Anonymity allows folks to say disgusting things.
Last week, among the nasty messages I got was a particularly virulent voice mail.
The caller said black men in America shouldn’t complain about being racially profiled by police because if they were still in Africa, they’d be starving or dying of AIDS.
“If they don’t like it here, they should go back where they came from,” he snapped.
He must have had a sense that what he was saying was wrong; otherwise he would have left his name and phone number. But I’m not sure I could have convinced him that his comments were ugly and nonsensical; someone who knows him well would have a better shot.
That’s why I decided several years ago not to let racist remarks from friends or acquaintances go unchecked, though I’ve rarely had to take action.
Two weeks ago, I was in that position when two friends of mine uttered anti- white remarks.
My friend Sue was in town for a conference with her partner, Kim. I hadn’t seen them in two years, so it was great catching up with them over dinner one night and then brunch a few days later.
I took them to Le Central. While sipping coffee, Sue told me about an altercation she had the night before at J.R.’s, a gay bar. She had overheard a white man asking an Asian man why Asians always pronounce Broncos as “Bronco” without the S.
She said she told the white guy what he said was offensive and walked away.
Later, the guy approached her to apologize and to learn why she was upset. She explained he was stereotyping all Asians as foreign and unable to pronounce simple words. She has a Ph.D. in English, she told him, and she has no problem saying the word “Broncos”.
As I listened, I thought about the nuances involved in this conversation. Here were two lesbians of Asian descent at a gay bar discussing stereotypes with a white man who presumably was gay.
I wasn’t prepared for what Kim said next: “In my office I find it’s the white people who have bad grammar.”
At that moment, the waitress, a white woman, walked over to take our order, but Kim kept on talking about the bad grammar of white people as though she didn’t see her. I gestured, slashing my hand under my chin, but Kim continued. Then I said, bluntly, “You need to stop now.”
I apologized to the waitress and asked her to give us a moment. When she walked away I leaned over and told Kim I couldn’t believe what she had just said. Kim tried to explain that she wasn’t stereotyping, that it was the truth at her office. Sue defended her.
I was blown away. Here were two well-educated women, one of them a friend of mine for more than 14 years, doing what they had accused someone else of doing.
Still today, I’m not sure what bothered me most, the stereotyping, spewing racist sentiment in front of someone who would rightly feel insulted or them being dismissive of a waitress.
In the past I might have let it go to keep the peace, but I’ve realized it’s better to have an uncomfortable moment than stay quiet and essentially validate their point of view. Racism is wrong in any form.
By the end of our brunch, they apologized and admitted they were wrong. And I felt glad I had spoken up – something more of us should try to do.
Cindy Rodriguez’s column appears Tuesdays and Thursdays in Scene. Contact her at 303-820-1211 or crodriguez@denverpost.com.
