Revengs vs. Retritubtion

I think it's safe to say that yelling "FAG" out the window at a fag in San Francisco is like yelling "WHITE LADY" at a white woman walking down the street. You're probably 100% correct in your assertion but it's like shooting fish in a barrel - no challenge and less reward. Is someone going to admire you for your astute observational skills? Is there a Master of the Obvious trophy somewhere that you're hotly competing for? Because otherwise I can't understand why you'd bother to verbalize such a blatant fact at me as you ride in the passenger side of what seems likely to be your mother's SUV.

Oh, right, it's because you want to make me feel like shit or possibly even scared.

Funny thing, that. I think fear is the lowest emotion on the totem pole that comes up for me in such an instance. More often than not it's a fire engine red combination or rage, hatred and violent fantasies of smashing the shouter's face into a bloody, bruised pulp. The response might have been more fear-tinged if that same word hadn't been accompanied by the fists of some drunken, white boy, meathead asshole when I was in a Burger King at age 17. But thanks to that lovely experience it's more often than not a tidal wave of violent anger that sweeps over me when someone decides to shout at me like that. And the thing is, if your potentially parentally-driven SUV hadn't started pulling away just as I turned around to shout "EXCUSE ME?!" at your face peering out the open window, I might not be sitting here right now typing this out. In my fantasy, I would be in the downstairs work bathroom washing the blood from your busted nose off of my hands.

I have struggled a lot with issues of anger and rage in response to situations like this and others that seem unrelated but really aren't, in the long run. I know that violence is not a solution to anything. I know that revenge is not going to erase any pain or suffering I've endured and that retribution, although a longer process to undergo, is ultimately going to be more helpful and personally satisfying. But right now? Right now I find myself having a hard time believing that someone who says shit like that to another queer person, someone who tries to hurt us or scare us or victimize us deserves to learn first fucking hand what it feels like to be on the receiving end. That the only way someone like you - little spoiled, rich, suburban, white boy - can change is if you learn that fucking with a faggot means you get your fucking face bashed in.

So I'm writing this here instead of chasing down your SUV and doing just that. Let's hope I have a recent therapy visit under my belt the next time you decide to try and tell me who I am.