dir/new_school/rant: R a c e

Still a nigger.

A couple of weeks ago I was called a nigger. I was mildly shocked by the whole ordeal and it's possible that of all the reactions I could have, shock was a good one. Before I talk about today, I'm going to go back, to the last time I was called a nigger.

Three years ago…

It was a Friday night, very chilly and I was riding with my gal pal Sasha. We were in the upper class section of Atlanta, known as Buckhead. We'd gone out that night to ride my motorcycle and were just returning from dinner. I was waiting at a stop light as the left turning traffic took the green and as the cars piled by, a white corrola passed up and some kid stuck his hand out the window with his middle finger out and said "Fuck you, you Jigaboo!" They leered and laughed and went about their merry way.

Jigaboo?

I tried to remember what Jigaboo was and why they were calling me one. In my mind I wound down my list of slurs. Porch Moneky, Tar Baby, Jigaboo, Nigger.

Jigaboo! For some reason being called a obscure racial slur was even more offensive then the n word. I tore across traffic, stopped briefly at the corner, forced my pal Sasha off the bike and then went down the middle line between a long row of cars for a block until I came along the white car. I punched through the passenger window and reached inside the car, pulling the shocked teenager through the opening of his window. He was a kid, maybe sixteen at best. I had my fist wound about his shirt and shook him, screaming he should call me a Jigaboo again. His eyes went wide in utter shock. One minute you're chuckling about how cool you were and how funny it is and then a hand reaches through glass to bitch slap you.

So imagine the scene, your white, in a predominately white neighborhood, a black guy on a black motorcycle comes barreling past your drivers side window. The bike stops, the brake light glows menacing. The rider smashes a passenger window of a small white car, extracts a white teen from the car and starts screaming "Jigaboo" and "Nigger" at the top of his lungs.

Nobody did shit. Hear no, see no, speak no...

There is something about how anytime someone utters the word nigger you see few people standing up to clarify what he might of meant or how your reaction was uncalled for or the best one "It's just a word" As a matter of fact the other drivers just went around us like the car had stalled.

The boy got free of my angry fist, withdrawing back into the car, until he was sitting on the drivers lap. His friend who was at the steering wheel  was deeply upset about the passenger side window and asked why I had to do that and that he hadn't said anything. I told them to pull over and we'd talk about it more. I also told them that I'd beat the hell out of all of them as well, just for being with the dumb sonuvabitch. He looked at me.  I looked at him. They drove off, I went back for Sasha.

So I'm riving through rush hour traffic, a car cuts me off. I beep my horn. The car gets over another lane, this time using his signal. I pass by the driver and he gives me the middle finger, I return the gesture, keep on driving. He comes up along side of me rolling his window down and says "You're nothing but a nigger"

Man. I'm getting to old to kick ass, the consequences are more severe. Pulling the kid out of the car was a reaction. I did not care what happened, I was past caring; I was ready to beat the hell out of everybody.

Today I'm older; today someone called me a name and the slur Nigger much like Kike or Spick or Cunt is what we call "an automatic asswhupping". Words have power; they have the power to shoot past sensibilities and reason. Growing up, my mom always told me that names were nothing; I should ignore them and move on, that the name caller was ignorant. And I realized today that was the case. I try to understand how reason leaves you in a car, why you forget common sense. If you call me something I might get stupider then you, I might run your car off the road. I might do anything to scrub the shame and insult off, of being called Nigger. This tells me that while we have come a long way, things are still not perfect.

Nigger.

The word hung in the air. We were fast approaching the crossroads and this is how he timed it, going left while I was turning right. In all my heart of hearts some part of me wanted to say fuck it, cut off traffic turn left, pull him from his car and beat the living shit out of him. I didn't, I went to work, mildly surprised at the whole ordeal and mildly disappointed. I'll trade beeps and fingers with you all the time, I'll even roll my window down and shout "Go!" I don't usually say "Go Redneck Cracker!" or  "You're just white trash." to people who annoy me while I drive.

I have no pride in pulling some poor dumb schmuck from his car and scaring him silly. I also have no regret about it either. And I could boast with cool and say that after getting the mostly verbal beat down in the middle of the street, I'm sure that kid will never say nigger again, but he could be teaching it to his kids in a few years, hate and fear are such strange things. I also have no regret for not going down the road to beat the hell out of the guy today. It was very much a word that he threw for cowardice shock value and like most people who scream racial slurs from their car, he didn't stop to back up his hate word with hate actions, he went down the way in his white truck and I continued on mine with my black van. I'd like to say I can imagine him later on today sitting with friends drinking cheap beer and they'll hash over him calling me a nigger and how the world is worse off cause of rap and welfare and niggers in general.

That probably is not what will happen though. Through the course of the day he will interact with many black people in public and not call a single one of them nigger, unless he is running while he says it. He'll probably go to work and hang out with some black buddies and they will swap pussy stories, comfortable in the fact that black pussy and white pussy are pretty much the same. All through out the day this seemingly ok if not mildly stupid white guy will coexist peacefully with black people, but does he feel otherwise, does he hate blacks, is he ignorant?

I never disliked the KKK. I'd much prefer to meet people who tell me what their hates are. Wear the sheets and the jackboots, that is fine, easier for me identify you with.

We all know how we're supposed to act now. We all know not to say the bad words, that we are supposed to act a certain way and we do. None of this stops us from being racist, it just gives us guidelines for how not to look racist. Curiously enough we are in a new racial renaissance, with whites and black both bitching about the explosion of the Hispanic population. Hispanics have become the new niggers. Whites and blacks can comfortably sit around and talk shit, about the brown man. It's nice to know we have some new focus on the whole ordeal and a common hate now, which is utterly acceptable and not yet regulated by the system. I'm no innocent in all of this, I don't think any of us are and that is the important thing to remember.

Michael Glenn adds this reply:

Having read of your recent encounter I have been brought back to the same thing me and a few freinds are agreed on. All of us being white young men from different backgrounds are sometimes ashamed to be white young men. Ashamed of what our "race" has done to other people of different shades and textures. I have no white pride, no loyalty to my so called color. So I have had to find other things to be proud of in it's place. I think I am a very reasonable writer. I dress well. Have good taste in literature. Other things on personal levels. The only comfort I can find in my heritage is being Irish and Scottish and knowing that at least in my family we have always been getting fucked by someone and never the ones doing the fucking. I just find it to hard to yell at someone from England, "Hey you stupid fuckin crooked-toothed Brit" as I drive down the road. I find it hard to believe anyone can be that way. I thought some of us had moved on.

Our society is and always will be about division. Until we move away from this mentallity true equality is just so much slurred shit from car windows.
If I had been with you that day I would have taken that fuck from his car and proceeded to put him in a little something we like to call in my family "The Mothafuckin Hospital". But would that have made me feel better? Probably. Would it have been smart at my age? No. Keep your head up and don't call me mick.
mick glenn

This is why I like Cyber Christ 

The next time some redneck piece of shit calls you a name, blow one of
his tires out. There is no sense in thinking that he has enough of a
conscience to think "oh gee, I hang out with blacks at work so I better
not call anyone niggers." I bet you that when he is explaining to the
cops and to the insurance company that someone blew his tires out and
he hit a wall because he called them a nigger he is going to feel like a
retard THEN.

People aren't getting better, by the way, they are getting worst. I'll
tell you a story of a retard:

Yesterday I am pumping gas at the** on ******** across from the
*****. Some lady gets behind me, while I am pumping gas, and starts
HONKING.. this is a ** with *18* pumps, 12 of which are open.. I motion
to her to go to another pump that is open. She gives me the finger.. from
the comfort of her Ford F150. I tell her to go fuck herself and keep
pumping my gas..

So I get done, and I go pay.. and this bitch starts honking at me to
move my car before I go pay. I never do that shit. She whips around my
car, parks her truck and gets out and runs up to me, with her Jerry Springer
outfit and 1982 Smokey and the Bandit sunglasses. As soon as she gets
within arm's reach from me I shove her down to the ground and tell her
to calm her fat ass down. Unbeknownst to me, some cop is watching the
whole thing from inside the store, laughing his ass off. I see him, I start
to explain and he motions that there is no need to.. the lady is fuming
mad and starts calling me every racist name she could think of... I
basically tell her to go fuck herself and the cop calls more units and starts to
give her a sobriety test. If he hadn't been there though I would have
kicked the shit out of her.

errata

Periodically I stop writing or working on the site… For weeks I’ll be on a roll, turning out good work and then the muse will leave me. I never know what to make of it, but much like old habits that we turn to when we are uncertain or afraid. I turn to the numbness, somewhere between the static and warble of speakers, I just kinda wait it out, like it’s rain. I think recently I’ve begun to feel drug down by the site, it happens, the joy of writing turns into the joy of turning a new trick for the amusement of others. And whoring yourself out to your audience is forgetting the face of your work. So rather then do that, I don’t update the site, nor do I write. I wait for the groove, I hope for thoughts and submissions which will inspire. Then I come back, I give it my all again. None of this has anything to do with the fact that I am one year closer to being thirty and questioning all my personal decisions about life. Nope, not a lick. I’m happy and carefree.