the very racist thing that happened four days ago at 78th and Amsterdam
On Sunday, the day after I returned to New York, I was -- at the corner of 78th and Amsterdam -- made very sad for humanity.
At the corner, a white man and a black woman were yelling at each other. The man was getting out of a car, and their dispute seemed to have something to do with driving or parking. The woman escalated the conflict by calling the man a "Jewish asshole." It might have been a "Jewish dick." Whatever she said was some kind of generic insult with "Jewish" attached in a pejorative way. The man was wearing a yarmulke.
The thing I saw next has troubled me for four days now.
Without absolutely zero hesitation -- there was literally no sound gap from the end of "Jewish asshole" to when the man began speaking -- the man shouted "You're a NIGGER!" He had a look of ... excitement. As though, by having been slurred himself, he had been given permission to say what he had really wanted to say in the first place. "Nigger bitch!" he shouted, pointing.
At this point, it got weird. The woman replied that the man's mother and father had been niggers, which doesn't exactly reclaim the word or anything. And the man replied that at least he had parents, and the woman replied that he didn't know what she had, and by that point I had walked well past them and was already thinking about the chilling look that guy had had before dropping the N-bomb, and I was sort of thinking that, if one had to pick a side in this sad fucking excuse for human interaction in a civil society, I sort of felt like, being on the Upper West Side gave the man a sort of home-court advantage, plus he had a car, but then, on the other hand, the woman was the one who started the slurring, but then, of course, if my reading was correct, the man was all too delighted that slurring had been put on the table. So, if I had to pick a side, I felt like I'd be on her side, and then, as I was thinking that, I heard her yell "Beanie-wearing bitch!" Which, of course, is an incredibly anti-Semitic thing to say, but I hated this guy so fucking much I kind of chalked up a point for her, for at least having alliteration on her side.
And then I walked away thinking how sick it was that I was trying to sort it out somehow and pick the least bad side, and then I thought, well, it's a fight, and the point of fighting is to have a winner, so it's probably normal to try to score the thing, and besides, I used to judge debate tournaments, and, by God, I'm glad debaters never said "beanie-wearing bitch."
And then I was sad for four days.
Can we all please just hate each other as individuals? If she had called him a "fucking dick" and he had called her a "dumb cunt," this blog post never would have happened.
Update: This post has been linked off Jewcy. As an aside that ought to be its own post sometime, all my high school boyfriends were Jewish because everyone else in Virginia was a crazy Christian fundamentalist.
At the corner, a white man and a black woman were yelling at each other. The man was getting out of a car, and their dispute seemed to have something to do with driving or parking. The woman escalated the conflict by calling the man a "Jewish asshole." It might have been a "Jewish dick." Whatever she said was some kind of generic insult with "Jewish" attached in a pejorative way. The man was wearing a yarmulke.
The thing I saw next has troubled me for four days now.
Without absolutely zero hesitation -- there was literally no sound gap from the end of "Jewish asshole" to when the man began speaking -- the man shouted "You're a NIGGER!" He had a look of ... excitement. As though, by having been slurred himself, he had been given permission to say what he had really wanted to say in the first place. "Nigger bitch!" he shouted, pointing.
At this point, it got weird. The woman replied that the man's mother and father had been niggers, which doesn't exactly reclaim the word or anything. And the man replied that at least he had parents, and the woman replied that he didn't know what she had, and by that point I had walked well past them and was already thinking about the chilling look that guy had had before dropping the N-bomb, and I was sort of thinking that, if one had to pick a side in this sad fucking excuse for human interaction in a civil society, I sort of felt like, being on the Upper West Side gave the man a sort of home-court advantage, plus he had a car, but then, on the other hand, the woman was the one who started the slurring, but then, of course, if my reading was correct, the man was all too delighted that slurring had been put on the table. So, if I had to pick a side, I felt like I'd be on her side, and then, as I was thinking that, I heard her yell "Beanie-wearing bitch!" Which, of course, is an incredibly anti-Semitic thing to say, but I hated this guy so fucking much I kind of chalked up a point for her, for at least having alliteration on her side.
And then I walked away thinking how sick it was that I was trying to sort it out somehow and pick the least bad side, and then I thought, well, it's a fight, and the point of fighting is to have a winner, so it's probably normal to try to score the thing, and besides, I used to judge debate tournaments, and, by God, I'm glad debaters never said "beanie-wearing bitch."
And then I was sad for four days.
Can we all please just hate each other as individuals? If she had called him a "fucking dick" and he had called her a "dumb cunt," this blog post never would have happened.
Update: This post has been linked off Jewcy. As an aside that ought to be its own post sometime, all my high school boyfriends were Jewish because everyone else in Virginia was a crazy Christian fundamentalist.
posted by JenIsFamous at 3/14/2007 10:14:00 PM
6 Comments:
but wouldn't dumb cunt and dick be sexist slurs?
Jigsaw should have had you on for their debate show: http://blip.tv/file/80220
I am so glad you introduced me to that.
d
HAHAHA! THIS IS THE FRICKIN-INGNEST FUNNIEST THING I HAVE READ IN YONKS!
Love the story, I pictured all the events in my mind very clearly as I laughed the very end of my arse off.
Thanks for the laughs.
Z
Oops sorry Jen,
I forgot to add in my previous comment, that your entry reminded me of a Seinfeld episode - oh wait a minute! - that was real life. It's probably not in the least surprising that playing Kramer for all those years would eventually drive any human insane.
- Who knows, maybe the 'hero' of your story was a hugely devoted Kramer fan?
You have greatly confused me. The mid point of an argument is completely the wrong place to start scoring. All the good parts would been at the beginning. You know, the whole "You said you'd wash up but you didn't." followed by the "I was gonna do it in a minute". Mid way through it's all broken down and people forget the point and just start insulting each other.
It looks like the man had been spending some time thinking of a really insulting thing to say that would cause emotional stress to the woman. I'm afraid that he has to lose points simply through lack of originality. He failed utterly to leave a mark that had the potential to wake the woman a week later with a "He called me a what? Why the..." You know, something really cutting about her dress size or the shape of her nose.
I know she started the racist taunts but the moral high ground was there for the taking and he blew it. A perfect opportunity wasted. If I was going to score their row I'd have to give more points to her. No-one should take pleasure in such low comments. The pleasure of a properly executed insult should be in the subtlety of it.
However, a thought has just occured to me. Perhaps they were street performers engaged in some cutting edge improvisational theatre on the state of society today. If you'd stayed to watch then you may have seen a turnaround in the play resulting in much love and shared understanding. I think you probably missed out. I will certainly keep an eye out for unusual arguments in the future just in case.
The whole thing doesnt sit well with me personally. But it always amazes me how minorities will slam each other. Especially blacks and Jews. Once I was walking out of a Rat Pack tribute and this woman and I started talking and Sammy Davis Jr came up. And as we all know Sammy was Jewish. Anyway, "This woman says, 'I'm a Jew, and everyone knows we're the chosen people. And they are and will always be n***ers.'" I just about choked right there. Lady, I hate to break it to you but though the blacks get trumped on, not many folks are a fan of your tribe either....still, people amaze me.
Sadly, the answer to Rodney King's oft-repeated query would seem to be, "Apparently not."
I agree with Mahatma Gandhi, who when asked what he thought of western civilization opined that it seemed to him like a good idea. Indeed, as I have tried to note time and again on this blog, among the other differentiating characteristics of the civilized as opposed to the barbaric, is the former's endorsement of proportional response. Like Gilbert and Sullivan's Mikado, a civilized person's object all sublime should be to make the punishment fit the crime.
It seems to me that both parties here behaved deplorably. Why, then, must we engage in any moral relativism? Even if party A starts something, if party B retaliates disproportionately and therefore unjustifiably, aren't both parties (whether equally or not) to blame for their conduct? Why must we "score" this contretemps?
I am so tired of anti-social behavior being given the imprimatur of, if not desirability, at least acceptance by moral relativists who fail to recognize that it is irrelevant who is MORE wrong. Two milennia before Spike Lee entreated us to do the right thing, Hillel promulgated the so-called Golden Rule, which he expressed with the admonition, "Do not do unto others that which is hateful to thyself!"
The rest is commentary.
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