the N word

There's this friend of a friend who's a pretty damn funny guy. He was born and raised in New Orleans and cracks me up with his ability to affect the accent of his elders and of his community, saying words like "ferl" for "foil" and "frewnarul" for "funeral." But he also liberally sprinkles his performances with the N word, which causes me a lot of discomfort.

I was at my friend's (the friend of this friend, none of whom I'm going to name) house when the silly guy was going on in the voice of his grandmother talking about "colored boy" this and "nigger" that. My friend was laughing as she said, "Okay, don't say that word in this house again!" But it didn't really stop. He said, "Oh, JDJB knows what I'm talking about 'cause he's from Bigtown."

And it's true. I remember visiting from New York with my Jewish boyfriend -- the first boyfriend I took home -- and we were driving around Bigtown (I was driving us through the neighborhoods of my childhood, I guess) and my mom all of a sudden said, "Now you've taken us all the way to Niggertown." I protested, but my boyfriend told me to relax (perhaps he was afraid that the J word would come up if I made too much of a stink about it).

Back to now: This N-spewing funny guy seems to be making social commentary with his words and accent, so I kind of understand where he's coming from, but at the same time, there wasn't really any need in the particular context of the occasion that we were visiting for there to be this kind of social commentary; I mean, he was preaching to the choir, and though we weren't a black gospel choir, we were all quite familiar with the hymns being sung.

I don't know, maybe this has something to do with Barack Obama running for president; maybe it has something to do with the racist-seeming New Yorker magazine cover. Perhaps these kinds of conversations are going on all over the country. I wish it wasn't necessary.

And I'm afraid to think of what's being said around the table of my very Republican family.

I like to think that I at least have gotten beyond my racist past. I know I haven't completely rinsed my bones of their racist attitudes and actions, but I'm aware of my deeds and do my best to not offend people with the things that come up for me. I would also like to believe that not everybody from Bigtown is a racist.

Like this junior high and high school buddy I just got back in touch with (after twenty-five years or so). The thing that made me look for him over the years was that he was a friend to me when it felt like nobody else was. He seemed to like hanging around me; he offered to accept me if I wanted to tell him I was gay (which I was not ready to do at seventeen, but still, that stuck with me).

I did various searches over the years and only recently found him by doing a Google Image search; there he was, older, heavier (looking a lot like I remember my father, strangely) standing at the machine shop table where he has worked for thirteen years. Still in Bigtown. That was a shock to me; I always thought of him as someone with a lot of potential. I mean, his family wasn't well off -- they were a large Catholic family who lived in the part of town my mother had a disagreeable name for -- and yet he had a job and saved up and bought himself a brand new car. (That, besides his acceptance of what I might or might not be, was the other thing that impressed me about him.)

I felt giddy when I got in touch with him; we had a bit of back-and-forth emailing activity. In my first full-length message to him, I confessed my homosexuality and told him I remembered our conversation of long ago. He wrote back and said he remembered that conversation, too, and that he still didn't care, and said that anybody who cared about that was "fucked in the head." He was a little rough around the edges, as always, but had a twisted sense of humor -- as always -- and it felt good to be in touch with him. I sent him a copy of the documentary about mine and S's performance and polyamorous life and downfall, as well as a couple of old CDs from the band and a burned CD of some silly songs I've been recording recently on GarageBand.

And then I got this email from him:

you didn't ask any questions, so we can start new. i am about to give you title of a video on utube, that is of me walking like a nigger on crack, that me and my bud saw walking down the street. i swear this is how he was walking. i told them at work my acting was only a 1, and that you could do it as a 10. you will laugh you ass off. "X" (trainwreck) is suppose to put it on there tonight. she is little shit. she was talking about putting my name on it, but she was only kidding- i hope. like i say- she is a shit. she is just young, dum(misspelled on purpose), and full of cum. im just the latter of the three. im not old though either. i just need to get off my lazy ass, and do a bunch of shit around the house.

i have two dogs that are the terror of the neighborhood, and my backyard. there is litterally a3' hole that the mother dug. they are both tied up at the moment, and im not far from making nooses out of their chains. they are mother and son labs, one nigger and one yellow named "A" (nigger) and "B." "B" used to be a good dog until "A" got him hooked on crack. now he is in the same boat as her. here's a good one -she got ran over and lived through it. she was scraped up everywhere, blood coming out of her mouth, and dislocated her left front leg. i really felt sorry for her at first, but eventually came to the conclusion that she brought this on herself, and i would try to nurse her back, but if she didn't make it back- it was her bad, and she had to live with it, or die. the first night was bad. the second was scary, but she eventually improvised and overcame. my mom did a good job of teaching me to nurse. she was in my lap bleeding lap most of the first night, but i got all of the bleeding stopped, and time would only tell. i like her better on 3 legs. she is just as fast, she just doesn't have the endurance to run like she used to. she uses the one leg as a crutch.

enough about two stupid dogs. here's something better-- 2 fridays ago i hit 2 girls @ once. almost the craziest shit that ever happened to me. i went and got my hair cut, and it was about 8:30, and they had about 6 people (i thing that were made up people because they weren't there), as i think they were ready to leave. anyhow the chick that was in charge said that i would have to come back tomorrow, and the black chick said that she would take me. boy- is that an understatement. she cut my hair, bla bla bla, and when she was done handed me a card with her# on it and said--call @ 9:30. well i got directions to her place and i walked in and she had a petite mexican girlfriend. i hit them both at the same time. i think the mex girl is really a lez, and she only did it to turn on her girlfriend..it worked.... the only thing hotter than 2 girls together, was me between them....

I don't know how to respond to this. I have a feeling he is trying to impress me, not with his antics as much as with his story-telling ability. (After my first long email to him he wrote back and said "you can tell you're a writer.") But I was sick to my stomach after I read his email. It was kind of a "there but for the grace of god go I," though I'm not a believer in that kind of a god, so I don't know, it was just upsetting. I feel like the best (and maybe only) thing to do is just leave it be, not respond, walk away from this train wreck before I find myself in the middle of it.

I have a tattoo that says COMPASSION on my left forearm -- and REFLECTION in reverse on my right. I put Compassion on my left arm so I would be the one to see it most, that it would be a message for me, to start with myself, have compassion for myself first and foremost, and then I can have compassion for others; that once I learn to have compassion for myself, compassion for others will naturally follow. Reflection is backwards (mirror image) because I see it as kind of the outgoing message -- COMPASSION incoming/REFLECTION outgoing.

So, how do I respond to these recent racist messages that have taken me uncomfortably back to my past? For now, I guess I'll just focus on the compassion-for-myself part.