Many years ago, I was walking down the street one day when I saw a young woman approaching me from the opposite direction. Something about her vibe told me that here was a mean-girl type who was undoubtedly going to try to clown me in some kind of way, once we got to the personal interaction zone. (i.e., that certain distance where one generally acknowledges passersby on an uncrowded street, if only with a glance.) Well, I was just not at all in the mood for that kind of bullshit that day, not least because she was telegraphing her intentions from clear down the block, making the whole thing tiresomely inevitable.
So just before she got close enough, I closed my eyes, and kept them closed as I walked until I knew I had passed her.
She just couldn’t stand it. “OPEN YOUR EYES!” she screamed, and screamed it again. I’m not making this up. She was infuriated that I was taking away what she considered her right to insult me.
I think something similar is taking place all over America now, as incidents of hateful aggressive actions towards blacks, Muslims, women and transgendered people are piling up. Apparently, even after all this time, a large number of people just didn’t get it, just didn’t catch on that you don’t fuck with people because it’s wrong. Because those “other” people are not other at all – they are, for the most part, just like you. And that variety in types of people and in cultures is good, and fun, and interesting.
No, they’ve only been shutting up for fear of getting caught. They knew that if they acted like a bigot or a sexist in public, they could no longer count on the majority of onlookers agreeing with them, and chortling in glee along with them at their insufferable antics. And they’ve been seething under the surface for years. Because these are the kind of people who need to feel superior to somebody; and if you have absolutely nothing to recommend you or be genuinely proud of, the only way to be “better” is to pretend some other whole class of people has something wrong with them and ought to be ashamed.
Everything was fine as long as these people could disrespect their wives, beat their kids, and publicly humiliate minorities any old time they felt like it. Modern times must have been living hell for these people, because what makes them mad is not that someone is black, or a Muslim, or a woman. It’s that people like that are waking up in the morning thinking they’re just as good as he is.
But it wasn’t until Trump that these people felt free to hate out in the fresh air and sunshine again. Although Trump denies it (come on, who in their right mind would admit it) the fact that he was an unabashed, flagrant racist and sexist of the very worst kind throughout his campaign sent a message to our butthurt bigots that they are better than somebody after all – in fact, they’re better than almost everybody. And that it’s just fine to act out their petty ignorant attitudes violently on their fellow-citizens. You know, the ones who aren’t making America great.
I tell you what, if being great means being a close-minded, half-witted, shallow money-worshipping racist hater, I don’t want to be great. And we’ll need to come up with a new word, because that one’s dirty.