And I realize I’m making as big a generalization as what I’m railing against here. So sue me, I wanna rant.
I’ve talked about this before.
I’ve been packing tonight because we’re moving at the end of the month. I’ve been packing up my workshop, and it’s hotter then hell down in the basement. A little over an hour ago, I decided to go out and have a beer because I was tired and hot and I needed a break. I went to my local pub and had a couple of beers, socialized and mostly relaxed in the powerful AC that the bar has going. As I was leaving, I stepped out the door into a cloud of smoke. Smokers were poisoning themselves outside, as the law demands. I saw a couple of people I didn’t know, Craig, a regular at the bar who is a chef, and Chi, a very dark skinned African emigrant to America who comes by time to time. Chi looked a little shaky as he smoked, and I noticed that he had a medical wristband on.
“What happened man?” I asked him. He told me that he had been in a car accident a couple hours earlier. Someone had run a red light on Perring Parkway and T-boned him. He was OK, but his Lexus was totaled. He was decompressing with a few drinks. I emphasized with him, we talked about being in car wrecks, and mostly we were both glad that he had escaped unscathed.
While we were talking, Craig was having a conversation with one of the guys I didn’t know. IDK what led up to it, but Craig pulled out his cell phone and started paging through his numbers. After a moment he said “I don’t have that nigger’s phone number”.
Excuse me?
Now understand that Craig and his friend were having a separate conversation from Chi and I. That’s understandable. We were not eavesdropping on their conversation either. Also, Craig was NOT using the word “nigger” the joking way good friends might, or the way blacks use it amongst themselves. By the same token, he wasn’t using it in a blatantly pejoratively manner, i.e. “That fucking nigger stole my wallet”. Still, it was clear that he considered “nigger” as a less than positive term. I’m explaining this badly, but I hope most of you can understand. Craig casually called someone a nigger in front of a black man.
I looked at Chi; he seemed to ignore it(actually, he was raising above it). We finished our conversation and he went back into the bar. I HAD been heading to my car, but I felt I had to follow him. I caught him in the vestibule between the two doors.
“Listen man, on behalf of all of those people who share my…” I ran my hand along my other arm.
“Complexion?”
“Yea, I’m sorry about that”
He laughed. " I don’t worry about it, but thank you for your concern" (Chi is obviously a much better man than I am) He went on: “If it had been my friend there”-he pointed at another black man in the group he was with- “he would have gotten upset, but I just let it roll off my back”
I replied “Still, it was offensive…”
He agreed, and we both said the same thing simultaneously: “It says more about him then me (you)”
We laughed, slapped backs, and parted, me to my car and him back to his friends.
Still. In the aftermath of what was nothing more than an ignorant racist speaking out, I personally am filled with anger.
#1: If you are white and you use the term “nigger”, you are an idiot. I will always think you are an idiot, and I will personally shun you because you have revealed your true colors. There is no negotiating on this subject, I don’t care if you saved my child from a man eating lion, you are an idiot.
#2: If you are a white man and you use the term “nigger” in front of a black man, you are not just an idiot, you are a stupid idiot, on par with someone who pees into an active light socket. What in the living fuck were you thinking???!!?
Nothing happened. Chi was amazingly open minded and Craig was still an incredible asshole.
Still, sometimes I hate being white. White people often do some amazingly stupid shit, (realizing again that I’m making as big a generalization as what I’m railing against.)
Fuck
