It all adds-up

In the wee hours of the morning on my way to work I decided to stop in a Jack in the Box restaurant I made a purchase off their value menu, so it wouldn’t be so obvious that I was there to waste as much tie as possible. There were only two other customers present, one a man who just sat before an empty table with a “go ahead and say something” look. I ignored him. The other was 50ish blonde white female, with that coiffed look of a right-wing floozy. She just sat there silently at first, but as soon as she saw me sit down, something clicked in her mind that caused her jaws to start moving. She didn’t seem to be talking to anyone in particular, but she was obviously was reacting to my presence. 

It’s amazing what decaying veins of the mind are tapped when someone feels that their bigoted beliefs are “common knowledge.” I knew there would be trouble when she started out by trying to steal the moral “high ground”  by claiming that she knew that there is “bad” in everyone, but in her “opinion” there was more “bad” in “Mexicans,” and proceeded to enumerate the prevailing stereotypes, prejudices and propaganda one sees commonly enough in the media and from right-wing politicians and radio hate talk. 

I finally had enough of it and told her, loud enough so that even the employees could hear, that being a Nazi wasn’t something that people ought to aspire to. Surprised that someone had the audacity to interrupt her monologue, she displayed even more audacity herself by professing ignorance at who I could be addressing. I had to remind her that she was the only person in the room for the past ten minutes emptying the contents of her rotting mind. She rambled on in some failed effort to defend herself, before falling silent. I had my back to her, so I figured that for the additional 20 minutes I was there she probably had left by then. But when I got up to leave I noticed that she was still there—except that she apparently had just been sitting there, doing nothing at all but staring at me in a hateful manner which she tried unsuccessfully to hide behind sunglasses. Needless-to-say, this did nothing to improve my impression of her. 

Of course she was unaware of the fact that anyone who expectorates the contents of their base mind in a public environment (like a newspaper) should expect a reaction from those being expectorated on. Still, one must take into account the gonads (or monstrous conceit) it takes to do so. To a certain degree these people are less repulsive than those who express their bigotry anonymously, like a cowardly Ku Klux Klan member hiding his identity behind a sheet. For example, I might be walking down a sidewalk when suddenly a car in the vicinity “beeps.” I look around and there is no one in sight; it is probably someone sitting in a coffee shop who assumes you are only there to “scope out” cars to break in, because that is what you “know” about “those people.” Either that, or they just want to see you “jump” for their own amusement. I recall at work an employee of another airline who used to make police siren noises whenever he saw me—because people who look like me are supposed to have “reasons” to run like hell when the police are around. 

I must confess that I can be a bit paranoid whenever I hear car farts, but the fact is people often do employ them to send a deliberate “message,” or express their own stereotype-based paranoia. How did people ever have “peace of mind” when they had to lock their doors manually? How can they ever leave their own homes without their minds forever consumed by fear of being robbed? No wonder some in white America don’t mind a society that prefers to fill prisons with as many minorities as possible, just so that they can have a little peace of mind. 

Once I was in Seattle with the intention of addressing some personal business, when I encountered a white female who had just exited her car, parked a few feet from the front door of a UPS Store; she was about to walk in, but then noticed me. Of course she became alarmed, returned to her car, checked the doors, did the beeper thing and gave me with that “I know you people” look. I wasn’t going to let her get away with that, informing her of very convincing impression, of course, of a Nazi. She apparently found this appellation “amusing,” since with a malicious smirk she thrust her beeper toward her car and did it again. What she didn’t know was that I was there to pick up my mail, and followed right behind her. “That’s what I’m talking about” I said to one of the employees as I walked in. I didn’t sympathize with the offender’s mortified expression.

But being an equal opportunity offender, I have a habit of finding offense in many locales. For example, I think that many of the black women I encounter have “attitudes” that don’t flatter themselves as much as they like to think. I think that wearing eyes glasses doesn’t necessarily denote intellectual or moral superiority, as some minorities behave as if it were true. Nor does feeling the need to denigrate another group improve your standing in the social ladder; all it does it make you as fatuous and conceited as the people you forget look at you in the same way. 

To that “macho” Latino male: I’m not interested in your scrap heap of a car or your woman; that’s your problem she likes to get other guys’ "attention." Then there are those gang wannabes and “toughs” who need to relieve the pressure of being ignored by white society by looking for someone to beat-up—usually someone in the same situation, but having the misfortune of being smaller and beat-upable.

 It goes on, and on, and on. There are those white people who apply negative racial stereotypes on you just because you have discomfited them in some way, like having to wait for you to cross the street instead of just running you over like in the “old days.” Or black bus drivers who use their position to express their political views, like showing their “own people” favoritism, and others with deliberate rudeness (especially "Mexicans"). However, I must admit that some white female drivers play “politics” as well, and one driver apparently of eastern European heritage was such a rude asshole that I called him a “Nazi,” which startled him.

To the white parents who act like you would assault their four-year-old daughter if you had the chance, the most likely culprit would be someone who looks more like you, in your own home; it’s odd, but even though in most cases the victims of violent crimes are so at the hands of people of the same race, it seems that it is “worse” in the less common instances when the perpetrator is someone of a different race.To those of a certain minority group who think that if only you weren’t here “stealing” their jobs, everything would be right in their world. The problem with that view, of course, is that it is little more than looking for new scapegoats for old issues that never seem to go away.

Note, gentle reader, that I haven’t even mentioned the police yet, but I need not elaborate further on that topic.
 

Admittedly, most people in this situation don’t allow such things to weigh too heavily on their minds. Perhaps it is for the best, since the weight of small insults, prejudices and discriminations are by themselves mostly just annoyances that pass like ships in the night. But some people do allow these things to add up; instead of many moles hills dotting their landscape that they must sidestep, they form a growing mountain they can’t get around. It doesn’t matter the race, ethnicity or gender; every demographic has some of its membership who are guilty of adding to the pile to varying degree, from assumptions ranging from what your “nature” is, what your “place” is in their world should be, or your potential to negatively affect their lives, no matter how remote that may be. People so inclined to apply negative features to individuals they are personally ignorant of should consider the fact that their behavior is not merely a single anonymous event, but part of a larger whole.