Unfortunate
Today I was placed in a fucked-up situation. One of my non-trads was talking loudly to her friends about her neighbors' obnoxious dogs. She went on to loudly announce that she planned on soaking hotdogs in antifreeze and poisoning the dogs to death this weekend.
I am so utterly against this kind of thing. But I was caught with my pants down, I guess, having never rehearsed a response to something like this. I chose to just fade into the background, busily unpacking my bag, even though she had been sort of addressing me as well.
I feel like shit about it now. Why didn't I stand up for those dogs? What could I have done anyway? It's rural out here; every 10 minutes down the interstate and major highways there's a sizeable town, but inbetween...racism, dog-killers, litterers, and stupidity. It wasn't like this where I lived in Louisiana...but I've never lived in such a fucked-up rural/urban hybrid environment before.
Saturday, Tom and I took gloves and trashbags and cleaned up the end of our street, which was covered in litter. It seems that the city was never going to do it, so we just fucking did it. It took only 20 minutes and we filled 4 leaf-bag sized trashbags. What was most frustrating was the type of litter it was: I'd say 55% of it was brown or white paper bags of Arby's trash, or McDonald's trash, or Hardee's trash; 40% of it was cans and bottles; and 5% of it was miscellaneous bits of paper that could have been lost innocently, such as someone's Spanish class notes and a grocery bag of onions.
Twice I've seen a fat cow driving an older model brown Chevy Blazer pitch trash out of her window in this area: once, a can of Mountain Dew; another time, a bag of trash from Wendy's, lard-filled chocolate shake splashing all over the side of the road, fries flying.
The racism here is unbelievable, too. I didn't experience this sort of thing in Louisiana. Honestly, I didn't. But, like I said, I never lived in a rural/urban hybrid area before. Always urban. Just imagine the worst sorts of racist stories you can dream up--they still happen here. Here are some of the many that have happened to us so far: The biggot who went on and on about how ignorant the coloreds are out here in the woods, and how they talk funny; the church congregation that shunned a student of ours for bringing some black children to church; the nontrad who indignantly shouted, "He's not my peer!" when she was paired with a black boy for peer review. Just fucking name it. If we haven't seen it yet, we will, I bet. The white on black violence at the high school in the next town, interviews with Man-on-the-Street affirming, "Yep, there's lots of racism here. Always." in tones that you can't quite make out as positive or negative.
It makes you feel like you've got a job to do, you know? Even though the impulse is to just fucking run, let's move the hell out of here, I can't take it here!!! you think, No, wait. Maybe we should stay. For every one of us that stays is a person slowly and quietly working toward making things better. Still, a bad bad feeling.
Today I was placed in a fucked-up situation. One of my non-trads was talking loudly to her friends about her neighbors' obnoxious dogs. She went on to loudly announce that she planned on soaking hotdogs in antifreeze and poisoning the dogs to death this weekend.
I am so utterly against this kind of thing. But I was caught with my pants down, I guess, having never rehearsed a response to something like this. I chose to just fade into the background, busily unpacking my bag, even though she had been sort of addressing me as well.
I feel like shit about it now. Why didn't I stand up for those dogs? What could I have done anyway? It's rural out here; every 10 minutes down the interstate and major highways there's a sizeable town, but inbetween...racism, dog-killers, litterers, and stupidity. It wasn't like this where I lived in Louisiana...but I've never lived in such a fucked-up rural/urban hybrid environment before.
Saturday, Tom and I took gloves and trashbags and cleaned up the end of our street, which was covered in litter. It seems that the city was never going to do it, so we just fucking did it. It took only 20 minutes and we filled 4 leaf-bag sized trashbags. What was most frustrating was the type of litter it was: I'd say 55% of it was brown or white paper bags of Arby's trash, or McDonald's trash, or Hardee's trash; 40% of it was cans and bottles; and 5% of it was miscellaneous bits of paper that could have been lost innocently, such as someone's Spanish class notes and a grocery bag of onions.
Twice I've seen a fat cow driving an older model brown Chevy Blazer pitch trash out of her window in this area: once, a can of Mountain Dew; another time, a bag of trash from Wendy's, lard-filled chocolate shake splashing all over the side of the road, fries flying.
The racism here is unbelievable, too. I didn't experience this sort of thing in Louisiana. Honestly, I didn't. But, like I said, I never lived in a rural/urban hybrid area before. Always urban. Just imagine the worst sorts of racist stories you can dream up--they still happen here. Here are some of the many that have happened to us so far: The biggot who went on and on about how ignorant the coloreds are out here in the woods, and how they talk funny; the church congregation that shunned a student of ours for bringing some black children to church; the nontrad who indignantly shouted, "He's not my peer!" when she was paired with a black boy for peer review. Just fucking name it. If we haven't seen it yet, we will, I bet. The white on black violence at the high school in the next town, interviews with Man-on-the-Street affirming, "Yep, there's lots of racism here. Always." in tones that you can't quite make out as positive or negative.
It makes you feel like you've got a job to do, you know? Even though the impulse is to just fucking run, let's move the hell out of here, I can't take it here!!! you think, No, wait. Maybe we should stay. For every one of us that stays is a person slowly and quietly working toward making things better. Still, a bad bad feeling.
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