“Gay!”
I accidentally tapped a girl in the head with my book today while I was on the bus. As is typical of the 14, the bus was jam packed, standing room was at a premium, and people were falling over in the aisle and grabbing at hand rails while the bus lurched down Mission and the driver yelled, “Move to the back! Move to the back!” In the midst of it all, a querulous voice said, “You hit me in the head.”
I looked over and saw a black pre-teen, saw that my paperback was slipping ever so slightly from the hand that I was using to clutch a hand rail, and said, “I’m sorry.” And that’s the end of it. One of your run of the mill encounters on public transit, where the seething masses of humanity bump into each other, apologize, and move on.
As it turned out, the girl, another girl, her father, and I were all getting off at the same stop. As Girl #1 and her father stepped out, Girl #2 paused in the step well, looked at me, said, “Gay,” and stepped out.
I wasn’t sure if I’d heard her correctly in the midst of all the noise–”Move to the back! Move to the back!”–and got off the bus and started walking to a coffee shop, in the opposite direction from Girl #1, Girl #2, and their adult. Not more than two steps away, I heard it again.
“GAY!”
Oh, hell no. I turned around, saw Girl #2 staring at me, walked up to her, and said, “Excuse me, what did you say?”
Girl #2 looked at me, looked away, and said, “I didn’t say nothing.”
PD: No, I heard you call me “gay.” Using that as a homophobic insult is unacceptable.
Girl #2: I told you, I didn’t say nothing!
At this point, Girl #1’s father, who is a good half a foot taller than me and probably 75 lbs. heavier than me, comes over, plants himself right in my face, and says, “Get out of her face! She’s my niece! You don’t talk to my niece like that!”
I figure he’s obviously hoping to intimidate me with his size and masculinity, and react accordingly.
PD: Excuse me, your niece called me gay. It’s completely inappropriate for her to throw around homophobic insults.
Father: DON’T YOU GET IN MY NIECE’S FACE! SHE’S MY NIECE! WHAT’D SHE DO TO YOU?
PD: I understand that she’s your niece, and her behavior is unacceptable.
Father: I DON’T CARE, YOU DON’T TALK TO HER LIKE THAT, YOU DON’T GET IN HER FACE!
PD: I wasn’t in her face, I asked her what she said, and I would appreciate it if–
Father: SHE’S JUST A LITTLE GIRL, GET OUT OF HER FACE!
PD: –you would get out of my face.
Girl #1 dances around her father and shouts, “She wasn’t talking about you!” Girl #2 smirks, making Girl #1’s claim dubious.
PD: I want your niece to apologize.
Father: GET OUT OF MY DAUGHTER’S FACE!
PD: I wasn’t talking to your daughter, I was talking to you.
Father: GET OUT OF MY DAUGHTER’S FACE, I DON’T CARE, SHE’S JUST A LITTLE GIRL.
PD: I don’t care how old your niece is, it’s completely inappropriate for her to go around calling people gay as if it’s an insult.
Father: HOW OLD ARE YOU? HOW OLD ARE YOU? SHE’S JUST A GIRL, YOU DON’T GO NEAR HER!
PD: I wasn’t near your daughter–
Father: YOU WERE IN HER FACE!
PD: How can I get in her face if she dodges around you to yell in my face while I’m talking with you?
Father: I DON’T CARE, YOU WERE IN HER FACE, I DON’T CARE I DON’T CARE.
At this point, I’m almost losing it because the scene is so surreal: two preteens who are by no means little girls, dancing around their father/uncle and smirking; a man visibly trying to intimidate me with his size and volume and utterly failing, even as he leans in closer and closer, trying to loom; the repeated cries of “DON’T YOU GET IN HER FACE!” while he’s most definitely in my face. All I can think is, “Do as I say, not as I do!” while trying not to break out in laughter.
Father: HOW OLD ARE YOU? HOW OLD ARE YOU? MY NIECE IS JUST A LITTLE GIRL.
PD: How old are you? I don’t care how old she is, trying to insult someone by calling them gay is homophobic and inappropriate at any age and your niece needs to learn that.
Father: I DON’T CARE. I THINK YOU SHOULD LEAVE.
PD: I think your niece should apologize and I think you should get out of my face.
The father leans in closer so that I’m practically looking straight up at him, and leans and leans and leans. It’s ridiculous. There’s a pregnant silence, where he looms, I refuse to step back or back down, and he tries to loom some more. The moment drags on and on because there’s nowhere for this tension to go: he and his niece aren’t going to apologize and I’m not going to run away crying. As we stare at each other, we both fail at our prescribed gender roles: he’s failed to intimidate me and I’ve failed to be intimidated. The father says, “Whatever,” and walks away, Girl #1 and Girl #2 in tow. As I turn and walk away, he calls out over his shoulder, “Go back to China!”
Oh, dear. At that point, my temper explodes and I turn around and yell at him, “RACIST BASTARD!” Then I rifle through my mental file of insults, thinking that using bastard as an insult is inappropriate, because there’s nothing wrong with bastardy. A couple minutes later, the ridiculousness of the whole scene strikes me:
- It’s bizarre to call someone gay as an insult, because, well, so what? It has never made any sense to me as an insult because sexual orientation has no moral value or lack thereof. I’m queer and if pointing it out is supposed to make me feel ashamed of it, that is illogical and stupid. When used as an insult, gay is a catch all phrase for everything from “doesn’t adhere to stereotypical gender roles” to “gross” and the conflation just doesn’t make sense to me. I don’t understand the homophobic mindset.
- In a heterosexist society, everyone is assumed to be straight, except when it comes to insults. So does this mean that Girl #2 and other homophobes think that the people they yell at are actually gay, in which case the insult is even more nonsensical (“Yeah, I’m gay. And the sky is blue. Is that an insult to the sky?”), or do they think that the people they yell at are straight and will feel insulted at being called gay? The latter also relies on the assumption that being gay is bad and so a straight person would feel bad at being called gay, which takes us straight back to point #1.
- There is something distinctly ludicrous about being called gay while feeling too sore to walk due to some acrobatic sex with my boyfriend last night. I’m queer but currently in a relationship with a straight man–how does this fit into a homophobic paradigm? Am I supposed to feel insulted at being called gay? I DON’T KNOW!!!!!!!
- The spectacle of the father standing with his face not half a foot away from mine, screaming at the top of his lungs not to get in his niece’s or daughter’s face while his daughter dodges around him to yell at me: oh, the irony. As I texted to a friend, “Easy to see where the kids got their manners.”
“Go back to China.” It’s not a new insult to me, but it’s frustrating nonetheless. It’s racist because it assumes that I don’t belong here by virtue of my ethnicity; it incorrectly assumes what ethnicity I am; and it tries to reduce me to that erroneous assumption. Couldn’t he think of a less tired insult?
-sigh- I texted my sibling afterward, saying, “while on the way to coffee, was called gay&told to go back to china. As far as insult accuracy goes i guess 1 out of 2’s not bad? Its a failing grade@school Lol” That about sums it all up.
Happy Blogiversary: Checking My Privilege
Today is my one year blogiversary. Happy one year, virtual, WordPress self!*
When I started blogging here last year, I was moving off of LJ due to 6A’s shenanigans–strike through and similar and their dismissive attitude toward their fandom users. I thought I’d blog about food, cooking, fandom stuff, restaurants, maybe post some photos, maybe some personal writing, and a little bit of feminism here and there. At that point, I’d been reading Feministe on and off for a year and had just started reading Shakesville, I think, or maybe that came later. In short, I was coming from a fandom-centric blogging and blog community experience.
A year later, I’m mostly blogging about feminism, politics, GLBTQ rights, and various intersections thereof. Occasionally, I stick up photos and once in a great while, I talk about food and music. Not quite what I envisioned, and yet, I like it.
Over the past year, my reading and commenting shifted toward feminist, political blogs and blog communities. I’ve become much more involved with politics and with individual activism, on however small a scale. And reading, writing, and blogging was hugely influential in that process, widening my worldview, sharpening my critical thinking skills, and leading me to volunteer in the offline world, as well. Commenting, reading comment threads, and writing on my own blog all helped me keep my writing and argumentative skills in shape. They also taught me about empathy, about the importance of standing up for what’s right rather than silently colluding, about checking my own privileges, and about compassion. It’s been a journey that’s helped me grow and also humbled me every step along the way, because I’ve learned so much from everyone in so many spheres. Their eloquence, determination, intelligence, compassion, principles, and kindness for others are daily examples of what I strive to be.
Jackass publicly simulates/advocates rape of Latina activist
Via Galling Galla, “Radio Shock Jock Commits On-Air Simulated Rape of Latina Immigrant-Justice Activist”, here’s a not-so-fantastic combination of racism & sexism:
I’m coming out of my temporary blog-break for this one, b/c there’s another rapist scumbag out there who needs taking down, after he simulated an act of rape against an effigy of Isabel Garcia, a human rights activist in Arizona, because she dared to participate in a protest against Sheriff Joe Arpaio, who has a *long* history of massive abuse against immigrants and prisoners.
Galling Galla has links to more posts and info about what to do at her place, including a link to:
Video at brownfemipower’s place:
I want people to see this for what it is–a white man feeling like he can control, humiliate, and imply sexual violence against a brown woman–all while be recorded for public broadcast. It’s about a white man controlling a woman who pissed him off, by mocking her race, by implying sexual control over her through the use of racist imagery and language.
So here’s an example of intersectionality. How would you separate out the threads of racist and sexist hate here that intertwine dynamically and fuse together? The answer: you can’t. It’s like a chicken and egg question except that the chicken and the egg are melded rather than discrete entities, constantly changing in size and shape and blending into one another as you look at them. So the next time someone wants to argue about which is “worse,” racism or sexism, ask them how this instance of simulating and publicly advocating the rape of a woman of color fits into their narrow binary, because the crime is motivated by misogyny and racism and the interactions of the two – it’s violence against a person of color but also a misogynist form of violence. It’s a misogynist form of violence but it also hinges on Isabel Garcia’s ethnicity. The racism and sexism enable each other and the identities and the forms of oppression cannot be separated from each other.
