Profanity warning.
No hyperbole. No exaggerations. I'm still a bit stunned by it all, myself, but I needed to compose my thoughts and I needed to document the whole ordeal. I figured this place would be sufficient and I can get a bunch of people telling me I'm cool while a bunch more tell me I'm crazy for putting myself in a situation like that.
That way I can decide over time which to believe.
No, strike that. Ultimately I know exactly what I'll think of myself -- it's just another example of a personality trait -- I don't back down from blatant injustice. I just hate it. So I'll think I'm about the same as usual. I could get into my life story and you'd understand the whole thing better but that's not what this thread about so let me get back to the point.
I don't drive. I mean, I drive, but I don't have a car. So when I need groceries I hop on the old bicycle (it's lime green and attracts a lot of attention; think of it as a sports car for pedestrians) and that's exactly what I did this morning. On the way back, I swung by a family-style restaurant called Biff Burger (you may have heard of it; I think it has multiple locations) for some sweet tea. I was very thirsty and what with my whole tea kick lately I figured what the heck.
I decide to sit down so I can enjoy a refill. I'm surrounded by two small groups. One group is a black family. A man, a woman and a child. The child, by the way, is no older than ten. The other group is two older white men. One of them is wearing the uniform of the restaurant.
The two older men start off by talking about harmless diversions. The Discovery Channel, something about a rifle (damned if I had any idea what the man was saying)... then they move to the often-proposed light rail system for the state of Florida and how 'stupid' it is and how 'they'd just have Mexicans build it anyway so there wouldn't even be any jobs made from it'. This offends me but I hold my tongue. I'm just stopping by for sweet tea. I'm in a place called Biff Burger; no offense to anyone intended, and I'm sure there are a great many wonderful regulars there, but I should expect this from a few patrons.
Then it gets my blood boiling. The men aren't content to leave things there. They start talking about 'self-righteous [censored; starts with an 'n'] trying to get more than they deserve', saying 'if you give them [censored] an inch, they ask for the whole [censored] country' and 'that [censored] president should go back to cotton-picking'. All of this is occurring two tables away from a black family and their fucking child. Yeah, I'm going to censor them but not me. Because fuck them.
Ahem. Excuse me.
I couldn't stand it. This is the point where a lot of people would walk away. This is the point where part of me was begging myself to just walk away. But I shoved that part of me in a dark chasm where it belongs, because dammit, that was not right. I got up, pointed at the two bastards and gave them a piece of my mind.
I told them if they wanted to continue with their stone-age opinions they were welcome to do so within the comfort of their homes and when surrounded by none but those who agreed with them, like at a bar in Downtown Tampa or on Fox News. But I was not going to take it, not with that kid sitting there and that family growing increasingly uncomfortable. Oh yeah, they definitely were; the looks on their faces told me everything I needed to know about that one.
So the guy wearing the restaurant uniform stood up and pointed back at me threateningly, telling me to mind my damn business and get the hell out of his restaurant. It isn't his restaurant, mind, or I'd probably have just walked at that point so I could deliver the whole thing to a news agency. He's a dishwasher, as I learned shortly. Not yet, though. No, I shoved him full-force down onto the floor.
To say the least, this raised the stakes quite a bit. In that instant I became immediately aware of what I'd done; what kind of trouble I'd just committed myself to. I could even see the glean in his eyes as he stood back up. There was a chance I'd spend a bit of time behind bars for this. That's somewhere I've never been and I don't intend to go, but in that instant I knew it might have been on the agenda. But I really didn't care. I was so royally pissed that if he'd gotten up and hit me back, I might not have stopped hitting him for a long while.
The whole restaurant was, needless to say, paying attention at this point. The manager quickly raced toward the scene and demanded an explanation, so I let the employee give his side of the story and I remained quiet. Now it was pretty much up to the integrity and beliefs of the other customers. If they thought what I did was noble they'd defend me. If they thought otherwise I might not have a case. Either way, the employee could obviously still press charges. I struck first. Hell, I struck and he didn't. That was pretty solid.
Thankfully, as you can probably tell by my sitting here and typing this all up, several people -- including the black mother -- defended me. I told the manager straight-up what I'd done in more of a reiteration of what others stated than anything else, and I told him I'd do it again. The employee was swiftly fired and the manager told me I might want to leave in case anyone decided to go after me over the whole thing.
You know, after typing it all up I'm not having a hard time coming to terms with anything anymore. I feel like I did the right thing. Violence might not be the answer but damn, did I feel like shoving that man and damn, did it feel good. I'm sorry to have failed you, Gandhi, but damn, did it feel good.
