My cat likes treats. She also likes a little affection, but not to much. She has a very low tolerance for too much attention. I got home tonight and took a shower. Kitty was awake and followed me into my room, so once I was finished cleaning up I sat down and rubbed her ears and gave her salmon treats (her favorite). Life is simple for her, she was content and soon after went out about her business.
I went to a family wedding today and while I generally don't enjoy weddings, family gatherings of any sort are always fun. It's a great chance to see relatives I haven't seen in a while. The majority of the day was great, though I had a wicked headache. The finale left me rather sick to my stomach, and not from drinking.
Racism, intolerance, stereotyping and general outright hate of someone else based on these things. I see it happen every so often in life and almost daily on the news. It never makes me feel good to witness things like that, but it's worse when you're caught up directly in an incident.
I'm in a narrative/venting mood, so I think I'll just write of today's two events as I encountered them.
Episode one.
I walked into McDonald's and got into the line furthest from the door. Three cashiers were working and their were three lines that I could see. I picked what seemed to be the shortest line. People were served in each line and we all moved slowly along. A young black man two customers ahead of me, got to the counter and the lady said, "Can I help who's next please." She looked at the young man and said to him, "You're not next, that guy is." and pointed at a big white guy standing in the next line over. The young man didn't say anything and shrugged his shoulders. She said, "He was here before you," looked at the guy in the other line and asked him what he wanted to order. I watched this and two things went through my mind; first, in the ten minutes I've had to stand here waiting, all the lines were being served independently of the others... so why did she do this; and the other thing was, am I watching blatant racism, or am I reading this completely wrong? It really perplexed me, because even though he might have jumped line or skipped ahead without me noticing, it certainly wasn't evident from where I was standing. And upon looking at the customers in the line, he was the only one that didn't have pale white skin. The staff were obviously from a wide mix of different races, skin colours and genders, but the cashier in this case happened to be an older white woman. It bothered me the rest of the afternoon.
Episode two.
After going to the wedding and then the reception, my day had brightened up quite a bit. Some beers, dancing and lots of fun with family made it a damn fine day. A friend of my brother and myself had been invited by us to the reception and he showed up quite drunk and in good spirits. He got plastered and at 12:45am we decided he needed to get home (so did we...) where my brother and sister in law were crashing for the night. So I called a cab and met him outside at the front door. he was a nice guy and while we waited for the other three to gather themselves and get outside, I had a nice chat with him about how work was and the pride week parties and he asked how the wedding was. In my opinion a pretty nice guy. The other three piled in and we set off from Dartmouth to Clayton Park, about a 25 minute ride with a stop involved. The first thing my drunk friend noticed was that the guy driving was not white and commented on mideast problems. It went downhill form there. The cab driver tried to be very polite, but my ass of a friend started asking very personal and rude questions and began insulting the guy. My brother and sister in law (who were in back with him) told him to shut up and stop being so rude, but he persisted. Some choice phrases he used, "I know you're name isn't John, because my name is John, why the fuck won't you tell me your real name?"; "Why won't you answer me, I pay fucking tax dollars so I have a right to ask you whatever I want to."; "Where are you from, fucking Lebanon? (he had asked this rather early in the conversation, and later followed up with...) Fucking lebanese terrorist going to fucking blow us up." This was just the tip of the iceberg. It got worse and finally the guy pulled over and told him to get out. The drunken idiot freaked, jumped out and tried to get the driver to get out and fight him. We got him away from the cab and I went back to pay whatever fare we owed and apologise. Even after all this, the cab driver said that he would be happy to take me, my brother and his wife to wherever we needed to go, but he couldn't allow the other guy back in. While I was doing this, dickhead ran back to the drivers side door, opened it and threatened the guy. The cab driver said he was going to have to push the emergency button if he didn't leave and the response he got was, "You're gonna push the fucking button for the nukes?" At this point we drug him away from the cab and I apologized again and asked him to please go. He started to drive away and the drunken idiot screamed "Nigger" at the top of his lungs. He stopped the car and reversed... all that went through my mind was, "If you run him over, I feel it's completely justified," but he changed his mind and drove away. So there I was standing on the side of a highway with my brother (fuming), sister in law (in tears) and drunken asshole. I was nauseous from being so upset at being a part of this. We eventually got picked up by drunken guys wife, who was less than impressed, but sadly seemed unsurprised by the whole thing... he got on his cel phone as we drove to my house and I heard him bragging about the big argument with the cab driver to his friend (who he claimed was a police officer on duty...) I got home, vented to my poor roommate who happened to be still awake and then took a hot shower.. I felt so dirty I needed to wash myself. And then I wrote this all down.
I don't feel any better having written it down, but I needed to further vent and think it all through. Some days the world is disgusting, but when the shite of the world smacks you directly in the face, spewing from the mouth of someone you consider a friend, it makes it a hundred times worse.
All I can think of is how horrible that man must have felt listening to all this. If someone directed hate and abuse like that at me, I'd be a mess for days. I decided that I have to make an effort to contact the guy and apologize for the trouble we caused, for the abuse he suffered while we were in his cab and a personal apology from me, because I feel I should have done more to put asshole in his place before the situation got out of hand.
This is going to bother me for a long time.
