What the fuck is wrong with this city?

[badstar]

Dear Bitch,

What the holy fucking hell is your major malfunction? Do you really expect to sit there screaming on the train and not have someone ask you to lower your voice? Nevermind that you were yelling for several minutes before I finally turned around and asked you to please lower your voice when clearly, no one else would, and the train driver didn't really care. The rest of the world is not the staging grounds for your screaming dramas about your boyfriend cheating on you. If I can hear your every word halfway down the train on top of my already loud iPod, you're invading my space and everyone else around and it is beyond reasonable to expect you to lower your voice.

And don't you fucking dare call me a racist for asking you to lower it either. If I didn't hear you screaming, I never would have turned around. I had no fucking clue what your skin color is, and even if I did care what color your skin was, all I would have to do is keep staring straight ahead and never look at you. But no, you drew the attention to yourself. You made an embarrassing spectacle of yourself. You are the fucking obnoxious bitch here, I don't care what your skin color is, I don't care what your issue is, I am not fucking oppressing you by expecting you to act like every other decent person on the train- you did notice that nearly every other person on the train was black too, right? I had no problems with them. Why? Because they weren't screaming their fucking asses off.

You don't get to play the racism card to excuse your unfuckingbelievably ridiculously juvenile behavior. Your behavior is not a race issue, it's equally unacceptable from anyone. I've seen better-behaved screaming two year olds.

So, in short, shut the fuck up and take some fucking responsibility for your atrocious attitude and behavior. you're not acting like that because you're black, you're acting like that because you're a raving bitch with no courtesy to speak of.



The thing that gets me is that this isn't the first time I've been called a racist for asking someone to lower the noise. When in the hell did it become acceptable to expect the entire world to put up with your screaming/yelling/insanely loud uh...whatever it is that masquerades as music because of your fucking skin color? and no, I don't find this sort of thing acceptable from anyone. It's not an issue of race, it's an issue of having a little decency when being out in public. Oh my holy fucking gawds.

And I've only ever seen this in Baltimore. In similar situations in New york City, Philadelphia, Dallas and Lancaster that I remember, people either ignore you, mumble a vague apology or just tone it down a bit, no one's ever screamed racist at me for asking to lower their voice. I don't fucking get it.

Comments

[fuego.livejournal.com]

Yup. Me too.

[chironcentaur.livejournal.com]

Yeah, sadly that is pretty typical of the people who live in this city: can single handedly make enough noise for ten people, think nothing of acting like an obnoxious ass in public, like making a scene is some sort of entitlement issue and we all just have to put up with them. And of course people do put up with them and allow them to get away with this shit; considering that there are clearly posted rules all over the Light Rail and every city bus about appropriate noise levels it should never have fell to you to have to say anything in the first place, and what is the fucking point of having rules if no one is going to ever enforce them?

Yeah, I'm really not going to miss the people of this city much.

[chironcentaur.livejournal.com]

Me three! Pretty typical Baltimore experience. Good reason to pack up and leave. :-)

[misswitch1369.livejournal.com]

Been there, kinda. I got called a racist for not allowing a lady to exit Wal-mart through the little cart door when I was working there. The cart pushers were bringing in carts, and I was only trying to keep her from getting hurt, plus it's policy because of the theft issue. Another African-American lady that saw the whole thing told me that I handled the situation well, and it's the bad apples that make everyone look bad...something like that. And that was in Erie, so it's not just the big cities.

[vees.livejournal.com]

The moral being, get good at violent retribution.

[chironcentaur.livejournal.com]

Don't tempt me.

[chironcentaur.livejournal.com]

Good to know its not all smiles and unicorns. It does occasionally make me wonder how well I would get on in Candyland. I'm a crusty asshole, damn it I need a contingent of people who hate the world as much as I do! :-P

I do sometimes miss the new England everyone minds their own business attitude, and while I don't love having to talk to strangers (misanthrope and introvert) the occasional hi how you doing I can deal with. As long as there is some sort of a recognition that I am a stranger and there are boundaries there; you're not sharing intimate details of your life with me that I really don't need to know (big problem here, and a big reason why I try to avoid conversations with anyone).

[vees.livejournal.com]

Or you'll what? :-)

[chironcentaur.livejournal.com]

Ever seen the movie Falling Down? Something like the first hour or so of that. :-)

[linzbinz.livejournal.com]

I HATE it when people pull the race card when they're being obnoxious. There is a guy that works at Subway on base. He's black. He's the rudest person I've EVER met. One time he put mustard on my friend's sandwich and when she said "I didn't want mustard..." he flipped out and threw the sandwich against the wall. I mean, the guy is REALLY out of control. It turns out that they've tried to fire him FOUR TIMES but every time they try, he claims racial discrimination and ends up getting rehired. *Rolls eyes* Look asshole, they aren't firing you because you're black, they're firing you because you're rude to to everybody you come in contact with. UGH.

[pagandenma.livejournal.com]

I just get all "Mom" on their asses if someone is rude. *grin* Plus I may be short, but I'm "built like a brick s**thouse", as my Gran and I used to joke. Most people won't tangle with me, even if I'm reading them the riot act.

Apparently, even though I'm usually seen as a Pollyanna by a lot of folks, I can scare strangers. Go figure.

Never mind that that woman was violating the noise level laws anyway AND that the MTa has rules about all that . . . .

[raistlynn.livejournal.com]

This reminds me of a story that happened just the other day. I was waiting for the connecting bus to go to the local Borders bookstore. A coloured lady's son had to go to the bathroom. Instead of getting up off of her lazy @$$, she told him to go in some bushes. Not comprehending, he went around the corner and pissed at the corner of the bus shelter, then proceeded to go running back to his mother, jeans around his ankles, trying to pull his underwear up. And the mother found this funny, as well as her friend. Keep in mind this is a very busy street, and there is a thin sidewalk between the bus shelter and this very busy traffic street. With his jeans around his ankles he could've tripped and fallen into the street, or gotten snatched by someone. All of this because she was too 'kin lazy to take him to a public restroom, and this was during the day where all of the businesses downtown were open.

[needa.livejournal.com]

Living here in St Louis, with the local racial divisions, I can tell you that there is a component of racial culture. Not racism, but a cultural matter distilled by racial concentration.

Within the local black culture, standards of politeness are different, and raised voices aren't looked upon as negatively as you and I do. That is to say, by her standards she probably wasn't being as rude as by your standards. I've observed a number of other minor differences, particularly as regards inter-gender interactions, and I find many of them personally disturbing.

This leads to the worst part of living in St Louis: it colors your thinking. It's also a big part of why I can't wait to get the hell out.

[totallypinkrock.livejournal.com]

Yeah, I definitely feel a little bit like a cracker at work sometimes: I consider it rude to talk on the phone where other people can hear every word you can say (unless it's unavoidable/an emergency), but three of the four black women I work with (one is from Zimbabwe, two are from the States) have absolutely no problem talking fairly loudly, and simultaneously, on their phones in our tiny break room.

They do respond when asked to take it elsewhere, but I've only ever tried when it was a one-on-one situation. I don't feel like I have a place to say anything if all three of them are chattering away; in that situation, I take my book and read elsewhere.

Fun fact: apparently in Chinese culture, talking loudly is not seen as rude. This was extremely good news to a really loud American friend of mine; it justified her volume to herself. But then hey, if a billion people are cool with it, maybe there is something to that!

But no, on the damn Public Transit, everybody needs to keep their own little crazy world to themselves.

[iamjanjan.livejournal.com]

scary.

[fuego.livejournal.com]

Hmm...you know, I've notices that louder than normal voices seem to be something of the norm...but there's raised voices, and there's flat-out screaming. Which I see a lot more of than I'd really like, but not enough to say that it seems to be a "norm"

I've observed a number of other minor differences, particularly as regards inter-gender interactions, and I find many of them personally disturbing.

Okay...I'm curious. Examples?