Being the non-confrontational soul that I am, I've never been snappy with comebacks or cut-downs. It's something that occasionally frustrates me because with time and space away from a verbal exchange I can usually generate what I feel would be an awesome retort. Al Sharpton possesses this ability and has virtually made it an art form. He always has something funny or clever or I'mma-put-you-in-your-place type thing to say. Pee Wee Herman comes in at a close second. I'm more inclined to want to make you like me than I am to push you away, but as person-to-person relationships go, sometimes I'm not the one doing the pushing or the pulling. People come at you as they are and sometimes, belatedly in this case, I just have to learn how to deal with it.
Months ago, shortly after Halloween I was chatting with a co-worker lady when a co-worker dude sidled into the conversation. Now co-worker dude and I have virtually no interaction other than the fact that our cubicles are positioned from each other like alternate interior angles (Mrs. Wade should be so proud). This means he hears me when I cuss and grumble and I hear him needlessly arguing with people who've (obviously to me) dialed the wrong number.
So we're chatting about something banal when co-worker dude - I shitchu not - goes, "So, Danita. Are you a spook?"
In the space of what could only have been 3-5 seconds I experienced the following:
I just stood there utterly baffled. Verklempt. Dumbfounded.
I haven't been keeping count, but there haven't been too many times where I've been rendered utterly speechless. This, though, was one of them.
"A wha?" croaked from my throat. Suddenly I was thirsty. Like, there's a-cross-on-fire-in-my-front-yard-that-needs-to-be-squelched thirsty.
"You know. A spook. Someone who really loves Halloween?"
"A wha?" said my face.
Now I'm lookin' at co-worker dude and my expression, while completely astonished, has subtly gone from "I don't really know you" to "I don't really know you, so you may want to take a few steps back." I've got nothing to say. Nothing. I turn to co-worker lady and to my utter, continued, seemingly perpetual astonishment, she's looking at me like I'm the one who's crazy. But his face remains surprised. Surprised as in, "What the hell is wrong with this girl?" (Note. Not "What the hell did I just say", but he's looking at me like it's me.)
"A spook? As in ...?"
Picture me grappling, people.
"You're wearing an orange shirt, but it's not Halloween anymore. You must be a spook since you're wearing an orange shirt, right? I don't know anyone who'd just wear an orange shirt."
I look down as if I've peed and shat on myself. Maybe I have, psychologically speaking, but I'm incredulous and just ... bereft.
I look up and both of them are looking at me like I really did shit my pants and I'm stunned. I don't remember what was next, but fairly quickly co-worker dude walks away. I cock my head to the side, still baffled and shake it. I'm not angry, but I'm incredibly puzzled. Puzzled as to how anyone can think that would be appropriate in any circumstance. Co-worker lady asks me what is wrong and says something like, "What happened to you there? Your face was totally like you didn't even know what he was saying."
The race card turns over in my mind and upon its face lies the joker, and I begin to slide down the slippery slope. I do what I too often do. I laugh it off, shrugging to shake off the cloud of awkward that hovers in the place that ultimately keeps me from being impoverished. Indentured servitude flashes in my mind. Co-worker lady continues asserting that co-worker dude had asked her the same thing and she'd never heard it before either, but she still hadn't reacted the way I had. Was I okay.
I creep toward her as if she's Harriet Tubman with Canada lurking in the distance.
"A spook? You know what a spook is don't you?" Her head shakes unknowingly as her eyes widen. "Where I come from if someone calls you a spook they may as well just go on and call you the n-word. That's what spook is."
The horror! Oh the horror that spreads across her face! It's followed by the gasp and an apology and an "If I'd known that. If I had known that's what you would have thought I would have said something! Oh my gosh, but I have never heard that before either and he had asked me about it before and he explained the same thing that he said to you - about wearing an orange shirt."
Unh-hunh. Okay, I say to myself and I let it go.
Shamefully and scarily I admit now that I failed to handle it; I didn't know how to handle it. With the months that have followed a gazillion alternate endings have played out in my mind. I've re-told the story a half-dozen times, and as it is my gift and sometimes curse, people have laughed. It isn't funny, but I'm funny. I have laughed while telling it, too, but it's a festering sore of sorts. It's led me to wonder more about racism, too -- in its post and present forms, what it really is, covert versus overt, real or hype. What does it mean to have assimilated to that certain degree where one will merge and fit in rather than diverge and stand out? What about checking people accordingly, making one aware that a terrible grievance has occurred? How do I do that? I'm not sure I'm the right person for that; I don't know that I possess the eloquence required to put someone in their place without sputtering cusswords and emotion.
Did he mean it the way I interpreted it or are some people really that simple? The consensus on co-worker dude is that he's just weird anyway. Different. He's from a different part of the state, yada. I admit to thinking he was strange when he first got here, but all strangers are strange. But can anyone justifiably be that simple in 2010? Am I guilty of being too dismissive?
Of course it completely changed my perception of him. As idealistic as I am even I can't completely buy the premise of someone being that damn simple in this day and age. Not when we pass in the hallway and you don't speak to me unless I speak to you first; not when I'm talking to someone and when they welcome you into the mix you ignore my subsequent contributions to the conversation. This leads that part of me to suspect that he knew exactly what he was implying when he asked the question, but to what end I do not know and thus I wind up de-classifying him as ignorant or bigoted. But what if that's just what he really is? What would be the reason to ask a black person if they're a spook to their face? Is it some sick kick to chuckle about later?
I'll most likely never know because the window of my exploratory opportunity has passed. Confronting him (or HR) now would seem like asking for reparations. I'm mad at myself and still miffed, but it's a lesson well learned nevertheless. It's not like that was the first time Rosa Parks decided she was tired of sitting in the back of the bus.
But it was certainly the last time.