At a wine festival [in Maryland] last Saturday, I was walking the grounds, mingling in the crowd, dancing, enjoying the music and greeting friends here & there. At one point I sat at a table that happened, surprisingly, to be empty. It also happened to be uncovered/exposed & it was extremely hot & humid so when I spied a couple of people nearby gathering their paraphernalia/preparing to leave, I made my way over & sat at the table (which had a built-in bench surrounding it). There was also a tent over the table. So I went over, sat on the bench. The two people at the table were on the opposite side of the table & both (women) had their backs to me.
A few minutes later, imagine my surprise when the younger woman turned, stood and marched aggressively up to me & asked, why are you at our table? I was very taken aback but few things render me speechless so I asked, is this your table? She replied "no but it's our tent." I said, it's a public table. She said I was rude & I could have asked them if I could sit under their tent. While I'm pondering this [private tent/public bench] conundrum, my thought was, she might have a point [in that I could have said something rather than just sitting down] but I didn't like how she approached me in such a confrontational manner.
Well, before I could make amends/apologize for "crashing" their tent [by sitting at a PUBLIC table], she began to behave like a ghetto hood rat "nigga" if you will. She called me rude and then she pulled out the B word. Yup, she called me a bitch. I was so appalled, like, really, are you kidding me?!
It was at that point that I noticed she had a little girl with her... maybe 5 or 6 years old. So as the hood rat is yelling at me and taking up a posture like she's about to fight me, she obviously didn't realize it but I was, by my behavior, lecturing her on how to deal with a [simple, dumb really] conflict: 1) I remained sitting, even in the face of her finger-pointing and agitated, aggressive behavior and 2) as she's dropping "B bombs" like they're going out of style, I remarked, great example you're setting for your daughter. It did not even occur to me to trade insults/call her profane names as she was doing to me. Oh wait, I did call her "ghetto," oh dear... which just made her even angrier than she [quite irrationally & unjustifiably] already was.
So anyway, I remained sitting and each time she yelled a profanity, I would tell her about the "perfect" example she was setting for her daughter to grow up just as ghetto as she. At that point, her husband or boyfriend or whomever he was, arrived on the scene. He mean mugged me a couple times, just to make his presence known, then proceeded to take down the tent. At one point he DELIBERATELY collapsed the tent in such a way that it hit me in the head. When that happened, I literally and immediately felt the blood rushing to my head [in anger] and I actually looked around for something that I could pick up and neatly insert into his ghetto neck but... I refrained. I maintained my cool. I stood, stepped out from under the tent.
At that point people nearby were beginning to take note of the scene unfolding. My other half was nearby but I did not call out for him. I knew with certainty that he would make the mean mugger who'd collapsed the tent on me, EAT the tent. Hood rat continued ranting and raving, even more loudly and more agitatedly now, since her mean mugger was present/had her back. By that time I had resumed my seat at the disputed table and continued to respond [to her profane rant] by calling her ghetto and highlighting her idiotic behavior in front of her daughter. I think I also called her illiterate [on the presumption that an educated person would not resort to such idiotic behavior... that an educated person would be easily able to use NON-profane words to express themselves]. The mean mugger at one point said to me, "you need to stop running your mouth." I replied, I can say what I want and there's not a thing you can do about it. Luckily he left it at that/continued boxing up his tent and eventually they left.
Soooooo... all this to say, that the way the "young lady" behaved, is the type of person white people dislike. In fact, I submit to you, she's the type of person that a GREEN person would, and I personally do, despise! Every time I hear the black/white discussions in the post-Zimmerman verdict days, and in fact I've long held this view, that it's very often NOT about [skin] colour, but [ignorant] behavior, that thing they call "swag" that black Americans very often display.
Don't get me wrong... I have many dear friends who are black Americans, or African American... whichever term you prefer. I'm not painting all black/African Americans with the same brush. I guess I'm saying, before you pull/throw out/brandish the "race card," admit a few truths about self■
Copyright © Luceele Smith -- July 23, 2013
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