Thursday, October 21, 2004

 

Race

One day I was riding the escalator at Lenox Square, when a young couple passed me on the escalator headed in the opposite direction. They were a very attractive couple. The guy was black, and appeared to be in his early twenties. The girl, with her long red hair and pale, freckled face, looked like a younger version of Julianne Moore. They were holding hands, minding their own business when I heard someone behind me shout/sing "Sheeee got jungle fever/ Heeee got jungle fever!"

I turned around to see a group of rowdy black teenagers who looked like they'd gotten all their fashion tips from Source magazine and BET's Rap City, leaning over the rail, laughing at the couple. It seemed like the malls of Atlanta were jampacked full of stupid, loud-mouthed kids like these.You couldn't escape them. Empty-headed, thug wannabes who lived in the suburbs, but dressed and talked like their favorite artistically bankrupt, MTV-approved rappers.

Call me an uptight square, but I just didn't see what was so funny about harassing total strangers whose only crime was that they dared to (gasp!) date outside their race. Just how empty and pointless does your existence have to be for you to get off on publically insulting absolute strangers over something so trivial?
If you're going to humiliate someone, at least let it be for a good reason, like their religion or economic background.

Now that I think about it, that was an awful lot of work for such a bad, bad joke. Now I know what it feels like to be a writer for the WB's "Reba."

Comments:
It still surprises me that there are so many people out there who feel the need to stare or make rude comments whenever they see an interracial couple. What a ridiculous thing to fixate on. With all the stressful, depressing crap going on in this world (our inept, war-mongering president, the lousy economy, the release of Nicole Ritchie's new album), bitching about interracial dating seems even more...well, stupid.
 
It's ignorant youth. Has nothing to do with being "urban kids" or "country kids" it just has to deal with being young, infantile, woefully ignorant and immature. It could have easily been a bunch of kids from the middle of Iowa with skinheads or spiked hair. Be careful when chastizing the people who sterotype - that YOU don't sterotype in the process. (Gaby's older, dorkier, reformed Urbanite sister...)
 
Yes! Another EE fan. I knew I wasn't the only one!
 
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