I had a fun night tonight, halloween costume shopping with friends (anyone know of a good party?), followed by some drinks south of Boystown.   But it ended very badly.  Me and and a female friend ended up at the Taqueria down the street.  I had noticed a foursome of white hipster-mods sitting a couple tables in front of us, shouting loudly in drunken voices.  As they bruised the wall with their swagger, they'd periodically spout out about the decay of liberal integrity and such.  Whatever.

There was a lone man eating his meal as we ate ours.  He was also African-American.  When the intoxicated foursome got up to leave, one of the two young men paraded upon the guy's table and started helping himself to the his salsa.  It was crass and grotesque; I could hardly imagine this obtrusive white dude, despite his demonstrated asshole qualities, doing this to another white man.   I wasn't sure what to do, but felt moved to walk up to him and ask him what the hell he was doing, eating another person's food.  He did not care much for this.  We had a few rough exchanges.  The lone man, understandably, remained quiet.

Back at my table, the drunk boy spouted out a few things, and my good friend J balanced the gender card (of course, me saying her words would have meant a fistfight) with such well-coined phrases as "go fuck yourself" and, my fav,  "go back to the suburbs!".  The boys left, quickly followed by the lone man, with the two aforementioned white bastards rattling a mocked bad Spanish to the cashier. 

Me and J talked a lot about this afterward.  Did we, in the quintessential words of Spike Lee, "do the right thing"?  Should I have fought him?  I was pretty sober and could have probably brought them down.  Seems crazy--so not my way of dealing with things.  But, then again, isn't that the hallmark of privilege, not having to fight--at the expense of your own body, criminal record, etc.--for what you see as wrong?  Late at the end of the night, I struggle with this.  I think we did ok, much better than doing nothing.  But it's so gaddam sad that these sorts of young people exist...ignorant, priviledged, and lost in a self-affirming system that will, for the most part, never hold them accountable for thei prejudice.   I  know that fighting them, physically, would have done little to assuage the situation.  But the experience leaves me raw, angry, and sad at where society is at.  Would I have handled the situation differently if it would have been a BDSM identity, and not race?

Tags: racism chicago prejudice
Current Mood: disappointed