Just a little white girl.
Sooo... that's what I am after all that I've been through. After EVERY time I EVER defended colored people when someone in my family or neighborhood spouted baseless racism from their ignorant mouths. I get my first taste of racism directed towards me. And I am flabbergasted.
Lemme start at the start. So this all happened on Sunday when I was on my way home from EB Games on La Brea and Rodeo, AFTER being misdirected to the EB in the mall on Crenshaw and MLK Jr. Blvd. (MLK JR. Blvd!)
So after my little adventure through LA to find the RIGHT EB that had Phantasy Star Online 1 & 2 Plus, I'm on the bus to Josh's EB on Sunset & Vine. I found a seat right up front facing forward and I was just riding along, at first just listening to this drunken white guy and this black gal talking about God and religeon and the universe and crap. You know, spacing out waiting to arrive at my destination.
Alluva sudden, at the stop on the corner of Pico & La Brea (Oh, I remember everything) I hear some people getting all excited about something and I ignore it thinking it had nothing to do with me. Then I look around as it keeps going on, murmers and such and EVERYONE'S staring at me and I'm just like WTF okay, what's the problem here? Then some Hispanic lady points at me and tells me "He just threw up on you."
Then I was like, no, for real, you're talking to me?? I look on the shoulder of my jacket and there's a little red chunky vomit on my arm. I swear my face must have looked so funny. I opened my mouth and my eyes went all wide. I looked behind me and I honestly thought she was talking about a baby or something. Well you can guess how suprised I was when I turned around to see a grown-ass black man sitting behind me.
JUST SITTING THERE.
NOT SAYING A THING.
Looking like he DIDN'T just blow chunks all over me and the back of my seat.
So I got up all stiff-like and slowly turned around and I started BAWLING. I mean, wouldn't you? If someone just threw up on your back and wasn't even apologising or anything.
Then my saviour. This AWESOME black girl stood up, saw me crying and just started letting this asshole have it. "OMG WTF is wrong with you?! You just gonna sit there like you din't do nothin'. Oooh, you peice of shit! She over here cryin' her eyes out and you just gonna sit there!! Ooooh!" Then there was some cool black guy,who helped me out after too, near the back standing up and I heard him call the guy a nigger under his breath. And ever though I hate that word with a passion, for some reason, at the time, I didn't mind hearing it.
Then the girl was just standing there making a scene and this guy had the nerve to say, "Can we just drive the bus and get along with it?" This girl was SO pissed. She took me by the arm and, since we couldn't go out the front of the bus, because there was a handicapped woman on the bus and the lift was jammed, she took me out the back of the bus. As she was leaving, she told me afterwards because I didn't see it, she spit a "BIG ass loogie" on his face. :)
So he jumped off the bus after us and started saying shit all pissed. then he said something I didn't hear, which she told me later, and I'll say later on in my story. So she was standing there egging him on. I seriously thought there was gonna be a throw down right then and there.
She took me into this fast food chinese restaurant and asked for a cup of water to clean me up. And even though it wasn't THAT bad, not like I'd thought at first, this awesome lady was cleaning vomit off of my jacket and out of my hair. (MY HAAAAIR!! Eeew. ;_; ) I took that fucking jacket off. She said it hurt her heart to see me sitting there crying and I just kept thanking her. Thank God for her NOT perpetuating my steriotype of asshole people in LA.
After she got me as clean as she could, we went back outside. Of course that little pussy asshole (that's what SHE called him too!) ran off. Cuz by then every black person on that bus prolly would have beaten his ass down, oh they were ALL pissed off. XD It was strange to have everyone so concerned about me. The lady in the fast food restaurant and all the people on the bus were asking me if I was okay and saying that it would be okay.
The black guy that I was talking about before (the one who called the guy a nigger) was taking down notes and he even snapped a pic of the guy! ^_^ He said he was gonna file a police report for me if I didn't. He told me his name (though I forgot it) and he said he worked at the Best Buy on La Brea and Santa Monica, so I'm going to try and see him this week and see how far he went with it.
After that ordeal I got on the next bus (I had turned my jacket inside out and had to carry it with me. I haven't touched it since I got home that day.) down La Brea. The girl who helped me was talking to the bus driver and the girl who was on the bus talking with that guy about God about what happened while I listened. Then when the "God girl" got off the bus I thought the girl who helped me was gonna get off too, because I thought they were friends or something. So I tapped her shoulder from my seat and told her I just wanted to thank her again. She was so nice. She told me that it broke her heart to see me crying and that nobody was doing anything. She said I was a sweet person and then she told me something that broke MY heart and that I've been thinking about for days now.
She told me that (I think she said it was the guy who vomited on me) when this guy got off the bus he said "She's just a little white girl."
I'm SO glad I didn't hear that. I swear I probably would have broken down.
See, what I've been thinking about the last few days is everyting I went through having to live in a racist rural American city. No matter how saturated with blind hate veryone around me was, my family, neighbors, some friends, I always did what I thought was morally right. And it's NOT morally right to go and hate someone for the color of their skin, or a disability. Especially before you know WHO they really are. This is what I've learned and taught myself through experience and I just can't believe that through all the struggles and what blacks went through for their civil rights that someone of color living in today's America could feel like that.
I've always lived my life with the hope that tomarrow's America would be better. Living where I lived, I only saw racism in the older generations really. So every time I spoke up when someone used the word "Nigger" (I can think of this one specific time with my grandfather) I always had the hope that with each time I stood up for what was right, that I was shooting a verbal bullet at the racism in the people around me.
And then just having it given to me, especially in the way it happened was just... baffling. I was SO hurt when she said that that I started to cry again. Right there on the bus. I told her "That really hurts," through tears and sobs, "I respect people no matter what color they are." Then she said "Come here." She gave me a big hug and asked for my name and told me hers was Nia.
She sat down next to me, I got up and almost pulled the seat up with my big stupid self (:P) then I thanked her again and again and she said she hoped to see me around again and I left for the next bus up Sunset.
-------------------------------------
~~~You PROBABLY don't have to read past this point if all you wanted was the "Little white girl" story.~~~
I dropped in on Josh, he went on his 10 minute break, and I told him about it. I gave him my bus pass and walked home. On the way I bought six dollars worth of candy at Right-Aid. Yeah. Piggy piggy.
I went home and played PoPoLoCrois for almost two hours. Then he came home and he wanted to watch a movie. You know what he picked to ease my sad mood??????????
American History X. :(
NOT that it wasn't good.... it's just that... well... if you know the movie, you know why.
*sigh* Sooooo.... after vomit, racism and a racist movie... I think I've had enough mayhem and discord to last me a while. I hope that NEVER EVER happens to me again.
I don't think my poor 'lil sensitive-to-the-world's-problems self can handle it.
Oh, and while we were on our way to visit Josh's dad the last night, we ran into an old friend of his, Cypher (or something). He asked if we were going to get married. Josh said "Probably." LOL! I won't let him forget that one for a while. ^_^
Ah PoPoLoCrois... you sooth my tortured soul.
~Haley
[EDITY]- (Haha, I accidently said "edity") I just realised that I was more disgusted at the racism than the vomit. Funny, ne?
Lemme start at the start. So this all happened on Sunday when I was on my way home from EB Games on La Brea and Rodeo, AFTER being misdirected to the EB in the mall on Crenshaw and MLK Jr. Blvd. (MLK JR. Blvd!)
So after my little adventure through LA to find the RIGHT EB that had Phantasy Star Online 1 & 2 Plus, I'm on the bus to Josh's EB on Sunset & Vine. I found a seat right up front facing forward and I was just riding along, at first just listening to this drunken white guy and this black gal talking about God and religeon and the universe and crap. You know, spacing out waiting to arrive at my destination.
Alluva sudden, at the stop on the corner of Pico & La Brea (Oh, I remember everything) I hear some people getting all excited about something and I ignore it thinking it had nothing to do with me. Then I look around as it keeps going on, murmers and such and EVERYONE'S staring at me and I'm just like WTF okay, what's the problem here? Then some Hispanic lady points at me and tells me "He just threw up on you."
Then I was like, no, for real, you're talking to me?? I look on the shoulder of my jacket and there's a little red chunky vomit on my arm. I swear my face must have looked so funny. I opened my mouth and my eyes went all wide. I looked behind me and I honestly thought she was talking about a baby or something. Well you can guess how suprised I was when I turned around to see a grown-ass black man sitting behind me.
JUST SITTING THERE.
NOT SAYING A THING.
Looking like he DIDN'T just blow chunks all over me and the back of my seat.
So I got up all stiff-like and slowly turned around and I started BAWLING. I mean, wouldn't you? If someone just threw up on your back and wasn't even apologising or anything.
Then my saviour. This AWESOME black girl stood up, saw me crying and just started letting this asshole have it. "OMG WTF is wrong with you?! You just gonna sit there like you din't do nothin'. Oooh, you peice of shit! She over here cryin' her eyes out and you just gonna sit there!! Ooooh!" Then there was some cool black guy,who helped me out after too, near the back standing up and I heard him call the guy a nigger under his breath. And ever though I hate that word with a passion, for some reason, at the time, I didn't mind hearing it.
Then the girl was just standing there making a scene and this guy had the nerve to say, "Can we just drive the bus and get along with it?" This girl was SO pissed. She took me by the arm and, since we couldn't go out the front of the bus, because there was a handicapped woman on the bus and the lift was jammed, she took me out the back of the bus. As she was leaving, she told me afterwards because I didn't see it, she spit a "BIG ass loogie" on his face. :)
So he jumped off the bus after us and started saying shit all pissed. then he said something I didn't hear, which she told me later, and I'll say later on in my story. So she was standing there egging him on. I seriously thought there was gonna be a throw down right then and there.
She took me into this fast food chinese restaurant and asked for a cup of water to clean me up. And even though it wasn't THAT bad, not like I'd thought at first, this awesome lady was cleaning vomit off of my jacket and out of my hair. (MY HAAAAIR!! Eeew. ;_; ) I took that fucking jacket off. She said it hurt her heart to see me sitting there crying and I just kept thanking her. Thank God for her NOT perpetuating my steriotype of asshole people in LA.
After she got me as clean as she could, we went back outside. Of course that little pussy asshole (that's what SHE called him too!) ran off. Cuz by then every black person on that bus prolly would have beaten his ass down, oh they were ALL pissed off. XD It was strange to have everyone so concerned about me. The lady in the fast food restaurant and all the people on the bus were asking me if I was okay and saying that it would be okay.
The black guy that I was talking about before (the one who called the guy a nigger) was taking down notes and he even snapped a pic of the guy! ^_^ He said he was gonna file a police report for me if I didn't. He told me his name (though I forgot it) and he said he worked at the Best Buy on La Brea and Santa Monica, so I'm going to try and see him this week and see how far he went with it.
After that ordeal I got on the next bus (I had turned my jacket inside out and had to carry it with me. I haven't touched it since I got home that day.) down La Brea. The girl who helped me was talking to the bus driver and the girl who was on the bus talking with that guy about God about what happened while I listened. Then when the "God girl" got off the bus I thought the girl who helped me was gonna get off too, because I thought they were friends or something. So I tapped her shoulder from my seat and told her I just wanted to thank her again. She was so nice. She told me that it broke her heart to see me crying and that nobody was doing anything. She said I was a sweet person and then she told me something that broke MY heart and that I've been thinking about for days now.
She told me that (I think she said it was the guy who vomited on me) when this guy got off the bus he said "She's just a little white girl."
I'm SO glad I didn't hear that. I swear I probably would have broken down.
See, what I've been thinking about the last few days is everyting I went through having to live in a racist rural American city. No matter how saturated with blind hate veryone around me was, my family, neighbors, some friends, I always did what I thought was morally right. And it's NOT morally right to go and hate someone for the color of their skin, or a disability. Especially before you know WHO they really are. This is what I've learned and taught myself through experience and I just can't believe that through all the struggles and what blacks went through for their civil rights that someone of color living in today's America could feel like that.
I've always lived my life with the hope that tomarrow's America would be better. Living where I lived, I only saw racism in the older generations really. So every time I spoke up when someone used the word "Nigger" (I can think of this one specific time with my grandfather) I always had the hope that with each time I stood up for what was right, that I was shooting a verbal bullet at the racism in the people around me.
And then just having it given to me, especially in the way it happened was just... baffling. I was SO hurt when she said that that I started to cry again. Right there on the bus. I told her "That really hurts," through tears and sobs, "I respect people no matter what color they are." Then she said "Come here." She gave me a big hug and asked for my name and told me hers was Nia.
She sat down next to me, I got up and almost pulled the seat up with my big stupid self (:P) then I thanked her again and again and she said she hoped to see me around again and I left for the next bus up Sunset.
-------------------------------------
~~~You PROBABLY don't have to read past this point if all you wanted was the "Little white girl" story.~~~
I dropped in on Josh, he went on his 10 minute break, and I told him about it. I gave him my bus pass and walked home. On the way I bought six dollars worth of candy at Right-Aid. Yeah. Piggy piggy.
I went home and played PoPoLoCrois for almost two hours. Then he came home and he wanted to watch a movie. You know what he picked to ease my sad mood??????????
American History X. :(
NOT that it wasn't good.... it's just that... well... if you know the movie, you know why.
*sigh* Sooooo.... after vomit, racism and a racist movie... I think I've had enough mayhem and discord to last me a while. I hope that NEVER EVER happens to me again.
I don't think my poor 'lil sensitive-to-the-world's-problems self can handle it.
Oh, and while we were on our way to visit Josh's dad the last night, we ran into an old friend of his, Cypher (or something). He asked if we were going to get married. Josh said "Probably." LOL! I won't let him forget that one for a while. ^_^
Ah PoPoLoCrois... you sooth my tortured soul.
~Haley
[EDITY]- (Haha, I accidently said "edity") I just realised that I was more disgusted at the racism than the vomit. Funny, ne?