A story from last night:
I leave the office, hop on my bike, and head to the QFC on Broadway to buy a six-pack to drink with my sis before the Gong Show. I coast up to the rack out front. The only other bike on the rack is green, mountain, and nondescript. As I dig for my lock, another cyclist pedals past and hawks a huge loogie directly onto the saddle of the other bike. I look up, confused (and impressed at his aim), and think how shitty it’s gonna be for the bike’s owner to find it all slimy. The people in line at the ATM seem equally perplexed. Then someone approaches the bike rack from behind me, and judging from his subsequent reaction, he is the unlucky owner of the beloogied bike. Enraged, he begins hurling invectives in the direction of the hawker. “This is the problem with homosexuals on Broadway!! Fucking faggot!” I must note that he was not your run-of-the-mill epithet spouter—as someone who spends a fair amount of their waking hours on Capitol Hill, I know the usual blathering fools when I see them. He just looks like a generic older dude, seemingly not drunk, high, or mentally unstable. The empathy switch in my head quickly recalibrates, and I turn to the hater and say, with righteous anger, “Oh, you deserved that!” He doesn’t seem to hear me and removes the saddle from his bike, oblivious to my seething presence, and enters the QFC.
Shaking, I finish locking up my bike. Like most queers, I’m no stranger to direct or indirect verbal assault. But it doesn’t really get easier. A hot and fearful fury courses through your veins. Sometimes you ride the wave of adrenaline and fight; sometimes you repress and let the tsunami wreak havoc within. I enter the grocery in a daze. The man is 20 feet in front of me, kindly asking the Starbucks barista for a tissue to clean his seat. I walk past him and say, “Fuck you.” It sounds so loud in my head, but I don’t think it registers.
I wander the aisles for a bit, breath stuck in my lungs, escaping in small spurts, hands shaking. I can’t focus on my task—I swear the beer aisle is here somewhere. It’s hard to find the words to capture this feeling, but it’s basic hate-speech theory. See, I’m a big homo. I use words like fag and dyke and queer, regularly, often as a compliment. But in a particular context, in a particular tone and pitch, they mutate. Suddenly, these words become portkeys, transporting the object of their hate into a world of fear and shame, haunted by the ghosts of Matthew Shepard and Gwen Araujo and Brandon Teena. Or something. (See, it’s hard.)
As I stare at the glowing racks of beer, regaining my physical composure, the couldawouldashouldas engulf me and I imagine countless scenarios in which I could have told him off. The most powerful fantasy dominating my consciousness is slashing his tires… But I must move along, I’m late for my dinner date, so I select the most familiar brand and float toward the checkout. I pay, swoop up the six-pack, and head for the door.
Outside, I see that his bike is still next to mine on the rack—he is still inside. I fumble with my bike lock, perfectly nestled next to the vulnerable rubber of his tire. Moments later, as I’m stuffing the beer into my bag, he approaches. Yet again oblivious to me, he proceeds to reattach his saddle. I swing my bag over my head, clip my helmet, and straddle my bike, knowing I may need to flee quickly after I say the words that have been looping through my brain since seeing him last:
“If you have a problem with this neighborhood, you need to leave.”
“What?” he responds, obviously puzzled that I am even speaking to him. It feels like I’m screaming but I think my voice is choked with anger.
“If you have a problem with fags and dykes and queers, you should not be in this neighborhood.”
“You must have an inferiority complex,” he retorts. “Did you even see what he did to me?” He repeats this multiple times, volume escalating, as I try to respond.
“Yeah,” I shout over him, “I saw him spit on your bike and was confused and thought he was an asshole. Then I saw how you responded and realized who the asshole was.”
I then slip my foot into my toe clip, cross the street, and crank it up the hill.
There may or may not have been a gash in his tire as he rode away.
Photos of QFC and screaming face from machu picchu and ellenprather95, respectively.
Ya’ll, Jesse is a woman. A badass woman.
“Sometimes you ride the wave of adrenaline and fight; sometimes you repress and let the tsunami wreak havoc within.”
Are those really the only two options?
Rain Monkey @ 9, 41, 46, 48
You do realize your criticism of Jesse in this thread now means that your own words apply equally to you:
“…your response to the situation that you [merely read about] shows you to be the sort of asshole who is convinced of your own righteousness…[in]…response to a verbal response…that did not involve you until you decided to be offended with the most righteous form of indignation.”
@9 and @ 46 FTW
Passive agressive Seattle at it’s fines….err I mean worst.
If you believe in your principles you should be willing to stand there and confront him. Otherwise you look like a little weenie with no gumption to stick around and deal with the consequences of your big mouth.
Indeed you need a Reality Check.
so, this guy mistakenly believes homo’s don’t respect other people’s property… you showed him.
i’m not sure we want to fear people into respect, do we? you had the high ground in this story until/unless you actually damaged a bike that you only assume was even his. i admire you for saying something – with a path for escape – and understand your anger and frustration. but if you slashed his tire, then you completely overreacted, you lost the high ground, and you put the cause back. that, and as mentioned earlier, you know nothing of any possible back-story, the bike-rider’s orientation, history, etc…
you see, he didn’t deserve that. he didn’t deserve the loogie. and the spitter, and you, didn’t deserve the insult. and he didn’t deserve getting his tires slashed. he deserved words from you. he deserved an understanding that his reaction was inappropriate. it’s kind of funny how when you get really angry you have a greater tendency to do something inappropriate, huh? or maybe even just think about it.
and if you didn’t do it, i’m not sure why you’d still want to write in a way that may encourage others to actually do so. did someone up there say they’d’ve hit him with a bike lock? is that the neighborhood you want?
it’s not the neighborhood i want — and i was born here.
So…inconsiderate action leads to inconsiderate action leads to inconsiderate action.
How hard is it to NOT spit on other people’s bike saddles, NOT spew anti-gay epithets, or NOT slash bike tires? Really, how hard is it?
No party is on the right side in this story.
you should have just locked his bike with your bike lock as you left it would have been worth the cost of a new bike lock.
Apparently all you assholes missed this quote, “Like most queers, I’m no stranger to direct or indirect verbal assault. But it doesn’t really get easier. A hot and fearful fury courses through your veins.”
You have no fucking idea what it’s like to get bashed or queer bashed for no fucking reason. GO FUCK YOURSELVES! Shut the fuck up until you experience true ignorance.
NO MORE MISTER NICE QUEER!
Its about fucking time the gay community starts fighting back.
WOW.
I DON’T KNOW WHO’S SIDE TO BE ON.
YOU MAY HAVE DUG YOUR OWN GRAVE.
SOMETIMES STAIGHT NON HOMOPHOBES LIKE MYSELF USE THE FAGGIT WORD WHEN PEOPLE DO REALLY SHITTY COWARDLY ACTS TO US. LIKE YOU MAY OR MAY NOT HAVE DONE TO THE GUY WITH THE PHLEMBIKE.
MAYBE YOU SHOULD MOVE OUTTA SEATTLE.
WE SEATTLITES MAY BE MEAN,
BUT WE’RE POLITE.
YOUR NOT FROM AROUND HERE ARE YOU.
WHEN SOMEONE CALLS ME A FAG I JUST SAY WHATEVER QUEERBAIT.
GROW UP.
58
We have NO IDEA!
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=1VS3Us-TR…
Perhaps Mr ‘Bike Seat Spat Upon’ reacted poorly because previously some punk ass coward faggot slashed his bike tires over some misunderstanding.
Jesse, you need to calm down. I’m a gay male, and personally, if some asshole came by and spit a snot ball on my bike seat and didn’t stop to clean it off and apologize, I’d of said a lot worst to that douche bag then simply call him a “fucking faggot.” Most likely I’d run him down and bring him back to rub his discourteous nose in his own snot ball.
@ 63 – Sorry, meant to state, “worse,” not “worst.”
1.) Jesse can be a name for a man or a woman.
2.) You don’t have to be gay (or a member of any minority group) to find bigotry offensive.
3.) Jesse probably didn’t slash the creep’s tires…just thought about slashing the creep’s tires.
This is the whitest neighborhood in the city why don’t you black people just leave.
Everybody needs to count to ten, for Jupiter’s sake!
Spit leads to words leads to a knifing.
This is how it began on Iceland, when they discovered their inner berserkers.
Find the fucker and burn his house down. Kill his wife and kids.
And #53, yes, I do engage in enough critical self-evaluation to know that my Mr. Hyde is just the same as Jesse’s.
A long, long time ago the progressive branch of the left was devoted to non-violence. With a knowledge that there is nothing passive about trying to end the cycle of violence. It requires channeling the usefulness of adrenaline into constructive, rather then incendiary ways.
Your rage comes from adrenaline, and adrenaline comes from the fear that lingers in the memories of past injuries.
Courage is not the absence of fear. Or the absence of outrage. Courage is the ability to act constructively and wisely, sometimes with measured violence but usually not, in the presence of fear and outrage.
Cops and soldiers have to learn this skill. So should citizens, and their elected leaders.
Now hold in your mind the feelings that you had when you heard his words. And imagine all of the memories that the Civil Rights leaders must have had of cops and dogs and the n-word, as they marched peacefully into the hate.
Now consider LBJ, working to save his legacy by trying to escalate the violence in Viet Nam to the point where peace would prevail.
In hindsight, which approach works better?
How would the Civil Rights movement have turned out differently if their outrage had not been channeled into non-violence? If Dr. King had joined the Weathermen he would have ended up as ineffectual as Leonard Peltier and the American Indian Movement.
LBJ was a warmonger but he was just trying to win the war Kennedy left him in the interest of Kennedy’s legacy, and he did single-handedly get the Civil Rights legislation passed.
69 There used to be a non-violent change component of the left that commanded respect and deserved the gratitude of the entire nation. It epitomized “courage”.
That is gone.
The Left is now about arrogance and bigotry and incivility and narrow minded intolerance.
I want to second what Rain Monkey said about conversion of anger and fear into fuel for constructive action. This moment is the pivotal point of the whole story: “Sometimes you ride the wave of adrenaline and fight; sometimes you repress and let the tsunami wreak havoc within”. There is a third option between exploding in violence and bottling up that rage (and therefore inflicting violence on oneself). Imagine a locomotive, with all the force of the steam built up inside. You could shovel on more coal until it finally explodes, or you could open the valves and scald everyone on the platform, but it makes more sense to use that power to drive the train. All that power, that adrenaline, that a person experiences due to anger and/or fear is fuel. It can be used constructively, and it is very powerful when it is. Nonviolence is not the absence of violence, it is the opposite of violence. This is how real change happens, look at history: the fall of colonialism, the Civil Rights movement, any significant advancement accomplished by any modern social movement. How much forward motion can you attribute to acts of dehumanization and retribution?
First, it is extremely dangerous territory to equate fake violence against objects with real violence against a living being. Would you consider graffiti to be violence? What about littering? These are both things that damage property, but to consider them violent acts is absurd. If Jesse had thought about slashing his face, we would be having a different conversation.
@ Rain Monkey:
Every single liberation movement in human history has involved deep levels of retaliatory aggression. Talking, marching, letter writing, these are all symbolic forms of protest. Real protest happens when you move to physically alter the landscape of oppression.
Fighting violence with violence is not only acceptable, it’s necessary. Non-violence helps the oppressor, not the oppressed. So does pacifism.
The question to ask is whether Dr. King would have been so successful without the extreme liberation tactics of the Black Panthers. Even Ghandi stated that although he would not practice violence, he believed it was necessary to liberate his people from oppression, which is why he didn’t admonish those who used violence to fight against colonialism.
Is it remotely possible that the loogie-hawker hit the bike seat accidentally, wasn’t even aware of it, and pedaled away oblivious to the shit-storm seed he’d sown?
………
Oh my god, y’all. Do you think that if jesse did actually slash someone’s tire that he would advertise that publicly? It’s a strong last line, filled with irony and punch, at the end of a excellent, self-revealing piece of writing. It’s meant to be *literary*, not *literal*. To leave enough of a question in your mind about what it would’ve meant *had* that happened to be interesting. To push that place inside you, that place that wants revenge, wants to hurt someone who’s hurt you, without having actually taken that action, without actually hurting one who had hurt.
Maturity doesn’t mean not being touched by what happens around. Maturity is feeling your response to what’s happened, being present with it, and then making a conscious choice from that place. Which Jesse did admirably, and graciously shared with us all. In my opinion.
76
Thank You, Professor.
We got all that.
But as a literary device it does not work; the event is too recent and the crime (and culprit) would be easily identified (and charged).
So the Reader is COMPELLED to call it for what it is; the loud mouthed BullShit rantings of a punk.
@77 Really Mr capital letters, you should try reading you own post as the perfect example of the “loud mouthed BullShit rantings of a punk.”
@76 my feelings exactly. You say it very well. Thank you.
When did folksy “y’all’s” become all the rage? Sorry, I was out of town and just got back.
The guy was an asshole, but you really over-reacted.
Jesse, while I understand your rage, I think that staying and explaining that yelling anti-gay expletives is wrong, and even more so on Capitol Hill. I think that if you could have taken the time to talk to him, maybe he could understand how upsetting what he said was.
Not sure if the outcome would have been any better, but at the least you could have gotten everything off your chest.
@79
Imagine a gay man imitating Britney Spears saying “ya’ll”. I’m in Boston and have been doing it for like two years-ish?
Alternatively, “It’s the day of the show, ya’ll” from Waiting for Guffman.
@79 – Last Thursday. We took a vote. Also using parenthesis is now akin to punching a (newborn) baby.
This story reflects really badly on everyone involved.
Loogie Boy was actually aiming for Jesse’s head because he cut him off at the crosswalk
Now that I’ve read all the comments, I have a couple things to say:
1.) If the tire was actually slashed, than Jesse escalated a verbal disagreement into a physical one. That’s inherently problematic.
2.) I know this may have made Jesse feel better, and as a gay I have felt this shaking rage before — but this is NOT the way to act on it? Is this man going to suddenly love homosexuals? No. He is going to say “I was in QFC and out of nowhere this crazy dyke bitch tried to start a fight with me. What the fuck is wrong with those people.”
Venting your spleen might feel good, but Jesse, Rain Monkey, Erika… in this case it’s neither appropriate or likely to lead to positive change.
The 3 assholes this in this story are exactly why I stay away from Fuckital Hill if at all possible. Well, that and lousy parking.
@86- Rain Monkey and I were not promoting violence or spleen-venting in any way, quite the opposite. What we are saying is that when a person is experiencing a negative emotion like extreme anger or fear, it is possible to do something empowering with that adrenaline rush rather than venting it as anger. Spleen-venting is both futile and self-defeating, as many above have already pointed out. Personally, I probably would’ve approached the guy, looked him right in the eye, said “well, I know *you’re* a human being”, handed him a kleenex if I had one, and then turned and walked away without another word.
Thanks erika, I often feel like a stranger in a strange land now, and it is nice to find a kindred spirit.
Regarding #86, I can’t imagine why anyone would read all the comments carefully, and clearly that was not the case.
@88/89: Sorry — I read them all, but apparently not clearly — after the first 50 everything started to blur. Apologies.
I read comments up the twenties, but I wanted to chime in.
Not that I want to draw this line, but I’d be curious how the reactions from readers differed based on the sexual orientation (or other oppressed status) of the individuals.
I’ve lived in Seattle most of my life, and feel damn lucky I’m here and feel safe almost all the time. But I’ve run into a few instances like this and it’s amazing how the fear and rage just boils up inside you.
I feel for you Jesse, and even though slashing a tire may not be the most mature thing to do, I wouldn’t hold it against you for a second.
if you really slashed the tire then you should be in jail
92
If you hurt the feelings of a homo it is a hate crime and you deserve whatever you get!
I have been thinking often this weekend about this SLOG posting. I have been there, that moment of furious anger and overwhelming fear when some asshole says or does something assholeish and you are the one with simultaneously nothing to lose and the most to lose.
the thing is, it is our own ‘we have to rise above this all and be better people’ training that many of the commenters are using that perpetuates a more passive anger outburst like slashing tires… I am sick to death of this stupid old-school Holly Near ‘we are a gentle angry people’ BS…
Can I punch an asshole? not yet I cant, but I want me and my people to be able to be directly confrontational, to gain the ability to be openly angry when we need to be.
so, in that vein, I offer you this link to Scott Thompson’s sketch from Kids in the Hall called ‘Fag’ — http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=sxMrWSTlv…
oh gawd one of those insufferable Seattle types who writes it as “womyn”. fucking hilarious you can’t make this shit up. do you have a moustache too?
Rainier Valley is the best model of successful diversity in the city. I mean we solve most of our problems with gun violence, not spitting, but sexuality-wise we’re pretty cool.
This story illustrates almost everything that is wrong with the people in this city.
Mind your own business, Jesse. That situation did not involve you. Deep breaths…
What you did was not retaliatory, or heroic. From your own words, you are the hot-headed aggressor in this story.
For your sake, I hope you did not puncture the guy’s tire and then publish an admission of guilt thinking you’d be exalted. Think, man. Think.
Rain Monkey @69, you seem to be sounding a more conciliatory tone than that in your earlier posts critical of Jesse, when you now say:
“Your rage comes from adrenaline, and adrenaline comes from the fear that lingers in the memories of past injuries.”
And helping others break this cycle of fear and rage that you so well describe is rarely if ever accomplished through a rageful reaction. As you acknowledge when you say, very eloquently:
“Courage is not the absence of fear. Or the absence of outrage. Courage is the ability to act constructively and wisely, sometimes with measured violence but usually not, in the presence of fear and outrage.”
The only thing I could add to that is no one will do this perfectly or all of the time, and a big test of courage comes in the ability to keep faith in the ideal before our own and others inevitable failures to live up to it.
I feel original poster Jesse is moving beyond rage in response to a very rage inducing and callous event, a transformation which began the moment he/she courageously put pen to paper to “constuctively and wisely” act to embrace what had happened.
This is a fascinating post because it’s really about the formation of courage as Rain Monkey has defined it; and it brings to light in excruciating and provocative detail courage’s inner workings at the moment of crisis. I belive we turn away from this post with critcism and disdain only if that is the response within our own head to the experiences like Jesse’s which are our own. Being able to hear Jesse’s thoughts as our own without the inner defenses of snark and self-protective over-broad disimissal of “other people” is also a measure of courage.
Testing the new greasemonkey wildcard code to filter out the wine/ECB troll.
Cool, looks like it worked.