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July 18, 2005
Today's con report has been rescheduled due to surprise racism. News at 11:00.
People expect shame from me.
Really. Some people, anyway. Which is fine with me, actually. Because I don't follow the script. It never goes the way they planned.
My very sweet, very affectionate, very white husband met me at the airport, today. We began nerding it up almost immediately. He couldn't be in San Diego this year, so I had a lot to tell him. After we'd been on the train home for maybe ten minutes, a teenager sidled up and tried to crowbar a little change out of our pockets. Matt, the husband, gave him our standard answer.
"Nah, sorry. I haven't got a job right now."
See, I prefer "I'm a student," because I can still pass for one. But whatever. That's not important.
Anyway, the kid walked off. That line always works, that's what so great about it. But that's about when the guy behind us leaned in a little closer.
"So you can date a black person, but you can't support one," he mumbled.
Okay, we're gonna stop here for a moment.
Before we go any farther, I should mention two things. The Script, and my theory. Theory first. This is my theory.
My theory can't help but notice that Matt and myself are heckled pretty much exclusively by black men. My theory thinks that this is for two reasons. One, the men doing the heckling find me attractive. If I were alone, they'd probably hit on me. And two, on some level, I'm the property of my racial designation. The males of that racial designation, in any case. And when I start making kissy noises at the sallow boys... or rather, one sallow boy in particular... not only am I betraying my race, I am personally insulting them. because, y'know, I never gave Them a chance. I never dated every single man the same color as myself, so I'm the one ruining Christmas.
This is the first time they've seen me in their entire lives, and they like what they see, and maybe they woulda liked to take a crack at getting me to lie back and think of England for a few minutes. But they can't. It's too late, I'm married. And they could have dealt if Matt were brown. But he's not. Or God, is he ever NOT. So now, it's An Issue. For Them.
That's what my theory thinks, anyway.
...
Shit, where was I? Oh, right. Script.
The people who go out of their way to give Matt and I trouble over sitting too close on a subway car are expecting a very specific, satisfying reaction. One, sudden, unendurable silence. Two, quick flood of shame. And three, me springing away from my own damn husband as if he'd suddenly begun bleeding torrentially from the anus.
But yeah, we don't do that here.
The, uh, Script. Not the anal bleeding. Although we don't... we don't do that, either. Not if we can help it. OKAY, EVERYONE! FOLLOW ME, BACK TO THE POINT!!
So, the guy gets his initial stunned silence okay. He must be thinking things are going pretty well.
And then we start laughing.
Matt sort of half-turns around and says, "I'm not dating her. We're married."
And then we make out a little.
Guy behind us gets that first bead of flop sweat.
I'll admit, though, he gave it the ol' college try. I won't say he recovered well, but he certainly soldiered on. Except whenever he gave up, now and then.
His mainstay was urging Matt to get out with him at the next stop and fistfight, and utterly ignoring me, unless he thought he had some new, devastating argument.
First, he asked me where our wedding rings were, and laughed when we showed him the matching gears we wore on chains around our necks, accusing Matt of being either too broke or too cheap to buy diamonds. We replied that we tried not to buy too many things smuggled out of Congolese disputed territories up war orphans' asses. He didn't get it, but it was a fun segue into various mock DeBeers commercials that we were more than happy to act out for him.
SHINY ROCKS ARE FOREVER. I MEASURE MY HUSBAND'S LOVE IN CARATS. MY SEXUAL FAVORS COME AT AN ARTIFICIALLY INFLATED PRICE.
Next, he expressed annoyance that we were calling him a "lonely racist motherfucker," since he was absolutely not racist at all. We were, apparently, "using the wrong definition of racism." See, black people don't have money, so they can't be racist. Ever. Not that he ever expressed it that clearly. When I asked him about the racist whites in the American South who squatted in trailers, lived off welfare, and never missed a Klan rally, he went quiet again for a few minutes.
And then, the final charge. I am not even beginning to kid about this.
He told me I needed to read less comic books.
He'd heard me talking about the con during one of his retreats, and showing off the new Finder collection to Matt.
See, if I had read less comics... scootch in close for this one, folks... I would have had enough sense to marry a black guy.
Wow.
We didn't let him forget that one for next fifteen minutes. He, of course, was stunningly, fabulously well read, except he wouldn't tell me which books. When we finally wrestled a nice, long, Afrocentric title out of him, he claimed to have read it twenty times. (I guess he should have read it twenty-one times, because he refused to tell me what it was about, and why it would have thwarted us so utterly. It was just "stuff" I needed to know, because I was "young and stupid.")
(Y'know, I've tangled with enough foamy Fundamentalist Christians that I'm not really impressed with the JUST READ THIS BOOK THAT ARTICULATES MY OPINIONS BETTER THAN I CAN argument. If you can't defend your philosophy, y'damn well shouldn't be evangelizing.)
For the record, Matt and myself are not incredibly clever, put-together people. We're not geniuses, or improv comedians, or even very witty. This guy was just that much of a pushover. He, as I mentioned before, was expecting shame. He literally didn't know what to do with anything else. When I started in on him, he refused to make eye contact with me. While, of course, urging Matt to get off at the next stop. And fistfight.
Very intimidating.
For the record, people... and I tell you this as a friend, not as a playground monitor that just wants her one peaceful smoke break, free of yanked pigtails or atomic wedgies... if you try to answer any intellectual rebuttal with a sock in the kidneys, that just means you don't know what the fuck you're talking about. And you KNOW that you don't know what the fuck you're talking about, and you're just now realizing that. And you can't deal.
We ushered him off the train at his stop with thrown kisses, waves, promises to have lots and lots of little cafe au lait rugrats, and sincere wishes for him to get laid sometime in the near future. BYE, MISTER. YOUR OPINION DOESN'T MATTER, AND THAT'S SAD. :( And we laughed the rest of the way home. Hard.
I don't think for a second that we changed his opinions about anything. We joked on the walk back that he was probably replaying the entire encounter in his brain over and over and over again, looking for ways he could have totally OWNED us with a Farrakhan quote or something. And he probably still thinks Matt's trespassing, and I'm self-loathing. But I can tell you this.
It'll be a long, LONG time before he tries to start some shit with another zebrahead. And really, that's plenty.
Con report tomorrow. Night.
Posted by Spike at July 18, 2005 12:24 AM
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