It's been awhile since I posted... Hope everybody's been well... I felt like I should share.
Here goes.
Violence is an oddly surreal thing when it happens. Not bombs dropping on a war zone, shearing limbs and blooding faces, 'holy shit-this-is-terrible', violence; I'm talking about random, brief altercations that flare up and disappear before you even have a chance to process them.
Why don't I tell you what I'm talking about instead of babbling in generalities?
I was at the posh, soul-sucking torture chamber, better known as The Grove, a destination only avoiding Dante's 10th circle by having not been invented yet. It's a mall in Los Angeles, with a pointless trolley that travels less than 100 years and artificial grass; where 40 year-old women bring tiny dogs and tourists take pictures of the outside of the Gap. I often hold back the urge of tapping them on their shoulder and saying, "You know this is a mall, right?" It's a horribly shallow and unauthentic consumerist tar pit, and I love it.
This was last Sunday, a day filled with browsing through stores with my girlfriend and watching the parade of designer-clad zombies pass by. A grotesque mass of Raybans, leather jackets, knee-high boots, and iPhones. Of which, I admit, I'm part of.
A giant Christmas tree occupies the center lawn, sharp spiky stars hang from wires. Every store has a sign out front announcing some percentage off. The weather was cold, (for L.A.) so people were bundled up and sipping steaming beverages.
After searching through grossly overpriced jackets and fogging up display cases of watches I don't have the money to buy, I walked outside of Nordstrom's to meet up with my girlfriend who had broke off to return something at Ross (God help her), where I encountered a white man speaking in a pitched voice to a black skateboarder kid. I didn't think much of it because it seemed semi-casual, if loud. The man was dressed in a plaid shirt and jeans that were in one piece and clean. The skateboarder had a placid smile on his face like he was watching a street performer do a magic trick, so on first glance I thought they're just friends in a lively conversation, and a slight swelling of "post-racial" happiness filled me.
Then I hear what the white guy was ranting about: lovely epithets about Mexicans, Obama, Obama being a terrorist, and how the country was being destroyed by said entities.
That is the moment I realized things weren't charmingly post-racial, more of the disgustingly old school-racial variety. I took a closer look at the man and noticed that although his clothing looked like he could have just emerged from a day of shopping at The Grove, his face had that rough, living-on-the-street, or off-his-meds, sort of look, and his eyes were animal-like and irate. He was frothing, spitting his invectives in the direction of the black kid, but sort of passed him as well, into the scrambled empty space of his collapsed worldview.
The kid merely grinned and took it bemusedly.
The asshole then held a shitty, fake-looking badge in the air and turned his attention. "I got this offa a Mexican," he yelled at another man that was ascending the stairs into Nordstrom's, and coincidentally was born with melanin in his skin.
This gentleman didn't possess the same calm patience of the skateboarder. He was older, stood tall and straight, didn't take no guff. "What's that got to do with me?" He asked the raving lunatic, seemingly all too familiar with where this was heading.
"Because you're a nigger!"
"What did you say?" His voice was defiant and strong, implied, 'don't fuck with me,' like he's been preparing for such an encounter all his life
"Because you're a neee-gro," the idiot rephrased his comment, I guess having some awareness that what he was spewing was offensive and could possibly elicit an ass-beating. "And your president is black!"
The older black man, cashmere scarf wrapped around his neck, golf cap pulled low over his eyes, turned and approached the man wordlessly. The racist lunatic jumped up and down. "I'll fuck you up!" He shouted. "Your president is black!" He repeated, as if this fact was cause for rabid alarm, was insulting, and needed to be urgently shared. "The Mexicans are taking over and you're letting them! Obama is friends with Osama Bin Laden!" (if this was the case, some friend.)
My body tensed up with the threat of violence, like old men's knees when there's rain in the air. I wondered if I should step in somehow. Join up with the abused against the abuser. It's what was right, right?
The skateboarder didn't budge in anyway, merely continued leaning against the wall, watching the scene unfold like I was. I scripted things to say, plotted moves of attack, all the while inaction punked me into standing there like a stupid statue.
I imagined myself going over there, getting in the lunatic's face and shouting, "I'm whiter than you dirty-ass, crazy motherfucker and I love Obama so take a walk before this black man and this white man kick your ass!" But I waited, debated, and procrastinated.
"You're ruining this country, motherfucker," the racist shouted, his fists clenched up in impotent rage, and isn't that the core equation behind every racist? A deep sense of inner anger and helplessness that needs to be directed outward?
The older black man didn't say anything in return, just squared away and punched the lunatic in his face, sending him to the ground, his skull bouncing off the sidewalk like a dropped bowling ball.
"Ow, ow, ow. My head!" the man whimpered. He actually sounded like he was looking for sympathy. As if this act was an undeserved slight upon his character -- like the voters electing a black man president. He reached for his pretend badge. One Punch McGee stepped on his hand, preventing him from grabbing it. "Ow. Ow. Ow," the asshole wailed ridiculously, childishly.
This scene transpired in slow motion, and at the same time blindingly fast. As if two identical records were playing at the same time at different speeds. I stood on the corner, watching with my head turned but my body facing the other way, as if I could pretend not to have witnessed a thing if needed by quickly looking the opposite direction. The skateboarder and I made eye contact and I shook my head in a manner that I hoped expressed disgust. He chuckled, his hands nonchalantly buried in his middle hoodie pocket, unshaken.
I, however, was like a wet dog on the inside. The racism, the quick violence, my own inability to do anything beyond watch was disconcerting and confusing. I felt like I was on a really fucked up version of What Would You Do?
Having skillfully disposed of the racist, the man returned to his business, passing by me and going into Nordstrom's. I thought of telling him, "Good for you," but couldn't bring myself to do it, maybe out of embarrassment for remaining silent the entire time, or because it sounded awkward to congratulate someone under these terms.
The raving lunatic wasn't yet done, though. He stomped into Nordstrom's and continued hollering as loudly as possible. "Your president is black! Your president is black!" This time spreading his wrath among all the Christmas shoppers indiscriminately, white and black, occasionally spicing up his rants with declarations of "Jesus Christ!" The irony, obviously, completely lost on him.
A small, stout woman -- I couldn't tell if she was an employee or not -- bravely confronted him and told him to leave. He shouted his support for "our savior" a few more time before dispatching himself back onto 3rd Street. Then everybody went back to their shopping. It was as if nothing ever happened.
Seconds later, my girlfriend found me inside Nordstrom's and asked what all the commotion was about, what just happened. I must admit, I didn't know how to explain it. I still don't.
cross posted at artofstarving.com