In his most brutally truthful and hatefully frank diary entry to date, Nobby tangles with the transitional indecision of the Grand Wizard Two Dogs Pissing, proving conclusively that Unconcious Bias Courses are bona fide proof that Room 101 has been born again.
If any of you Sloggers ever have the opportunity to attend an Unconscious Bias Course then I’d urge you all to take the opportunity and attend it with an open mind.
I did, and it’s the best thing I’ve ever done. My remarks at the conclusion of the four day Course (where we were all refused food, water or permission to leave the room and denied any sleep) perfectly summed up the radical change I underwent.
You see, it exposed me for what I am: a loathsome twat. My written note to the Course instructor who identified themselves as a Gender Fluid, Non Binary Pan Sexual, with a given name of ‘Two Dogs Pissing’ read, ‘Thank you very much for providing me with the tools to dig away and unearth the nasty piece of shit that I am’.
The first indication I got that suggested that I and I alone was the only one amongst the class who had every ic, ism and phobia going that secreted deep within my subconscious was when Two Dogs Pissing asked us to raise our hands if we were racist. Considering that I hadn’t a racist bone in my body I kept my hand down. Unfortunately everyone else threw up their hands and screamed, ‘I’m a bigoted racist’. Initially, for a moment I did think that this might be a Klan gathering and Two Dogs its Grand Wizard. But it wasn’t he, she, they, Zher or Zhe. Twas me who needed the healing and I was about to get it whether I wanted it or not.
Two Dogs addressed me and put this to me. ‘On your, “about me” page, you’ve said you enjoy fishing for Barbel.’ I said, ‘yes I do. I love to catch this species of fish’. Course, I walked straight into the trap didn’t I? ‘What about the Chub, the Pike and other species of fish in the river. Don’t you like to catch them?’. I replied, ‘ I don’t like catching them as much’. Two Dogs had through cunning and guile got me to admit I had an unc thonscious bias toward the Barbel. Basically, just as I had a preference to the barbel and a bias against the Chub or the Pike, I had an unconscious bias toward my own ethnic group.
Not entirely convinced that I was persuaded by their searing logic, Two Dogs put this scenario to me: suppose I’d popped home after fishing for Barbel using a Halibut pellet mounted on a hair rig and discovered me bloody house had been burgled and the thieving bastards had stolen my few trinkets of wealth. They enquired, ‘Who would you prefer the burglers to be white or black?’.
Course, that’s a knotty one isn’t it? Frankly, I’d have preferred it if nobody had tippy toed into my house and done the burgling at all, but seeing as I had a choice I went for white. My thinking was if I blamed the whites, rather than the blacks, I’d come out of it looking better. Course, it didn’t help me did it? As Two Dogs quickly pointed out, I’d shown unconscious bias by excluding black people from burgling me bloody house by more or less saying I’d prefer to be burgled by a bunch of white thieving bastards. He also went on to castigate me by stating that black people were just as good as white people when it came to dwelling-house burglaries.
Not finished with me, Two Dogs came up with a final race and ethnicity scenario. As I recall it was, I’m minding me own bloody business wondering about aimlessly searching for someone to sell me some drugs when I’m confronted by two potential assailants: Mike bloody Tyson howling ‘I want to kill you fatso’ who’s waving a baseball bat; and a white, puny, pacifist, yellow bellied fella who had one arm. I had a choice to make: which one do I fight? Course, this was easy. Cognisant now that I was a sufferer of unconscious bias and a complete twat, I opted for Mike Tyson explaining, ‘Mike will give me the beating I fully deserve because I’m a loathsome twat and if the one armed white fella wants to join in then all the better. In fact, if I’m able to I’ll join in and beat myself up.’
It was then and only then – when Two Dogs Pissing and the entire course attendees stood and applauded me, howling ‘halleluzah, Lord be praised, the fat twat has repented his sins’ – did I begin to recognise my unconscious biased self and what I had to do to address my unpardonable traits of bias. I was liberated and desperately keen to leave the Course, find myself some person who was black and kneel before them in subjugation, pledging myself to join the fight to vilify any historical figure who was tainted by discriminatory leanings, might have held discriminatory leanings or didn’t have any discriminatory leanings but his great great grandparents might have once held one or two.
One more rite of passage and test awaited me. I am a defiant, proud and thoroughly committed heterosexual who adores women and all the bits and bobs associated with their physical bodily shape and desire for intimate romance. So Two Dogs put to me a scenario to test whether or not I was homophobic. Basically, I’m at the Holiday Inn on some illicit afternoon love tryst where I’m to engage in acts of physical love. Course, cognisant that I was highly unlikely to come out of this choice of physical love particularly well, I waited in anticipation to learn who it was that was going to do things to me.
Other than the price of the room, which did concern me because I am fiscally fucked, it was somewhat pleasing to hear from Two Dogs that I didn’t have to choose between the two lovely men who tapped on my door.
Less pleasing but not completely surprising was that the option of ‘neither of them’ was not on the table. I was to be pummelled by the pair of them.
When asked for my response which then ensured I passed the Course, I replied, ‘Come on in lads and if your mates are hanging about in the Car Park bring them in as well. Shut the bloody door, turn the camera on. Bugger me all you like and when you’re done post the video on any website of your choice titled, ‘Nobby does Merseyside’.
To those who’ve flooded my Inbox complaining that I’m Transphobic, I wish to offer you all my heartfelt apologies. I retract everything. The lot. Now I’ve opened my mind and ignored biological science and pretty much everything that humanity once believed in, I now believe that a birth Male can be equipped with lactating breasts and be a chest feeder, they can if they wish have a monthly or thrice monthly menstrual cycle that’ll require the need for tampons and despite not being equipped with a vagina, ovaries or a womb, they can become pregnant and deliver a natural birth to their lovely gender neutral offspring. In short they’re ‘Real Women’ and if I choose to, and I don’t, I too can be a real woman if I say so.
The Slog 