My last post reminded me of something else that happened a month ago or so.
I had been at a friend's apartment in Brooklyn for poker night, and as I was walking down Smith street to the subway afterwards, probably around midnight, I witnessed a violent fight outside one of the bars on that street. A vagrant-type person was yelling, threw a guy down on the sidewalk, while two or three woman protested and yelled at him to stop. The man hit the guy on the ground in the head with something--it looked like maybe he was holding a plastic grocery bag, but something else, too. Something harder and bulky. I was on the same side of the street, and so stopped and backed away a bit. The violent man got up and was coming towards me and I saw what looked to be a drill?!?! in his hand. I stepped to the side onto the street and let him pass me, and then I walked around the group to continue on my way to the subway. The guy on the ground was up and looking dazed, holding the side of his head with his hand. He seemed to be okay, just in shock, and I heard a woman ask if she should call the cops. Then they all went into the bar.
Isn't that crazy? It was definitely an unsettling experience at the time, but once again, I completely put it behind me that night. It's startling and scary to witness violence in person, but at the same time, I think New York and the media has desensitized me to it all. Nothing surprises me in this city anymore. It's like that commercial where all of these crazy and horrible things are happening on the streets of Manhattan, and none of the pedestrians even bat an eye. It's so true.
Showing posts with label New York moment. Show all posts
Showing posts with label New York moment. Show all posts
Saturday, March 17, 2007
Thursday, March 15, 2007
Asian women and gay men. What would you have done?
Last week after playing darts with coworkers, some of my group started hankering for Karaoke. We decided to go to Lucky Cheng's, which is dubbed "The Drag Queen Capital of the World." I had never been there before, but had heard good things about it. We walk in, and they haven't started Karaoke yet, and as we're waiting in the lobby area, one of the "ladyboy" hostesses looks at my coworker J and says, "You look familiar--don't I know you from somewhere?" which embarrasses him because this is the second time he's been out with coworkers where he's been mistaken as being gay. Then "she" looks at me and says, "Is this your boyfriend?" and we both say NO but she continues and says, "Because you know what they say about men who date Asian women..." and I sigh and nod and say, "Yes, I know what they say, but I find it insulting."
What I know she's getting at is that some people say that many gay men who are perhaps still in the closet date Asian women to cover up for the fact that they're gay. I know this because I had an incident with a gay friend of mine a few years ago--he made an offhand remark to another friend about how he thought my boyfriend at the time was gay because he was dating me. Needless to say, I had a talk with that friend. And then recently other friends have brought up the book Middlesex by Jeffrey Eugenides which I own but have not yet read. Apparently, there's as passage in the book where he talks about this "phenomenon" as well. I have no idea if it is based at all in reality. And I'm not quite sure what the reasoning would be for this, perhaps that Asian women are seen as being "exotic" and desirable, so that if a man is seen with an Asian woman, then people will assume that they must be having sex with them. But this is just my guess.
So, as I said, I said to "her" that I found that generalization offensive, but she is oblivious to my protests and is putting on a show, has her whole routine going, and starts strutting around saying, "They walk around in Chelsea with an Asian woman on their arm, saying 'Look at me...I'm not gay! I have an Asian girlfriend!'" and she goes on and on, and I keep saying, "I find that offensive" but it falls on deaf ears and at one point she says, "And the Asian woman is okay with it, because she passive." And finally, what for me was the final straw, she says, "And the Asian girl is happy with it because she gets to say, 'Look at me, I'm with a white guy!'"
Argh. It's at this point I turn to my friends and say loudly, "Let's go somewhere else" and so we all leave. I don't look back.
Anyway, I managed to completely put the incident behind me that night, but the next morning I woke up for no reason at 5 am, remembered what happened, and got extremely angry.
The hostess happened to be black, which doesn't play a role in the incident at all, except for the fact that it frustrates me even more when one minority group is racist towards another. The fact that "she" belonged to two disenfranchised groups made the whole incident even more frustrating.
I keep wondering if I should have done more than just walk out, if in fact I was being passive in my reaction and actions. What do you think? What would you have done in my situation?
What I know she's getting at is that some people say that many gay men who are perhaps still in the closet date Asian women to cover up for the fact that they're gay. I know this because I had an incident with a gay friend of mine a few years ago--he made an offhand remark to another friend about how he thought my boyfriend at the time was gay because he was dating me. Needless to say, I had a talk with that friend. And then recently other friends have brought up the book Middlesex by Jeffrey Eugenides which I own but have not yet read. Apparently, there's as passage in the book where he talks about this "phenomenon" as well. I have no idea if it is based at all in reality. And I'm not quite sure what the reasoning would be for this, perhaps that Asian women are seen as being "exotic" and desirable, so that if a man is seen with an Asian woman, then people will assume that they must be having sex with them. But this is just my guess.
So, as I said, I said to "her" that I found that generalization offensive, but she is oblivious to my protests and is putting on a show, has her whole routine going, and starts strutting around saying, "They walk around in Chelsea with an Asian woman on their arm, saying 'Look at me...I'm not gay! I have an Asian girlfriend!'" and she goes on and on, and I keep saying, "I find that offensive" but it falls on deaf ears and at one point she says, "And the Asian woman is okay with it, because she passive." And finally, what for me was the final straw, she says, "And the Asian girl is happy with it because she gets to say, 'Look at me, I'm with a white guy!'"
Argh. It's at this point I turn to my friends and say loudly, "Let's go somewhere else" and so we all leave. I don't look back.
Anyway, I managed to completely put the incident behind me that night, but the next morning I woke up for no reason at 5 am, remembered what happened, and got extremely angry.
The hostess happened to be black, which doesn't play a role in the incident at all, except for the fact that it frustrates me even more when one minority group is racist towards another. The fact that "she" belonged to two disenfranchised groups made the whole incident even more frustrating.
I keep wondering if I should have done more than just walk out, if in fact I was being passive in my reaction and actions. What do you think? What would you have done in my situation?
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