My plumbers were here today.
One of them brought his son, who I'm going to call "Jay". He's maybe 20, and reminds me of a slightly more-clueless version of Lou, the redneck blues guitarist who lived with JP and I in the summer of 95, and with me in the summer of '97. Lou at least had tolerance going for him, to the point it was humanly possible; for instance, while he had no problem with JP and I being together, and thought JP was an amazing person, he'd still assume that any black person standing on a corner was a potential heroin dealer....even if the "corner" in question was a bus stop.
Jay has come to help his father with the drywall in my bathroom. The other plumber sends him out into the yard to cut sheets of greenboard to size, and asks him to bring something in from the garage before he starts. Behind the house, probably coming from the next-door yard, I can hear the thumping of the bass from someone's radio.
"Whoo, man," he says, as he comes in. "If I have to listen to that shit all afternoon, I'm gonna kill them n-----s out there. You know?"
I give my noncommital laugh, which serves me well for situations ranging from "that's mildly funny" to "what a fucking ass you're making of yourself". In this situation, it decidedly signified the second choice.
Tony looks at him and says, "Come here a minute." Jay obeys. "Now, in the first place, you can't be using words like that. And in the second place, you better apologize..." (here he indicates me) "...because her boyfriend is black."
Jay squirrel-eyes me for a second, then decides that it might be wise to listen to his father. "I'm sorry, I didn't mean anything by it...."
Had he stopped here, he would have been a Forgiveable Asshole. A Forgiveable Asshole is an asshole who says something that shows his innate assholery, but who then realizes that he may have gone beyond the pale. He then apologizes and--here's the important distinction--takes steps to restrain his asshole-like tendencies. In other words--he shuts the hell up and doesn't make it worse.
Jay, however, must have been unaware of this principle.
"...I mean, these guys stand on the corner and deal drugs, and they're just fuckin' USELESS...but you know, there are as many white n-----s as there are black ones, and I mean...It's like, I'm a working man, I work for a living, but still when we turn this corner they're all like 'What you want, man? what you lookin' for?' Can't a man just WORK and not have to deal with all that bullshit?" he finished.
"Well, I understand where you're coming from," I said, (and did not add you ignorant shitsack) "and I know what you mean. I mean, they try to sell me shit when I'm walking home from work, and..."
"You WALK in this neighborhood??!!??" he asked.
"All the time," I replied. Knowing what was coming.
"You got a pistol??" he asked.
Now, in the several hours since this conversation, I have pondered my own reactions in this conversation, both spoken and unspoken. My unspoken reactions were very much as I've detailed them here...I thought he was an ignorant piece of crap, and quite possibly a hypocrite as well--after all, I doubt very seriously that this fine upstanding young man has gone through his entire teen years and early twenties without ever once ingesting a controlled substance, if you get my drift. So these individuals who he derides as "useless" have in fact served his purposes in the past; it's only when they're not directly enhancing his personal pleasure and catering to his whims that they become "useless". (I'd love to hear his views on women, providing I could listen to them with an airsick bag in one hand and a large blunt object in the other.)
It's my outward reactions that I question the most. I have long known that I have a horribly self-serving need for people's approval and admiration; and also that I've had a long-standing antipathy for conflicts. I don't like confrontations, and I will generally go to almost any extreme to avoid them. (I can attribute this to my family--a topic for another post.)
But I also know that there are certain areas in which I have very deep convictions, race relations necessarily being among them. It bothers me that I'm not able to stand up for them to my own satisfaction--that my need to avoid in-person conflict is stronger than my beliefs. I'm quite able to defend my beliefs in writing--in fact, I can be splendidly vitriolic, when the occasion demands (and sometimes when it doesn't!) but when it comes to actually looking a person dead in the eye and saying, "You know, while you're entitled to your opinion, I'd appreciate it if you would vent it elsewhere." Or even just "Fuck the hell off, you intolerant shitsack." I think this might be the source of a lot of my problems--at work, with LJ, with my mother, even financially--I am so willing to allow everyone their own opinion, so intense about not impinging on the rights of others, that it's almost impossible for me to stand up and speak in my own interests--especially when they conflict with someone else's interests.
At any rate, it might be said that I've had at least a tiny bit of revenge against Jay the Unforgiveable Asshole. Before all the n-words, he had offered to run the lawnmower through my overgrown jungle of a back yard, and I'd told him I'd give him $20...when he came in, sweating and thirsty, and started dropping hints about how it was "the hardest $20 I ever made", I handed him -exactly- $20. No tip, no extra, no nothing. And he's offered to do my yardwork if I'll pay him....I'm thinking, not so much.
But the one and only thing that really makes me smile about this situation: I would dearly love to see Jay come in and repeat what he said, in its entirety, to LJ's face. Because if I were to see THAT, the next thing I would see would be Jay's scrawny little redneck frame, being stomped into an amorphous mass by a very large, very personally-affronted black man.
And that, my friends, would be sweet.
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