General

[heinous]

I want to say I'm asking for your opinion, but to deny that I'm also venting would be lying.

I was at Decay of Nations 2 last weekend where the rules were stated at the beginning that anyone caught saying bad words would be asked to leave. Fast forward to the prize giveaway at the end, I was at the front of the crowd as they tossed freebies off stage. My hand hit one prize but couldn't grab onto it, and ended up punting it off to the side: preventing whoever it was behind me from ever getting it in the process. That's when I heard someone murmured behind me "****ing gook."

I usually like to just go with the flow of things, and we were literally the first 2 rows of the crowd so the security guards were guaranteed to have heard it. I was hoping they would do something so I don't have to (of course it was wishful thinking, they were there more for the park than the customers, besides the fact that nobody enforces cussing rules anymore these days). After a second of observation and I was sure the only person who would do something was me, I turned around (this is within one second of him calling me a name) to confront the guy. Greeting me was a fat kid, much younger (he's a teenager) and much darker than me, who nervously looked away at the first moment of eye contact before I could even say a word.

Obviously this isn't the first time I've been called names. Usually people call me names to piss me off or pick a fight and when it doesn't work they go bother someone else. This time the kid called me a name and then immediately went back to being submissive, so I should be even more at ease right? I thought so too.

I took him breaking eye contact as a sign of him taking back what he said. The rest of the day happened without incident, and I did the hour long drive home. However, when I got home and had time to think about it I felt like something was wrong, like he got away with doing something and I didn't do enough about it. I thought maybe his whole plan was to just call me a name and get away with it, that I've let him win and it's been eating away at me ever since.

I've thought about this long and hard too from as "unbiased" and logical of a view as possible. He's in worse physical shape than me, he's uglier than me (you just have to trust me on this one) and he's much younger than me. Normally I wouldn't be bothered by anything said by such a person. He's also darker than me, so calling me by a derogatory term that demonizes non-white skin would only demonize himself more. I've also been in fights and been instigated to fight based on racial reasons, and I've gotten over them. I've also been called the same name before, so why does it bother me so much this time? Is it because these are excuses?

Opinions? Advice? Comments (besides calling me a ****ing gook)? I know this site isn't a punching bag, but I also know this is one of the few sites with an older (thus more knowledgeable) demographic.

[Mar]

I am not sure why it would bother you more this time, it could be of course the straw that broke the camels back, it could be that despite the rules and the people there to enforce them, nothing was done about it, it could also be the randomness of what happened: random personal attacks can be hard to reconcile after the fact.

The bad news is you live in an intolerant world, and there are many ignorant people out there. If you were to let every incident like this bother you (which you haven't obviously) you would have long ago climbed a tower with a high powered rifle.

Water off a duck's back my friend: always remember where words come from. When they come from the mouth of an ignorant piece of poo, then they aren't worth very much...

Take care.

[Christian Nelson]

Were you in Minnesota?

Sounds like typical passive aggressive Minnesota nice, where they will mutter things under their breath that you know are insulting, and you hear them, but when you confront them, they say they didn't say it..

Words have power.

But, you have the power to take that power away from those words.

I've been called cracker, tortilla, honkey, etc..

The tortilla one I never got it til I was much older, and figured out they were picking at me 'cause I am white..

I guess my brain doesn't think on the wavelength to be bugged about it, because it usually takes me a while to even figure out that they were actually insulting me.

Well, the kid got away with it. He must feel like a real man now, right? He said something to you, and probably almost wet himself when you looked at him. He probably thought you wouldn't hear him well enough to know what he said.

What would you have done? A swift back hand? Not worth it. Just a pudgy little man that is gonna wake up in the real world someday when mommy won't be paying for everything for him.

Best revenge is to live well, be happy, and they can lay in their hatred and be miserable if they want to.

[Finnigan]

I learned a bit of advice specifically for this situation when I was a small child.

"Sticks and stones may break my bones, but names will never hurt me."

[Talfuchre]

I am going a different way than this one. Silence is an act of compliance.

I agree that he got away with something. I also think you could and should have said something.

With that said, I don't think you should have said 'Do you want to make something of it?'. That would be lowering yourself to his level. You have many options.

1) Straight up confrontation. Something like 'Care to say that to my face?' This will usually escalate things.

2) Confrontation: Something like 'I really don't appreciate being called that.' This will usually not escalate - but can.

3) Humor: Something like 'I know you just called me a gook - but I prefer slope or chink thanks.' This confronts - but can defuse and rise above.

There are many other options - but I think confrontation will cause his ignorant *** to rethink himself next time.

I, personally, would have hit him in his friggin' mouth before thinking about it. That would have been bad - and later I would have regretted it.

I think it SHOULD bother you - I think you SHOULD confront the ignorance - but I don't think it should 'get to you'. Does that make sense? Ignorance should be bothersome - but it should not be consuming.

TF

[Robertsr]

It always just astonishes me when something like this pops up. I mean, what century are we in here?

Like most idiots who spew such nonsense, he was a coward who probably had a lazy dad that sat around on Tuesdays telling his no-account friends, "They took our jobs!" Attitudes like that are pretty pathetic. There was a loser in that exchange and it wasn't you.

[CrazyBoy78]

In a way, I kinda know what you feel. Both last week and today, I received emails from two managers who implied that I wasn't doing my job. One used the line of "He was unable or unwilling..." which really got under my skin. Especially the "unwilling" bit, even though I told him that I had to take care of one of his other employees at their home offices and that I'd have to look up his problem since I didn't have an answer for him right then and there.

Today, I had another manager complain that the new computer I installed didn't have everything on it that it should (even though I installed what was needed). As someone who takes a lot of pride in his work, that kinda stuff bugs me. But I've learned to let it slide because arguing or making a big deal is only gonna escalate things to a bad level, especially since one of them's a VP in the company.

My point is to not beat yourself up over doing nothing. Some people are just jerks. Be better than them. Just let it go or it'll make you go nuts.

[Shiba-Kun]

To answer a previous question... He wasn't in MN. "Decay of Nations 2" was held here in SoCal at SC Village this past weekend.

[SnowDawgy]

It sucks and always will, try living your life as a fat kid with glasses (no not justifying him), I did and you think racisim sucks we get picked on by everyone and still do cause it is still socially acceptable to pick on fat ppl and ppl with glasses, yeah it is my fault I am this way and I like all the fat jokes, snears, comments, off cuff crap about it is my fault. There are those that will pick on anything they think make them feel good about themselves, dunno why, but they do. You have to live with it, or spend time in jail for beating the lil buggers to death. I can live with it, but it sucks, I laff that ppl even think it is funny for someone like me to call it racism cause what do I know about suffering. Well it was a long childhood, and I didn't even have "my own kind" to hang out with Too many idiots, too few bullets, is what often comes to mind, good thing for them I have learned to deal with it. But that doesn't mean from time to time it really pisses me off.

[Mayvik]

You should have confronted him with the point of escalating it, then beaten the racist comments right out of him. Apparently some people are just to stupid to function in society without a good asskicking once in a while. Unless of course you're like 30, and he's 12..in which case dragging him by the collar to the nearest official for ejection would be more appropriate. Anyone around you who heard the gook thing could have confirmed it. People are pretty paranoid about the whole "hate crime" and "racial violence" thing (especially in the LA area).

For what it's worth, the hordes of ignorant little agg kiddies who occasionally forgot they were in RL and not flaming away on PBN were why I hated playing at SC Village. I'm pretty laid back and almost had a couple scuffles there myself.

Then again, maybe he was just roleplaying...were you on one of the Vietnam fields?