So, there I was, doing the long jog, approaching the halfway point (two miles), when what do I hear? Well, I'll tell you what I hear, loud and clear, being shouted from a VW bug - "Hey, fag!" Yes, in the year 2009, in Los Angeles (or Studio City), someone leaned out the window of a VW bug and yelled, "Hey, fag!" Now, perhaps seeing a sixty-one year old Jew in cutoff jeans with great legs stirred something deep inside him that was disturbing and this was his way of combatting it. Or maybe he's just another intolerant teenage asshole with a brain the size of a barbecued almond. Or maybe his parents taught him well. Whatever it is, I found it astonishing, and not in a good way. We think we've come a long way, baby, and yet people prove time and again we have a long way to go. I wish for this person a cataclysmic event in his life that will shake him to his very foundation, so that he perhaps learns what tolerance and good manners mean, and that creating positive energy brings good things and yelling, "Hey, fag" makes the world more of a cesspool than it already is. Yes, a nice, cataclysmic event for that young man is just the ticket.
Consider yourself lucky, BK. You could have been physically attacked. Anything from a thrown object, a can or bottle, to having a group jump out of the car with malice in mind.
Yeah, sure, Matthew Shepard comes to mind, but he's just the guy who got all the attention. It was going on long before, and is still happening. Exact numbers are not available. Sorry.
My turn was 28 years ago, in the building where I was living. I was jumped by a gang of six or seven, and managed to escape with just a broken nose and an impacted shoulder. Back then, we didn't have the phrase "hate crime" to cover what had happened. It was called a queer bashing, the implication being that it was my own fault somehow, because I wouldn't have been attacked if I weren't queer.
I hid the truth for a while, calling it a mugging. And then I got angry. And then I learned how to turn that anger into a different kind of strength.
Hate is a peculiar thing. What we too often forget is how good it feels, how empowering and superior, to deny those whom we hate their very humanity. And it is a terrifying thing to witness, because how does one stand up to hatred, to something so primal and lacking concern? It is so much easier to simply stand by and let it happen, to not stand up in defiance, because if one stands up to hatred one can become the target of that hatred. Did someone mention the Holocaust?
What was that different kind of strength I mentioned? I like to think of it as compassion. But would I be strong enough to step up and side with those being attacked, if I were to witness it again? I do not know.
I've said before that I avoid using the word "hate" to simply mean "dislike." We have so many other words to define aversion, distaste, or mere boredom. I reserve hate for the fearsome phenomenon that people use to justify their attacks on others.
And I wish, back in Biblical times, someone had included another commandment: Thou Shalt Not Hate.
Bows politely, steps down from soapbox, and quietly walks away.
