A man named Dan and the N word
I recently met a man named Dan. He was obviously bad at boundaries from every meeting I had with him. Over two or three meetings I know this about Dan…
He is in film.
He has a girlfriend that he ignores and calls frumpy (this girl is beyond in love with him).
He drinks too much but doesn’t believe his alcoholic father has anything to do with his love of alcohol and he believes he has no problem.
He believes he can touch you without your consent.
He is around 35. White looking moderately attractive Angeniu who claims to be be Puerto Rican (when discussing race). *Side note: I don’t want to doubt people’s racial status because they “look white”. I just found out that when he was getting racist he would hide behind the Puerto Rican heritage as a shield against calling him out.
He finds saying the word “N***** funny when making ironic statements about not saying the N word.
And this is how Dan the man became the first person for me to ever block on social media. This is a big achievement for Dan as the only person I have ever had to do anything against social media wise was my ex-husband.
Dan pursued a connection despite my telling him I lived in a different state, that I wasn’t around much, that he had already pissed off a friend of mine and I didn’t find that cool. Maybe it was my socialization or my need to believe that there is good in everyone that kept me in the conversation. Maybe I wanted to see why I was rooting for this guy to different than he was showing me. I, like most people, have an urge to see the underdog turn it around and win. Dan bombed his opportunity to be the hero of the story.
You see Dan, after several failed attempts at conversation, thought that I would enjoy a Podcast (The dick show) scene where a (I am guessing) white punk band sings the N word to say -don't’ say the N word. Also mentioning more typically socially enlightened saying like white pejoratives can’t stick on them. So by making this hybrid ironic/offensive song they have tried to make it hard to argue with the fact that it is wrong in total for this band to be singing what they are singing. As wrong as it would be in any other context to use the N word.
I meet people like this all the time. People who are masquerading as some social justice pundit. Taking the “devil’s advocate” role “just because it's fun to make people irritated”. The simultaneous lack of care for issues while being solely dedicated to talking about them in an adversarial manner. People on the conservative and liberal side who both care for nothing more than their own aggrandizement. I see it in these people because I fight that part of me often. And I hate seeing it in others because I realize how ugly it makes me when I fail to control it. But Dan the man went a step farther. Dan took me down a quick alley of ”humor wrapped” racism and white privilege that if I walked far enough down with him would have turned into what I am sure is his version of supremacy. So I called him out on this and he said “Don’t lecture me - just block me if you don’t like it.” To which I replied, “I’d like nothing better” BLOCKED.
Did the fact that I blocked this D(an)-Bag mean anything to anyone but me? Likely not and it doesn’t have to. But it meant something to me. It gives me hope that I have strength of character. You see I walk lines in my social, personal, and business life every day that require a certain amount of mental math. Equations like: Their power over me + my privilege - political differences + seeming decency = Time and effort to understand or be understood. I can tell you my math is so often wrong, I think I need to re-calibrate my calculator.
The math I do often tells me my risk in the situation. In this situation I had low risk when being physically distanced from this man. When I was in close proximity there was slight danger because of his anger, alcohol, and feeling of physical entitlement. I was able to exercise my full autonomy and call him out on his thinly veiled racism in this scenario. I was also able to cut him off completely. Had the math worked differently I might have had to make considerations I wish I didn’t have to make. What if Dan had been my boss? What if Dan would have been in my social circle? What if Dan would have been likely to physically hurt or stalk me? The math would have changed.
It feels so disingenuous of me to say I support women's rights, the rights of minorities, and the advancement of both towards equality and fairness but to know that sometimes the math makes me curtail a comment or act silently- like leaving when someone says something on the line. Know this- its always “on the line” because the BLATANT supercharged comments are for after they have pushed the line a little and you have said or done nothing.
And this is my struggle, to act without fear. To act as I would in any situation without doing the math. When I see the bravest of my friends and co-workers acting boldly I admire and strive to be them. I hope I have become more like them over the years. I work with the tools I have in front of me; sometimes it is not my voice, but my pen. Sometimes it is not me standing up but it is me leaving. Sometimes it is me telling others how I have failed and how I hope to be better the next time I am confronted. Sometimes it is something as small as blocking someone on social media when I don't typically do so. But always it is me trying to do better and help others if I have the power to do so.
I keep telling myself: Work within your sphere of influence. That is all any of us can hope to affect.