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The Insufficient Homosexual Stories from a man who fails to meet media expectations of what it means to be gay: |
Mon 07/22/2002 Why should anyone care?Work has been borderline annoying lately and in the case of one specific individual on one specific day, it was very aggravating as well. A couple of Thursdays ago, I had a hearing with well, lets call him Mr. Prejudiced Aggravating Guy. What usually happens before each hearing, is that I will go out to the waiting area, say good morning, introduce myself and walk the person back to my office. When I asked Mr. PAG to follow me back to my office, he started yelling at me that I was wasting his time, he had other appointments, and did I even speak English, because he was not going to waste his time talking to me If I only spoke Spanish. Considering that we had been speaking English, I thought that the answer would have been self evident. Considering that he was yelling at me and accusing me of inadequate English speaking skills, I believe that I showed an amazing amount of self control in merely telling him that yes I spoke English and that if time was a concern, then the sooner we started the hearing, the sooner we would finish. My initial reaction was to tell him to leave the office. I did not do this because I realized that he was intentionally trying to get me angry. At some point in his life, Mr. PAG had learned that if you get your opponent angry and off balanced, you can win the fight. Except our meeting wasn't a fight and we weren't opponents. At least, we weren't supposed to have been. Mr. PAG continued to yell at me and I continued to not get angry. Or more specifically, I did not yell back. After all, I was a representative of a government agency. I can get angry, I just can't show it. I'm not allowed to yell back. That would be unprofessional. Half way through the meeting he stopped the yelling and started accusing my department of racism. He didn't exactly call me racist, but he came pretty close to it. He also made a point of ignoring my statement that the actions of the department were not based on race. I'm not sure if he really did believe that he was the victim of institutionalized racism, or if it was just another tactic in not accepting responsibility for his actions. If it was the former, then in this specific instance he was incorrect. Until we met that morning, no one in my office knew what his race was. Not very efficient behavior for people who supposedly made a point of singling out _______-Americans, while making every attempt to ignore similar actions from folks of every other race/ethnicity. If it was the latter, then his tactics trouble me. I believe in the story of the boy who cries wolf. I believe that inventing prejudice where there is none lessons the impact of when injustice does occur. If everyone "knows" that claiming racism is what you do when you don't get your way, why would anyone believe that it actually does happen? Why should anyone care? more later, nico Music: the Y tu mama tambien soundtrack Want: a vacation Elsewhere: urban legends <<numbers & stories::::Contrary Mary>> � 2000-2007 |