which is sympathetic to where those prejudices come from, and yet also questions them.

What readers make of that is a lot up to them, many will block out perspectives you write which show up that the character is prejudiced, and just see him as a Good Ole Guy. Maybe, though, you can write it in a way which conveys to most that while he is a Good Ole Guy, he is caught up in the discourse, the matrix of power which Foucault sees operating around us all. Just as we are.

What you really want to watch for, is what prejudices you are inadvertently drawing on when you write your character. A lot of anti-racist comments can be classist, I remember a footnote I once read in a study that pointed out how much critique there is of white working class men for their sexism and racism, but after all - how complicit are they in the socio-economic power structure? Do they hire and fire? There are other groups who practice a more subtle racism and sexism and exercise much more power who don't get nearly as much critique directed at them.

Maybe a good example of what you want to do is Graham Greene's The Quiet American? We deeply sympathise with the characters, yet their flaws are painfully evident.

 

[JAMESBJOHNSON]

There is a debate between Chomsky and Foucault on Justice vs Power which touches on this. (You can find it on Youtube, it's an hour long but I can't tell what is the best version because of my audio being disabled right now! and it's available in book format too.) Chomsky argues that you can have a moral viewpoint that over-arches others, that takes a neutral moral stand and from which you can make decisions about what is right/wrong. Foucault claims that we are all immersed in power such that there can be no such neutral place from which we might make a considered judgement. We are all in a particular subject position, which influences profoundly how we think.

Then the way to work with this is to accept the prejudices, to acknowledge them and realise them. If you write a character whose racism and sexism are evident to the reader while the reader is positioned in the character's person, you have an opportunity to combine those prejudices with the distance created because that is not really you-the-reader, or you-the-writer. You can write something which is sympathetic to where those prejudices come from, and yet also questions them.

What readers make of that is a lot up to them, many will block out perspectives you write which show up that the character is prejudiced, and just see him as a Good Ole Guy. Maybe, though, you can write it in a way which conveys to most that while he is a Good Ole Guy, he is caught up in the discourse, the matrix of power which Foucault sees operating around us all. Just as we are.

What you really want to watch for, is what prejudices you are inadvertently drawing on when you write your character. A lot of anti-racist comments can be classist, I remember a footnote I once read in a study that pointed out how much critique there is of white working class men for their sexism and racism, but after all - how complicit are they in the socio-economic power structure? Do they hire and fire? There are other groups who practice a more subtle racism and sexism and exercise much more power who don't get nearly as much critique directed at them.

Maybe a good example of what you want to do is Graham Greene's The Quiet American? We deeply sympathise with the characters, yet their flaws are painfully evident.

Two navel gazers who also argue the universality of navels.

 

[JAMESBJOHNSON]

As a rule of thumb small numbers of people have the power to destroy most commercial enterprises, its because most companies collect small profit percentages, and if 2% of the population hates you, youre screwed.