Watching Your Tongue
A Bigot's Guide to Getting My Identity Wrong
My “‘Buelo” (my Mexican grandfather) very likely saw this sign, or one very much like it, while living and working as a child and into his 40s in Texas. I was unaware of the signs until after he had died, but I wish I knew how it impacted him.
Tall, slim, and (dark) brown, I, as a second-gen Mexican-American, Gen X (first-gen) dude have experienced my share of bigotry and processed it with a varying mix of anger, humor, disdain, and curiosity. However, it’s the taxonomic challenge I’ve proven to be for various flavors of bigot throughout my life that I’ve found to be the most thought-provoking.
“Beaner," “wetback," “spic," “Kunta" (as in Kinte¹; as in a Gambian straight outta Africa by way of Alex Haley's Roots), “nigger," “faggot," “pussy," “homo." Et cetera ad nauseum; none has had the slightest impact on my sense of self-worth; none angered me nor saddened me. If anything, I've always found each said far more about the person using it than it did about me.
“Are you a nigger or what?”
– A serious (?) question for me from a St. Louis muscle car passenger girl
The first time I was called “nigger" (at least that I heard) was in St. Louis (a city which to this day sees everything in black-and-white) by a girl leaning half out of the passenger side of (her best friend's ride?) er … some muscle car as it sped down the sleepy South City, Soulard street² where I was skateboarding, asking loudly over the roar of the engine, “Are you a nigger or what?" It was such an absurd nonsequitur (there was nothing for it to sequit) — and so clearly out of the ignorance of someone with a strictly binary experience of race — that I found myself L’ing OL and giddily yelling back, “... or what?!" as the car squealed around the corner.
I was only bemused when I spent the better part of 7th and part of 8th grades in the rural PNW³ being referred to only as “Kunta" by another clearly confused and culturally isolated (though not isolated enough as he lived just down the road as my one-small-farm-removed next-door neighbor) white person. I remember calmly explaining to him at some point that, despite his best efforts⁴, if he was trying to insult me it wasn't going to work simply because it didn't make any sense.
Later, in my sartorially, tonsorially, and eyelinerlly adventurous young adulthood if I was told I “looked gay" or outright called a “faggot" I'd reply, "Thank you, I take that as a compliment" without missing a beat — FWIW, I meant it.
“Thank you, I take that as a compliment.”
– Me, when slandered
I've given little thought to the burden of indignation that may be my responsibility to “the Greater Good" or even to others less ready and able to absorb the impact of the barbs. And it's possible I could have a massive blind spot or a thick callus I'm simply unaware of having developed. But, it's not that I don't care when racists or homophobes attempt to dehumanize others through language; I'm talking about recognizing that meaning isn't always fixed and tragedy plus time sometimes equals “fuck it."
As someone growing up as a bit of an Anglophile and with an English stepfather, “cunt" and “twat,” while undeniably crude words have simply never carried the weight for me that they do — legitimately — for many women but disingenuously for the earger-for-outrage masses of pearl-clutching, genteel America. And if you think words' meanings aren't culturally mutable, try saying “fanny" in polite company in England. Or, see what happens if you ask to “bum a fag" in the U.S.)
I find that functioning as a walking Rorschach test for the prejudiced and perplexed allows me to diagnose the mentally ill without having a DSM-5⁵ handy. Mind you, I'm not suggesting that words can't be offensive (and are frequently intended to harm), but I'm of the opinion that if you let words offend you the terrorists have won.
N.B. It should be clear by my selective redaction that I’ve used two words that I’m not comfortable presenting openly. If you’d like my thoughts on why those but not the others … we’ll need to talk. HMU.
FOOTNOTES
As in LeVar Burton in his debut acting role
A hard right at this corner. I was skating in front of the house at top right with my brother who is 6 years younger, much lighter and a far better skater. We lived in the top two floors with my father, then an executive with Anheuser-Busch and the darkest of all of us. Once, onee of us took the trash to the alley bin to find a big black swastika spraypainted on it (and not the “it’s alllll goooood, bro” American Indian kind.)
At left front was my home (in significantly better shape) from 7th through 12th grades. FWIW, the top right window was mine. My ineffectual tormentor lived at the second driveway down on the left. (You can’t see the house; long driveway, “No Trespassing” sign stuck in a fence post.
I mean, he really only had the one ridiculous offensive gambit but his family did have a black lab named, I shit you not, Nigger. So, I guess, there is some context for “best.”
Diagnostic and Statistical Manual of Mental Disorders, Fifth Edition / American Psychiatric Association / 2022.
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Roman Petrov via Unsplash
Rorschach (Walter Joseph Kovacs) from Watchmen / 1986 / Written by Alan Moore, Art by Dave Gibbons
