8-26-2007
In transit Korcula to Hvar
Why didn't i say anything? That's the thought that consumes me at the moment. No matter how far i go i am continually reminded of the issues that plague our society, and the ones that continually infiltrate my life...
As i stood there laughing in a moment of hysteria in which my travel companions and I joked about being lost in Karbuni. We had concocted these absurd stories about the reasons explaining off our unforeseen detour. Consequently we relayed our story of saving an ailing goat and returning it to the local village, after which it was only natural that they would throw a celebration in our honor....
Narrating our ridiculous story a man, that following this event became known as fat bastard, says to me, "Well given your Middle Eastern background it's no surprise that you wouldn't pass up an opportunity to carry a goat"...
I was taken aback...we all were...i couldn't connect the dots. What did this have to do with that??? Suddenly time stopped as realization hit me, my heart began to burn as the rage in my being resurfaced...a feeling that since the beginning of this adventure i had not even thought about...a feeling i hadn't even realized i was free of until it was there once more...It seems that fat bastard was inferring from his comment that since Arabs are stereotyped as being simple shepherds and farmers, and shepherds are further stereotyped to fornicate with animals, then it would only be rational to follow that i being an Arab myself would also be of a farming/Sheparding background and would naturally never pass up an opportunity to take advantage of an unsuspecting animal when it came across my path...
The moment to react, to respond was gone. He was no where even near me when i finally came to...and i here i sit boiling to a point of incoherence at the expense of an ignorant asshole, who finds racially and ethnically motivated jokes something of humor...
Even the pristine tricolored waters of the Adriatic, the waving leaves of silver and green of the well groomed olive trees, the scent of fresh grilled tuna, the company of friends, none of it can take me back out of the context that i was so unceremoniously thrust back into...
Perhaps i am meant to live the words i write. I wanted to encounter people with opposing or different views and i definitely have. But does that mean i have to subject myself to some ignorant man's rantings?
Why no words came, i don't know. All i know is that they didn't come...
1 comment:
Those words never came because deep down a part of you knew that the mind of that fat bastard was so simple and ignorant that no matter what words you said they would not have made sense to him. Ignorance and mindless racist remarks are the only things he has ever known, knows now and will ever know. Time is precious and you knew that trying to correct this fat bastard's sterotypical perception would only be a waste of that precious time.
In fact, I would pity that fat bastard. I pity that he knows nothing of the world and he never will. He will never realize what he's missing, and soon he will die having lived an entire life in ignorance.
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