Most of my friends think my families weird anyways, and are quite used to our odd-ball interests,

My parents are hippy / gypsies who live out of a mobile home, my dads Wiccan and my mums an atheist, one of my bro’s thinks he’s black with dreads, and the others a hardcore bikie… so adding Esperanto to the mix really isn’t detrimental to my social image.

..but my friends think I’m a good hoot... so they keep me around

So my advice to everyone is, if someone gives you shits just answer any of their questions in Esperanto, after wile they’ll get pissy and stop commenting, or if you work with them then tell your boss, their making unwanted sexual advances upon you within the latrines and get their asses fired =)

josephschwenker: If I am ever harassed for anything, it is usually for my political viewpoints (I formerly thought my viewpoints were communistic, then anarchist communistic, then independent under the name of Luna). People are still clinging on to my original viewpoints from communism. Whenever a teacher mentions Stalin, Lenin, the Soviet Union, or communism, it is usually in a negative context. The classroom then screams out that I'm a communist, though, during the school year, I was an anarchist communist.

Regarding communism, I guess in America there's a lot more negative stigma, unlike us Australians who enjoy the thought of knocking down the big guy and making him join the ranks of the underdogs But I say just shrug it off and make a joke out of it, play along with a sort of comedic character about it. When you start getting other people laughing, you start to break down the level of fear and animosity (whatever that word means). Let's face it, you're at school, you're kids, you don't know each other exceedingly well, if all they've heard of you is that you're apparently a communist, of course they're gonna regard you as one because it's all they know to think of you

And of course, being a kid, these aren't exactly things you need to worry about at such a young age, or at least tell to people less mature than you. Just chill and relax with them, be known as more than just a communist and should all go well

(ah, and what's independent under the name of Luna?)

Evildela: or if you work with them then tell your boss, their making unwanted sexual advances upon you within the latrines and get their asses fired =)

At my school it was the Republicans who got made fun of. My 10th grade history teacher was pretty lefty, though I don't know if he was precisely a Communist. He had gone to prison as a Vietnam War draft dodger. He always told us, if you commit a crime, make sure it's a federal crime, because federal prison is much nicer than state.

It was very interesting to learn about the Reagan years from someone with communist leanings, I'll tell you.

I was in a math/science/computer magnet program, so things like interests in Linux were totally mainstream for us, or even "cool". But Esperanto was still worthy of derision.

I knew a lot of people from different religions so from my point of view, being an atheist wasn't a big deal in my school. But in college, one of my high school friends once confided in me that she was an atheist, and her whole family were atheists. She asked me not to tell anyone! It seemed strange to me, because I doubt if anyone would have cared, in our liberal suburb of Washington DC. But perhaps she had some personal history behind that.

Thanks again for the responses, they are so interesting, amusing, and enlightening as well. This thread has fulfilled a part of my intentions, that is, to start an interesting discussion about our attitudes and experiences about being an Esperantist (or an Esperanto-speaker). As much as I want to reply to all of them, there is something I want to share to you first, on the issue of tolerance.

The thing I like about the Esperanto community is that it is composed of different personalities from different backgrounds. We're not the homogeneous generic crowd. We are for diversity. Because of this (and to the Internet, of course), I got to meet people with different points of view from different places, with whom I can joyfully discuss topics ranging from Nietzsche to Lucky Star.

But then, such differences can lead to conflicts, as I've seen here during the past three years. That's why tolerance is a cardinal virtue in the movement, something that comes along with the Internal Idea of Esperantism, as expressed by the late Helmut Welger in his "Komunika Etiko kaj Esperantismo" [en Esperanto].

But there is this paradox of tolerance, and I've experienced this paradox firsthand. One day, a young Portuguese came at the tujmesaĝilo and starts up a conversation with me and F. C. (a frequent visitor to the tujmesaĝilo). At first, things seems to go well (his Esperanto was good), until the young man confessed something: he's a white supremacist. I was petrified, and F. C. got so furious. He commanded me and the other people present to ignore him completely, and shooed the young man away. Things got awry afterwards, and so I left.

And his case is not the only one I've encountered. I've also encountered a Holocaust denier from Brazil, and I don't know what to do whenever he came by. I would like to ask him questions about the death of the Zamenhofs (Adam was shot by the Nazis, while Sofia and Lidia were sent to the Treblinka concentration camp, never to return) and the fate of European Esperantists, but I didn't want to spark a flame war (I've seen a few that he caused), so I kept the question to myself. [I hope that I won't ever encounter a Neo-Nazi Esperantist.]

Also, there's also this attitude towards Ido, Interlingua, and to a lesser extent, Toki Pona. Well, this is a historical topic that still repercussions to the present day. Personally, I've have no problems discussing them, but sometimes, when somebody comes and promotes Ido or Interlingua, things turn a bit negative, so to say the least.

So, I would like to ask your opinion, on how to handle situation like those aforementioned. What do you think? Thanks. ^^'

patrik, I agree with all your points; you've created a very interesting thread, indeed.

That remembers me when I started with Esperanto, and people used to "laugh" with bad jokes and delike... that includes some members of my own family (!!)

Now they 'respect' me a bit more, after a few years and after a couple of good experiences (eg: I knew some esperantists and I spent a couple of days with them)

patrik:But there is this paradox of tolerancea white supremacist..a Holocaust denier .. when somebody comes and promotes Ido or Interlingua, things turn a bit negative..
I would like to ask your opinion, on how to handle situation like those aforementioned. What do you think? Thanks. ^^'

This is tricky, and no doubt you'll get a few good opinions. What follows is sketchy, as I think you need to develop your own way of dealing with such situations. But here's my suggestions:

With racists, I might talk about the interna ideo. To prepare to deal with other auxlangers I might read Don Harlow and use this to point out the advantages of Esperanto, as well point out that with their background (particularly Idists) they could make strong Esperantists - the same applies to anyone with a background in Latin or romance languages.

patrik:One day, a young Portuguese came at the tujmesaĝilo and starts up a conversation with me and F. C. (a frequent visitor to the tujmesaĝilo). At first, things seems to go well (his Esperanto was good), until the young man confessed something: he's a white supremacist. I was petrified, and F. C. got so furious. He commanded me and the other people present to ignore him completely, and shooed the young man away. Things got awry afterwards, and so I left.

And his case is not the only one I've encountered. I've also encountered a Holocaust denier from Brazil, and I don't know what to do whenever he came by. I would like to ask him questions about the death of the Zamenhofs (Adam was shot by the Nazis, while Sofia and Lidia were sent to the Treblinka concentration camp, never to return) and the fate of European Esperantists, but I didn't want to spark a flame war (I've seen a few that he caused), so I kept the question to myself. [I hope that I won't ever encounter a Neo-Nazi Esperantist.]

Unbelievable

How is it possible that an Esperantist can be a Neo-Nazi or a white supremacist, and so on?

Hispanio:

patrik:One day, a young Portuguese came at the tujmesaĝilo and starts up a conversation with me and F. C. (a frequent visitor to the tujmesaĝilo). At first, things seems to go well (his Esperanto was good), until the young man confessed something: he's a white supremacist. I was petrified, and F. C. got so furious. He commanded me and the other people present to ignore him completely, and shooed the young man away. Things got awry afterwards, and so I left.

And his case is not the only one I've encountered. I've also encountered a Holocaust denier from Brazil, and I don't know what to do whenever he came by. I would like to ask him questions about the death of the Zamenhofs (Adam was shot by the Nazis, while Sofia and Lidia were sent to the Treblinka concentration camp, never to return) and the fate of European Esperantists, but I didn't want to spark a flame war (I've seen a few that he caused), so I kept the question to myself. [I hope that I won't ever encounter a Neo-Nazi Esperantist.]

Unbelievable

How is it possible that an Esperantist can be a Neo-Nazi or a white supremacist, and so on?

Yeah, I know, I was just as surprised as you are. And I feel that I should elaborate:

When he started chatting with us, we all noticed how good his Esperanto was. Somebody recommended that he join an Esperanto club in Portugal. He said that he cannot, because no Esperanto association would ever welcome him. He then was inundated with the question "Why?". He first hesitated, and then, he had no other choice but to confess. And thus the mayhem afterwards.

I feel very sorry for him, really. We Esperantist are ourselves being ridiculed or mocked by the majority, and yet, in the regards to this guy, oh well...

@Miland: Well, I'm a fan of Don Harlow's website. It surely helps...But whenever I read their remarks, I feel that it's not about the linguistic details they care about. I feel that the Idists (not all) feel ressentiment (in the Nietzschean sense) towards us. And that's hard to handle.

Hispanio:Unbelievable

How is it possible that an Esperantist can be a Neo-Nazi or a white supremacist, and so on?

Very possible. I was also shocked when I first came across this kind of thing. On the Libera Folio, the former president of the Ukrainian Esperanto Society made some very racist comments.

And then, there's a certain group of Esperantists within Europe, who like to whip up fear about Muslims eventually taking over Europe - and these Esperantists almost seem to have in their minds the idea of using Esperanto as some unifying force to hold together the people they regard as being 'true Europeans'... All very bizarre and utterly mad.

We shouldn't all get too cosy with the idea that all Esperantists simply must be nice people. Ultimately, it's just a language and racists, people against this religion or that, etc - they can all find their own reasons for learning Esperanto and they are not always nice and happy ones!

Now that I've recovered from the initial shock of all this, I don't really see it as a problem. After all, Esperanto is just a tool and we can't control how people use it! Just as when we meet any new person, we need to check them out first, work them out, and we need to do the same with other Esperantists - rather than just assume they must be ok!

It's worth looking into just who runs these Esperanto associations etc - I wouldn't want them proposing dodgy things in my name! But then there's quite a debate going on about this - whether Esperanto organisations should be politicised etc (The European Esperanto Association seems to have a few leading members, who think they should be)