toxic words & tangled nerves

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i finally came out to my parents.

Tags: /coming out /gay /homosexual /jf /thatjfkid /whoaitsjf

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Rants

i went out and voted today but was thrown off by something i’d never witnessed first hand. so as i was walking out of the school after submitting my ballot recess had finally swung around, and the playground was flooded with kids. i turn the corner and get greeted by a group of 5th graders that immediately stick there hands up for a high five. no biggie, whatever. 

however, as i walk past them their attitudes change from happy to disgusted. they started out by shouting “what are those tights?” i simply reply “yes” (wearing my plaid skinny pants.) as i continued to walk away they all started shouting “faggot” and “fag.” while ignoring their pathetic attempts at an insult, it got me thinking about a few things…

which given the circumstance about how conservative this town actually is, this type of behavior is deemed as “okay.” i remember a fellow homo kid back in high school getting shoved around and the teacher claiming they didn’t see anything. luckily i stepped in before things got out of hand, but the exact same thing happened then as it did now. the only difference? i haven’t had kids ever say these things to me before. even though i don’t believe it’s acceptable, it makes me wonder exactly what their parents are like or at least who is the one in charge of them. i can say i’ve never been the bully type of person, i mean yes i have had my moments of being a jerk but i can honestly say that i do not recall ever saying something like to anyone. this is my first interactions with kids, but it has happened on numerous occasions at different times. guess i’ve just always been a gentle soul? homophobia doesn’t make sense.  

a reason why i want to leave this town? homophobia.

about a year and 2 months ago my beloved car (the “banana boat”) had come to a end on the side of the highway. which has forced me to find alternative modes of transportation such as buses or bicycles. for the past year i’ve been cycling a majority of the places i need to go, but anywhere to far out of reach i generally take my parents car unless i’m getting picked up. here’s another harassment/hate filled scenario i encountered not to long ago…

here in chicago the weather has definitely cooled off. it’s roughly around 30 - 40 degrees during the day and can dip into the 20’s during the night. biking home at night i find it enjoyable, i love the cold and the thrill of a fairly lit path. there’s a college in the same city that i live, and a past few occasions i have encountered have been anything less but pleasant. nothing physical has ever happened to me, and hopefully things will continue to play out this way… hopping back to the story. one night i was biking next to this college and the heckler was in a car with a group of his friends. he shouted “hey there” as an attempt to scare me. i just simply reply “what’s up?” shouting right back at him with a smile on my face. as his friend turns the corner and i move from the road to sidewalk he shouts “…why are you biking? get a job you fucking faggot…” that’s the only part i actually understood. do i reply, yes i do but in a simple manner of “just keep driving.” keep in mind, i have NO idea if these guys were in college or not but from the way they were acting it just seemed too high schoolish for me, but who knows? i had already known several reasons for my unappealing interest in this town. homophobia, racism, sexism, and classism.

this scenario went ahead and confirmed my classist statement. you see, the average person makes at least $100,000 dollars a year. so, being seen on a bicycle instead of a car is almost as unacceptable as seeing a homeless man in these parts of town. something else i thought about was his complete and utter ignorance. i know i have 2 jobs and work almost 40 hours a week with both of them, and i bike around because i’m saving up money to move away from this town. he had no idea what was going on, i could have been exercising or testing the bike out. what was he doing? driving around in his friends land rover attempting to make me the joke of the night. yes. attempting to justify my social status as a human being all because of money. yes. obviously if you don’t have money in this town, you don’t fit in or you are not good enough. seeing as how my family doesn’t make anywhere near $100,000 a year I am constantly put in the position where I am labeled as not “good enough” because i do not make enough money and live up to their expectations. this once again makes me wonder exactly how their parents are or who ever is in charge of taking care of them. from my own personal experience and talks with select few individuals this branches off from lack of parents being present in their children’s lives. as it is with most issues like these. but once again, something i won’t understand is how you can value someone simply because they have money? making you rich doesn’t you a good person. sucks he doesn’t realize that… I’ve also had slushies/water balloons thrown at me and other crude actions put in my way but no matter what i’ve always stayed on top. this is most likely due to the simple fact that i ride a bicycle to get from point a to point b.

seeing as how i am a white male, i am often viewed as “superior” because of my sex and race. but because of my class, and orientation that crown has been thrown off and destroyed. this scenario is going to talk about racist encounters i have had not with myself but otherwise have encountered or heard about. remember trayvon martin? how racial profiling ultimately ended up killing this guys life? i’m honestly surprised things like this haven’t happened around here. we all know racism has been banned for years now, but we all know that it still lingers everywhere unfortudently.

back in high school again, one of my teachers (i believe english) had made the horrible and disgusting mistake of using the “race card” on a black student. to be honest, i don’t remember exactly what happened or was said but the teacher ended up getting fired. the student alone are an issue too. obviously with music continuously promoting racial slurs and prejudice it “gives” people the “right” to say the words like “nigger” or “spic” or “terrorist.” not going to lie i use to fall in this category of slurs, where i thought it was okay to call someone a “nigger.” (being raised in the south didn’t help, but that’s a diff story) my friends STILL to this day continuously use stereotypes and ignorant statements regarding other ethnicities and cultures. (a HUGE part of the reason i rarely bother with most of them as much as i use to.) my own brother still occasionally use the word nigger to as an attempt to distinguish the “good” and the “bad.” it pisses me off, and i haven’t been putting up with it for a while. 

last but not least is sexism. what type of conservative town wouldn’t be complete without these 4 types of discrimination? obviously as i have stated before i do identify myself as male, so i have never personally been victimized by such pathetic accusations. even though most of this all stems from my high school collection, people who i actually hang out with now have either 1) grown out of this stage or 2) don’t live in the same town.

it was my sophomore year that rumors spread a young lady had been “raped.” and why do i put that in quotes? well because she had lied about being raped, and instead willing accepted to have sex. but OBVIOUSLY her having sex is not a form of sexism but it was the aftermath… 

“Tucker Fucker” is what she was officially remembered as or “slut”, “cum dumpster”, and a few other ridiculous terms while he got away with a high five from my fellow class mates and positive feedback. She didn’t go back to school for a week after the news broke out, i’m sure due to embarassment & the harassment that followed her all the way until graduation. i still remember my friend being angry at her because she got the guy that she “liked” oh high school, how i hated you so much. you know how there are different group in high school? like cliches? ya know? ya? ya? the “popular” girls of my class were nothing more than a bunch of two faced backstabbers and i remember them hearing about how much they “hated” her because of this. moments early, the exact same girls were talking about how they hooked up with 3 other guys over the weekend and they viewed it as acceptable. but once she did it she was considered a slut? still to this day i don’t understand this, but what i do understand now is completely different than what i knew back then. Slut shaming is absolutely unacceptable. there is NO difference between a man sleeping with 3 different people and a woman sleeping with 3 different people. if a women wants to show off her mid-driff what is wrong with that!? absolutely nothing. no one can “dress” slutty because a woman has every right to do with her body as she wants, just like men. her shirt is see thru and you can see her bra. it’s not an issue, i SERIOUSLY doubt you haven’t seen a woman wear a bra before. whether it be in person or through magazines/media. calm down. 

So how is this sexist you may ask? Simple, if he can get away with having sex with multiple people and she can’t because she is a female this shows that men have “power” over women and their bodies.

So if any of you ever ask me why I hate this town? I’ll simply reply because I don’t view sexism, racism, classism, or homophobia as an acceptable environment to live in.

*Sidenote - this probably makes no sense at all, because i haven’t been thinking clearly for a while now. 

**On another side note i would like to point out that i’m not oblivious to the fact unfortudently everywhere you go there will be traces of discrimination whether it be the few that i have already listed or other types.

Tags: /homophobia /fag /faggot /children /hatred /whoaitsjf /gay /lgbt /slut shaming /rant /classism /bicycling /anger /blog /feminist