When someone slices your bike tire, you might direct that anger in one of many unproductive directions, but Rob’s little rant about an experience he had in a not-so-white area of St. Louis gives us hope for a better world. No, we’re really being serious. It made our day, and also provoked a few thoughts about the proper way to respond to acts of hate. Something along the lines of being the bigger person.
Of the racial divide, he says, “White people bullshit made this mess and brown people bullshit isn’t gonna make it any better.”
Read his full rant after the jump.
From Robthurman.com:
Hey, you!
How about we take this to the next level?
Our newsletter is like a refreshing cocktail (or mocktail) of LGBTQ+ entertainment and pop culture, served up with a side of eye-candy.
Yes, you, Mister or Ms. Asshole.
Just wanted to say how much I don’t appreciate you taking a knife to my tire and inner tube outside Taqueria El Bronco down on Cherokee Street this afternoon. One hateful stab and that was it — and you fucked up my Sunday. Thanks for nothing, asshole.
Not that this does any fucking good, but the rage and disappointment I’m feeling right now isn’t doing me a whole lotta fucking good, either.
Neither is the flat tire I gotta pay for.
It’s real hard not to be angry with all y’all on Cherokee right now. Real fucking hard.
If your neighborhood is trying to make a come-back, trying to encourage folks to spend their time and their money in your stores, businesses and restaurants, I might suggest you pass the word that fucking with people’s shit isn’t exactly welcoming.
And if my gay, white ass ain’t welcome in your neighborhood – you coulda just said “Your kind’s not welcome here.”
But isn’t that what turned this town into the crime-infested, racially-redlined, poverty-laden, piece-of-shit-city that it is today?
White people bullshit made this mess and brown people bullshit isn’t gonna make it any better.
That’s just shit-slinging, as far as I’m concerned. And I did enough of that back on the farm.
So I guess that means I’ll be taking my white, gay ass back to Cherokee Street.
Tell me to my face to leave.
Cause this kind of passive-aggressive, juvenile, tearing-up-my-shit kind of bullshit just makes my radical ass even more determined.
More determined to not judge people based on their skin color.
More determined to not be suspicious of people simply because of their nationality.
More determined to not excuse “the poor and disenfranchised” for acting like assholes.
Coz’ there’s no excuse for hate.
Period.
Y’all messed with the wrong, crazy queen.
See you soon.
An Open Letter to Assholes [Rob Thurman]
