By Tandy Versyp
I was in the bathroom waiting to pee when a short dude with an orange mohawk showed me his gunshot wound. There was a small scabby dot on his back and a fleshy haphazard wound just below his sternum. It looked like one of Ripley’s nemeses clawed its way out his chest. I voiced concern until he said, “Some f****** n****** shot me.”
I explained to him that it wasn’t a color issue – it was a socio-economic problem – through much finger waving and creative expletives. His response: “I hope you come to a new realization about the way things really are.” My rebuttal: “I hope you stop being racist.” He then threw his drink on me.
At another venue across town a week later, I was sitting with friends discussing Pentecostalism when a man-boy who closely resembled an Abercrombie date rapist called, “Ching, chong, ching, ching, chong,” across the room at a group of Asians sitting in the corner.
I informed the gentleman that this was one of the dumbest things he could say. To prove that it wasn’t, he puffed out his chest and began doing a territorial Neanderthal dance. He soon left, presumably to go to an Aryan Nation convention.
To be clear, racism, or faux racism, can be funny. Only when the humor is commenting on the ridiculousness of stereotypes – jokes about preconceived ignorance. Or stereotypical truths.
For instance, at Sushi Zen my friend ordered wings. At a sushi restaurant.
“You are so black right now,” I said. She is.
“You’re wearing a tie outside of an office. You are too white right now,” she replied. See? Funny.
The encounters I had were not. However, the incident with the mohawked man in the bathroom still eats at me. His hate isn’t necessarily unmerited. I can understand his point of view, because I was in a similar situation. Driving home late at night, I was held up and shot at by a group of black men in a white car. None of the bullets hit me, but for weeks I couldn’t look at a black man without thinking about that night.
But I know it could have been a white guy, a Hispanic male, or even an Asian female with the gun and that it honestly doesn’t matter. Skin color doesn’t determine the kind of person that will murder you for the six bucks in your wallet.
“You tell me not to call them n****** after you’re lying in your own blood trying not to die,” the angry man in the bathroom yelled at me, all venom.
I can say for certain that I would never call anyone that, blood oozing or not. Because hate is a choice I will never make.
I’ll probably see more jackasses spouting hate speech, and I’ll probably say something to them. More drinks will be thrown on me, or worse.
The definition of insanity is repeating the same actions over and over again, trying to reach a new outcome, but knowing it will always be the same.
That’s also the definition of hope.
