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don't make assumptions — Brooklynian

don't make assumptions

windowbox
windowbox
edited November -1 in Fort Greene, Clinton Hill, Bed-Stuy

Subject: don't make assumptions

So I'm new to BedStuy, and have been really enjoying the people, my neighbors, etc. I grew up on the Lower East Side, and I'm Puerto Rican. My parents, who themselves were working class, engaged in social justice work and never made any money off of it. Because of them, I became a public interest lawyer - I represent immigrants in removal proceedings, and also make just enough to pay my law school loans, rent, and food. Still, sometimes I am mistaken for a middle class white girl from the suburbs because I need to wear suits or other "professional" office clothes to work. Today I had one of those experiences.

Ironically, I was given shit by someone who clearly has a lot of wealth privilege they themselves need to work out. I got out of the house early to drop off my laundry at the laudromat. I usually do it myself, but once in a while I drop it off. I moved here from Greenpoint and have been used to very efficient service. Anyway, I was waiting for 10 minutes for someone to help me, and when she came, I was impatient. Immediately, the guy behind me starts scolding me for being impolite, saying I should have gotten up earlier and stop being nasty and being a bitch. He was really an asshole to me, when all I said to the lady was that I had to get to work. All of this was easy for him to say, it was after 9 am and he wasn't dressed for work, but clearly could afford to drop off his laundry and take his sweet time before he had to be anywhere.

I don't know if he made race-based assumptions about me. I don't know for sure that he, who was African-American, was more economically privileged than me. The way he spoke to me was like someone who had just graduated from college and was full of self-righteous, self-important rage. I went to school with people like that, and usually no matter what their color, their parents lived in Connecticut or New Jersey or some other wealthy suburb, and they had servants like my grandmother to take care of their houses and their children.

Behavior like that is offensive and patronizing. The lady at the laudromat who kept me waiting could speak up for herself, and didn't need some guilty rich liberal of any color to tell anyone off for her. My grandmother did jobs like that and she didn't f- around. I don't own any property, and I work my ass off for people in need, and I don't need some privileged "freelancer" or whatever scolding me about class or race privilege (or whatever he thought he was talking about) when I'm late for my job because someone wasn't doing their job. My impatience was legitimate. I see no reason to hold her to a lower standard than I would be held to at my job.

Sorry for the long post, but my point here is that as Bed-Stuy is changing, it's important for everyone to recognize that there are a lot of layers of privilege, and that we don't know everything about the other person in front of us, or next to us on the street. We need to give people the benefit of the doubt, and to work through our own shit before we start taking it out on someone else because of how they look.

Comments

  • MOD
    MOD
    I think we can all agree that you should never make assumptions without knowing the facts. Eh, so is life. People love to be jerks to each other.

    Yes, we should all work through our own problems first, instead of projecting or blaming others.
  • daver
    daver

    Subject: Re: don't make assumptions

    Windowbox, I agree with the point of your post. However, I'd like to point out that you may be guilty of the exact behaviors that you are complaining about:
    windowbox wrote: Ironically, I was given shit by someone who clearly has a lot of wealth privilege they themselves need to work out.<snip>All of this was easy for him to say, it was after 9 am and he wasn't dressed for work, but clearly could afford to drop off his laundry and take his sweet time before he had to be anywhere.<snip>The way he spoke to me was like someone who had just graduated from college and was full of self-righteous, self-important rage. I went to school with people like that, and usually no matter what their color, their parents lived in Connecticut or New Jersey or some other wealthy suburb, and they had servants like my grandmother to take care of their houses and their children.<snip>I don't need some privileged "freelancer" or whatever scolding me about class or race privilege (or whatever he thought he was talking about)
    His behavior towards you was unquestionably rude and uncalled for. Your complaint is that he was making assumptions about you, and who you are. And yet, you make the same sorts of assumptions about him.

    Just saying.
  • queencallipygos
    queencallipygos
    This is exactly why I only divide people into two categories: "Jerks" and "nonjerks". And the only way to tell the jerks is if they consistently act like jerks (nonjerks can have momentary lapses, but a jerk is a jerk all the time).

    And there's jerks in every group, just as there are nonjerks in every group. And if you think about it, the real beef you have with someone who's being a jerk isn't because of the kind of jerk they are -- it's because they're being a jerk. It didn't matter how the guy in the laundromat was dressed, what race he was, what time of day it was -- if he hadn't been a jerk, this wouldn't have happened. The only real issue was that he was a jerk, and that caused a problem. Ergo -- the rest of it doesn't matter, and all that matters is whether or not he was a jerk.

    I find this simplifies things tremendously. :-)
  • windowbox
    windowbox
    you know, you're right. i did that too. and if i had had my coffee i would have been nicer about my delay. still, so many things go on behind those conversations, and i wanted to air them in case he's reading this site, and to remind us all to try and keep an open mind. anyway, my sweetie and are really happy now that we live in bed-stuy.
  • anonymous
    anonymous
    windowbox wrote: you know, you're right. i did that too. and if i had had my coffee i would have been nicer about my delay. still, so many things go on behind those conversations, and i wanted to air them in case he's reading this site, and to remind us all to try and keep an open mind. anyway, my sweetie and are really happy now that we live in bed-stuy.
    Did you ever stop to think that maybe he didn't have his coffee either?
    Maybe he was late to work too. You don't know he was a "freelancer".
  • santa
    santa
    this is why im trilled to have laundry in my building.
  • queencallipygos
    queencallipygos
    Anonymous wrote: [quote=windowbox]you know, you're right. i did that too. and if i had had my coffee i would have been nicer about my delay. still, so many things go on behind those conversations, and i wanted to air them in case he's reading this site, and to remind us all to try and keep an open mind. anyway, my sweetie and are really happy now that we live in bed-stuy.
    Did you ever stop to think that maybe he didn't have his coffee either?
    Maybe he was late to work too. You don't know he was a "freelancer".

    Guest, I believe that windowbox has said she could have done better. But you still seem upset about this situation, what's up?
  • lemlar
    lemlar
    What I find really obnoxious is that any other patron would say anything like that to another patron. If the employee of the laundromat had a problem with it, let him/her deal with it. What is this guy, the social manners police?
  • sevenoneeighty
    sevenoneeighty
    queencallipygos wrote: This is exactly why I only divide people into two categories: "Jerks" and "nonjerks".
    There are two types of people in this world:

    People who divide people in to two types
    -and people who don't.
  • no name face
    no name face
    as was mentioned, you made as many generalizations about him that he did you.

    maybe he works full time and had a day off. you know, that happens.
  • apollonia666
    apollonia666
    no name face wrote: as was mentioned, you made as many generalizations about him that he did you.

    maybe he works full time and had a day off. you know, that happens.
    Also as mentioned, someone already made that observation, and windowbox has already acknowledged that.
  • windowbox
    windowbox
    i was irritable and didn't process what was happening right away. the more i think about it, the more i think our interaction was kind of loaded. i mean, in greenpoint you don't find people ready to jump on you the minute you say something to a service person. it's like, either you're polish or you're not, you're an old-timer or a newcomer, and half the kids on the street are mixed polish and puerto rican, and you can't judge the differences from someone's appearance. moving to bedstuy, i suddenly find myself sort of representing gentrification because of the way i look. it's sort of ironic, because i could never afford to live on the lower east side, where i grew up! it's a viscious cycle.
  • daver
    daver
    windowbox wrote: i was irritable and didn't process what was happening right away. the more i think about it, the more i think our interaction was kind of loaded. i mean, in greenpoint you don't find people ready to jump on you the minute you say something to a service person. it's like, either you're polish or you're not, you're an old-timer or a newcomer, and half the kids on the street are mixed polish and puerto rican, and you can't judge the differences from someone's appearance. moving to bedstuy, i suddenly find myself sort of representing gentrification because of the way i look. it's sort of ironic, because i could never afford to live on the lower east side, where i grew up! it's a viscious cycle.
    I hear ya. I'm in a different boat than you, but we are floating in the same ocean. As for me, I just try to do my best to not judge others. I don't always succeed, but hey, I'm trying and doing my part. It mostly works out for me. I also find that many times people rise (or fall) to your expectations. For instance, I find that if I am cross and short because of a bad day, or whatever, the kids on the stoop fall to my expectations of being jerks when I'm trying to get up the steps. Conversely, I find that if I make an effort to put 1) my personal problems, and 2) my preconceived notions of their expected behavior aside, they generally rise and treat me with the respect and consideration that I am giving to them. Not always, but more often than not.

    Side note: not _exactly_ related, but tangentially, at least. Humor me. I was coming home the other day, and there were the usual gang of 4-5 young black males on the stoop. Several pants below the bottoms, full boxer rebellion on display. Hey, I dressed strange when I was a kid too, who am I to judge? Anyway, so one of them, with his back to me, is going off on a tirade, "What the hell that stupid cracker thinking," blah blah blah. It isn't a kid I've seen before, but whatever. His friends give him a pointed look and he turns around, full of his fury still. Eh. Fury is probably a bit strong, but he was definitely into "perturbed". Perturbed plus.

    Anyhow, I figure this is not my battle, and I don't care anyhow, so I give him my best smile and say something like, "Hey man, how's it going, excuse me," and go to walk past him up the stairs. The kid's face damn near melts, he stumbles over, "Aw, hey man. I'm sorry. I didn't mean you. I meant those other cr-. Aw man, I'm sorry."

    Not that any of this means anything. But I think about how I could have reacted. Self-righteous, indignant, I *could* have lit up on him. And what would that have done? Started a big argument on the stoop and reinforced his stereotypes and made him feel even more justified. Helped keep the circle alive, to relate to your post. But I didn't. What did it cost me to be nice? Nothing. Not even any face. I don't care. Don't get me wrong, I'm not saying that this was a life changing encounter for anyone involved, it was just one little piece in a multi-thousand piece puzzle that is our world. And in this piece, for me and for him, something went a little different. So I say good. Real change doesn't take place in some big fell swoop that suddenly changes attitudes across the land. It takes place in very small stages. Very small interactions. And bit by bit, things start changing.

    There is an older black woman who is often sitting next to her stoop that I walk past in the morning on my way to work. I see her maybe two days a week. I smiled at that lady and said good morning for weeks, and only got back a blank stare. I thought it might be hostile a couple times. But hey, no skin off my back. I kept it up. And lo and behold, after months of this, in the last few weeks she has starting saying good morning back. What does that mean? I don't know. I just try to be friendly and do my part.

    I suppose I've dragged on far too long here. I'm not a militant in search of social change. I'm not here and queer and ready to knock down the walls. I'm just living, the same as most of the other folks I see, and I just do the best I can.
  • queencallipygos
    queencallipygos
    I don't know why, but there's a quote I read recently that sounds applicable: I've been reading the book Blue Highways recently, and there's a bit where the author has stopped into a dive bar somewhere in Louisiana. The regulars at some point pick up on the fact that he's a stranger -- and a northerner to boot -- and a couple people at the bar sling a little good-natured teasing his way (I think mainly about how well he'd hold up if they fixed him up for the night with a Cajun woman, or something like that).

    But before the author gets upset, one of the guys claps him on the back goodnaturedly and says not to take them seriously because they're just bullshitting. "We're all fools in God's garden, after all," he says.

    For some reason, "We're all fools in God's garden" is something that's just really stuck with me as one of those "the more you think about it the more true it gets" kind of things.
  • windowbox
    windowbox
    i like the "multi-thousand piece puzzle" and the "fools in God's garden" phrases. it's kind of what i love about NYC - we're all thrown together. i do find that if you try to approach things with the best possible attitude, good things and nice feelings abound. i sometimes fail, obviously. it's been a while since i've had to confront these things, and i'm trying to re-sensitize myself, a sometimes painful process! but frankly i found the racial homogeneity of greenpoint to be boring, as did my boyfriend who is white and grew up with a black stepfather. i'm trying to take my own advice and work through my shit. since the day i moved in i've been trying to smile at my neighbors say hi to people. that doesn't happen in other neighborhoods and it's really a cool thing that happens all the time in bed-stuy. :)
  • carnivore
    carnivore
    SevenOneEighty wrote: [quote=queencallipygos]This is exactly why I only divide people into two categories: "Jerks" and "nonjerks".
    There are two types of people in this world:

    People who divide people in to two types
    -and people who don't.

    There are 10 types of people in the world, people who understand binary and people who don't.
  • guvna
    guvna
    I like Tom's quote in another thread: "We're all assholes to somebody". Still, like others above, I try to assume the best when confronted by possible bad attitudes.

    Is it just me, or do you too find that people with a great sense of humor rarely get into fights of any kind? Just a random thought.
  • dolcefiore
    dolcefiore
    a great sense of humor is a remedy that helps us go thru with everyday stress
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