It's been a while since my last post, I know. I began to feel that my blogging was heading into 'vent space' and that I should probably take some time to reconsider the direction I wanted this exercise to go in. However, the events of yesterday evening were such that I had to do something, anything, and so I write:
It all began while sitting in a lovely black cab with a dear friend. We were halted in traffic, waiting to get on to a busy bridge at rush hour. Another cab pulled up beside us and the driver leaned out to address ours: "Hey, I've got a great joke for you." Keep in mind, it's raining and we're in rush hour on a busy street so the driver has to strain to be heard. Our driver replies jovially, "is it about waiting to get onto Westminster bridge?" The other driver then tells the following 'joke':
"How do you get a spade out of a tree? Cut the rope!"
He then chuckles heartily and drives off. While our driver does not look amused, he doesn't look outraged either- outrage, the exact emotion building in my chest and egging on my heart rate. I pull out my phone to double check that I haven't misunderstood the meaning of 'spade', which is indeed a derogatory and extremely outdated slang term for black people. My friend appears not to have heard the deeply offensive joke and our driver is not acknowledging it so I keep quiet until we exit the cab. My friend and I have a frank discussion about how incredible it was and how it speaks to the way of the world blah, blah, blah...
We then go to the theatre to watch the play that was the purpose of our outing, a revival of She Stoops to Conquer at the National Theatre. The play had a wonderful (and colorblind I might add) cast who played their parts extremely well. It was a camp and lavish production that was highly enjoyable.
Within the span of half an hour, I was exposed to deeply ignorant racism as well as the increasing attempt in theatre to transcend reductive classifications, such as race, by foregrounding character/acting over appearances/convention.
What disturbs me though, and why you're reading about it, is that I didn't DO anything. I was there, I heard the joke, I felt the outrage, I had the distanced conversation, and was more aware of the appearance of the cast of a play based on these earlier experiences; but that cab driver drove away thinking that joke was funny!
I woke up this morning still upset by the blithe indifference of our cab driver, by the implication set forth by the 'joking cabbie' that we live in a world where people still hold such vicious and narrow minded opinions of others, and mostly that I could do nothing but be outraged!
So, here I am- inverting my helplessness. I am putting forward the above example, not in an attempt to rile anyone up or to send bad vibes to the offender from last night. I am, however, putting it forward to remind people that 'ignorance' when coupled with discrimination is not commensurate with naivety- although the cab driver may not have understood the impact of his actions, they were intended to be hurtful and at the expense of not only a group of people but, also, a deeply painful history. To put it mildly: It's not ok!
We are in the year 2012 people! Racism, Homophobia, Sexism...we're supposed to be evolving past these things!! Let us not regress, and more importantly, let's not become desensitized please.
In the end, I'm glad my internal reaction was outrage and not complacence.
