So I was at a gay bay with some friends last Saturday night and I couldn’t really tell if this Brazilian guy was flirting with me or not, but it seemed like he either wanted me or my friend and I didn’t feel like walking home and the subway had already closed so I decided to see what would happen, and after we found that we smoked the same brand of cigarettes and after he told me that, though he works in fashion, he knows he’s not saving the world and he doesn’t feel any sense of pride for doing so (and I get that because I used to hurt my back standing for eight and a half hours per day asking people if they needed a different size and telling them that what they dressed themselves in looked good or that they needed to try something else because that dress just isn’t right for them) I started to think that his body might have had a soul, so after we were done smoking our Reds we walked back inside and he started talking to my friends and I started talking to his friend who was also from Brazil:
“So you’re from Brazil too?”
“Yeah. But I’m half German and half Chinese”
“Oh. Cool. So how many languages do you speak?”
“Six.”
“Wow. Look at you, Mr. Fancy.”
“Yeah.”
I drink my drink as I overhear Mr. Fancy start to make fun of Chinese immigrant workers and I’m not really comfortable with that so I say
“Whoa. That’s not really fair.” And he says,
“No, it’s okay I’m Chinese.” and I say
“No, it’s not okay because though you may have Chinese blood in you, you’re participating in the marginalization of a people who may not necessarily have the power and privilege you do. What are you anyway, a diplomat’s son?”
“CEO’s son, actually.”
“There. Ya see? So not okay after all.”
“Oh stop it. Being politically correct is so middle class.”
(HE ACTUALLY SAID THAT)
To which I replied: “You can’t make that statement. That’s so wrong.”
“I’m a gay republican. I’m a gay republican. I’m not ashamed of it.”
Then he sort of walked away and started talking to his friend, and I was angry. I was so angry that I chugged the rest of my drink and walked home (in the -2 degree celsius weather).
On my walk home I remembered how many time’s I’ve made Jew jokes and how, in retrospect, they’re not funny at all and how many times I’ve laughed at straight people telling gay jokes because they make fun of playful, not necessarily negative stereotypes and then I remember how when I was young I used to, instead of having conversations with people, tell them jokes about Blonds, Polacks, Amputees, and Jews because I was so uncomfortable with myself and any way for me to make people laugh and have them accept me was a good way and I remembered my older brother laughing at my younger step brother who is 14 tell Black jokes recently and I just want want to slap all three of us and say “why are you participating in the marginalization of a minority? What did they ever do to you that you’re participating in this violence?”
But I especially want to slap Mr. Fancy.
Well look at all those fancy tags:
