The trouble with “fighting racism” is that it runs the wrong way. If Professional Victims would just stop being professional victims/rude obnoxious creeps/illiterate morons, people like me would hate them less and then we’d all be happy.
For instance: remember during SARS when all the white folks at City Hall were ordering Torontonians to eat at Chinese restaurants to fight the semi-imaginary “racist backlash” against Asians?
Sure enough, a deeply liberal (now ex-) friend informed me that she and her boyfriend were planning to do just that, to help “support the local Chinese community.”
I replied that I’d be more than happy to support the local Chinese community if they’d stop throwing wooden crates of rotten bok choy all over Spadina Avenue, spitting on the sidewalks, devouring questionably butchered domestic animals and other less than sanitary activities that — oddly enough — might stop contagious diseases from spreading in the first place.
So Monday morning I’m waiting for the 19 bus when a central casting ghetto dude shuffles up to the stop. Doo rag, baggy pants and blaring portable radio blasting bitch bitch nigga nigga full blast. I’m sure he thought he looked like 50 Cent but frankly he reminded me a lot more of Gene Wilder in Silver Streak.
We get on the bus, and the black driver doesn’t ask him to turn down the radio. You can hear it all the way from the back of the bus.
About 10 minutes later, I hear a female voice saying, “Turn that crap off.” TyRone yells back, she yells back, then gets up and asks the driver to say something.
He does. Over the loud speaker he tells the guy to shut off the radio. DaWayne shuffles up to the front of the bus and starts bitching at the driver. Threatened with getting kicked off, he finally shuts off the crap rap and shuffles back to his seat.
I’m sitting at the front so as he passes me I start applauding really deliberately in that universally recognized rhythm that means “Asshole!”
He gives me a dirty look and keeps going, ranting all the while.
Soon it’s time for my stop. I walk to the back, stand by the door and signal the lady complainer with a thumb’s up.
She laughs. “People have got to start saying something. Everybody’s so chicken.”
“I hear you,” I say.
So of course Dalquon gets all testy, knowing we’re talking about him.
“Mind y’own bidness!” blah blah blah
Then as you had guessed: “It cuz I’m black right?”
Now, sadly for Kleavon, I know this bus route all too well. So I smirked and snapped back:
“You’re on the way to the courthouse, aren’t you?”
Opens his mouth. Closes it. Keeps it closed.
At which point I say so long to the complaining lady, give JaMahl the finger and get off the bus.
God, I hate Toronto.
And now, on a completely unrelated topic and for entertainment purposes only, may I present…
Bernard Goetz playing with a squirrel!
