Separate to Get Equal
A disagreement I got into last year changed my life. I had a dressing down by someone that made a life of difference. Not because I believed anything she said. Quite the opposite. I looked at her, and saw what I didn’t want to be, what I didn’t want to become, and what I wanted to avoid. What the scenario boiled down to was a white woman in her 50’s stating things that were false that made me look bad. While these things were easily disprovable, that wasn’t the point. The point was to cower me into humiliation, or make me emotional. It actually made me calm. Clinical. Cold.
(And the big point, of course, is not that a white woman decided to say untrue things to make me look bad in rural Missouri. The big point is that it's the 5th time in as many years that a white female has said things in front of white men to make me look terrible, that were misleading or untrue, to the point where Tue has to plan for white women to behave this way. ESPECIALLY if he has never had sex or romance with said white woman. And in the fact that Tue has essentially cut white women out of his life whenever possible because of that reason, and has mostly found peace because of it. He doesn't have black women in his life badmouthing white women - Tue feels compelled to start recording the next screaming white woman he interacts with, to prove to black women he isn't exaggerating.)
What the experience taught me was:
Some people can’t learn, and don’t want to. At first, when I thought about it, I thought about myself and the speaker having no ability to relate to me. I actually felt bad for her. Even if one can't relate to the humanity of the stranger, if your spouse and children see your first reaction when upset is to go full postal, lies and half truths are the standard of the day. If your ego is too fragile to listen to the truth, or even what COULD be true, you don’t deserve to hear it.
Tue had to build a new system of living. When you look at Tue’s black female Muslim companion, see how Tue works with his black students, listens to his black pastor, you start to realize how he got out a twenty year loop - he cut out the people who COULD behave that way. The woman that I had a disagreement with did me a kindness. The same behavior that I disliked when I saw it in a 15 year old I will hate in a 50 year old.
It is moving FAST. In Tue's mind, he is trying to leverage lost time. He isn't trying to purge the white woman, he's fast tracking whom he thinks will at least give him a fair hearing. He isn't trying to silence the bitchy, he is trying to bypass them. He is going full retro - he has known the female companion, the pastor, and the roommate each for 20 years or more. So it's much less Princess Palebottom finding a new justification for Tue to get fucked, and more actual, genuine negotiation.
The loonies have a short memory. Tue does not. Those who are hyper aggressive tend to have trouble maintaining it. So they'll treat you like crap, and then act like they haven't acted in an outrageous manner the next day. Six months later, Tue still doesn't trust them.
The system works for everybody. Post Alaska, Tue considers the LGBT community generally hostile, limiting his willingness to interact with them. But none of them have complained about him since. Black women see that I am willing to work 60+ hours a week to put money into their world, therefore earning the benefit of a doubt. Coworkers of all races see that I need money, but will quit my job on the spot than subject myself to an Alaska style fuck over. Outsiders lose the ability and will to bitch, and Tue doesn't need to murder. Everyone wins.