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[May. 3rd, 2008|07:00 pm] |
| [ | Current Music |
| | we suck young blood- radiohead | ] |
thursday night ended so badly.
i went to cruise control, which is a monthly queer dance party organized by the bike shop dykes, and had a stellar time, and Troy ended up showing up unexpectedly; i knew he worked the folowing morning, and wasn;t expecting to see him there. We got pretty wasted and stayed until about 230 dancing and shootin the shit with other friends that were there.
We decided to walk back to my place since it was only a half hour walk; i had my bike and walked it beside me.
We stopped at double pizza on the corner of Ontario and St Denis, and troy went inside to get some food. There were a gang of 4 crust punks hangin out on the terrasse and i asked them if i could take a seat with them. We started shootin the shit. They seemed pretty interesting and this one chick in particular was pretty funny.
Troy comes out with the pizza and we talked for a few more minutes, then one of the crusties asked troy if he wanted to buy some pot and said "it's way better that the shit you'd get from those berri-square-[insert horrible racist comment here].
I called him out and said that it wasnt cool to use that language. He tried to justify himself by saying that he had been called racist shit when he lived in Saskatchewan, and that when he went to louisiana he called people that all the time and they didnt care. Troy tried to explain to him why despite the racism he had faced in his life, perpetuating it against other races is just as violent and hateful.
Out of nowhere the dude socked troy right in the face. 2 of the dudes friends tried to diffuse the sitch by telling him to chill out and that we are good people; and then i chimed in and said that violence doesn't solve anything.
This menacing grin on his face and punched me square in the jaw twice. I realized that rationalizing with this fucker was pointless so i backed up and when he came at me i started to run, and he chased me into the street and a car luckily jammed on its brakes right before hitting me. He chased me a bit longer while Troy ran into the pizza shop and told them to call the police; the employees outright refused and told troy to get the fuck out. The crazy man ran back and threw troy to the ground and started kicking him in the ribs and head. I tried to run back but i was on the other side of the road and the traffic was flowing.
I managed to weave my way back over and screamed at the guy. One of his freinds picked up my bike and threw it at me and told me to get the fuck out of there. I continued to yell at the guy and he came at me again. He hit me in the face again and i grabbed my bike and used it as a barrier between us. His freinds told him they were leaving and they all took off. I looked over and noticed troy was in the pizza shop. I ran inside and he was in a heated screaming match with the people inside, and i grabbed him and pulled him outside. I was freaking out and trembling like mad and i told him i wanted to get away from the store as soon as possible, we crossed the street and this dude coming out of a strip club called the cops for us. I wanted to jet, but troy was so pissed that the double pizza people refused to call the cops, he wanted to try and cause some shit for them. When the 5-0 arrived he told them all about it and they outright said the store has no obligation to call the cops and it is their right to refuse that to anyone. I was trembling so hard that i had to sit down on the curb. The cops said they would drive us home but that was all they could do. We got home and Tess was still up; she ordered food for us and took care of us until we fell asleep.
This expereince has been so fucked up for me but has also opened my eyes to some shit. I am a non violent person, and i remained non violent throughout this encounter, but it is just so hard to wrap my head around how someone could be so cold and hostile towards people who are just sharing a point of view. I understand that this dude has probably been through some shit, and i cant blame everything on the individual. Our society is designed to keep opressive systems in place in order to benefit a priveledged elite, which is why people end up fucked up on the street with absolutely no way out and no hope or love for anything. I guess it is scary to be confronted with the dregs of that. I can sit in a classroom and talk about how interlocking systems of opression relating to race, class, gender, sexuality, bodies, location blahblahblah effect the lived realities of people and communities, yet theory can't prepare one for the irrational and disgusting repercussions this can have. This sort of thing insidiously deteriorates my faith in human beings. I hate how, through conditioning, prejudices and violence done to people is reproduced and the opressed become the opressor. I would expect racist homophobic attides and behaviors from some stupid power hungry jock, but not some downtrodden crust punk. my logic is: well if you have expereinced this shit then you know how hurtful and shitty it is, so dont do it to some other marginalized person or community. Use that anger or that trauma for something constructive: activism, artistic expression, community building. I guess life's not that simple. This might be a conclusion that i can come to through multidimensional expereinces, but at the same time, i have a certain level of acess. I have access to university education, access to my parents money if i fall on hard times, access to wear monochromatic baggy clothes and blend right in at an airport, access to amzaing supportive artistic queer communities. I have my share of issues that can be hard as all hell to deal with sometimes, and it's really not always obvious how to cope or express my thoughts and emotions, but I can still see that nothing constructive comes from violence. Moot.
I enjoy craziness and unpredicable nonsense... as long as it's doesnt fucking hurt anybody! If your pissed off and need to get out some agression try throwing a brick through the window of a mcdonalds, because at least then you are attcking an institution rooted in the evil capitalist model of exploitation.
AAAAHHHHHHHHH!!!!!
MR said something that really struck a cord for me yesterday. She made a lovely Harry Potter reference linking the philosophical rant that Dumbledore proclaimed as part of cedric Diggory's eulogy at the end of the fourth book. He said something along the lines of "people make choices that can lead them down a hard road or an easy Road, and Cedric made a choice [in defending Harry] that led him down a hard road, and for that he is truly admirable." She said that I made the hard choice but she was truly proud of me and troy for standing up against racism instead of allowing it to slip by. That was a truly touching comment and made me feel a bit better about the whole situation.
I dont beleive in one cause activism. doing queer activism, If i were to ignore intersectionality of race, gender, and whatever other factors i can identify, then i would be further contributing to the opressive structures that i was originally trying to divert, reconfigure or smash.
some call it futile idealism and live their lives in sheltered comfort or just become complacent with the shit that is thrown at them.
I say fuck that. |
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