Just a few posts ago, I was writing about how underused I was. How do I go from underused to stretched thin in just a few posts? I had the day off work today b/c of Columbus Day, which was splendid. This gave me time to work on the reunion. It is this Saturday. I did rope in two people to help me decorate and one person is making last minute phone calls. Thanks goodness for that, b/c after my phone call yesterday, I was infuriated.
I really don't think a lot of things make me mad. I can be slightly perturbed or annoyed, but mad, I can name the times in the last year I've reached that point. Infuriated is another thing altogether. Mad, or anger, for me, involves being out of control of your emotions. You are yelling and you can't help it. You want to throw something. You really think hitting something might make you feel better.
Infuriating is just a complete intolerance and unaccepting attitude toward something. Knowing that is the way of the world, but not liking it. So, as a result of this phone call, I was infuriated.
I was calling a classmate to see if he was going to come to the reunion. I had personally gotten the contact details for this classmate when I ran into him at a store a few months back. He was the one who approached me and asked me about the reunion. He told me all about his family, immediate and extended, and the tragedies and happy days of the last ten years. When I took his info, he said, "I'll let my wife know you'll be calling" and kind of laughed, explaining she'd want to know why a random woman was calling him.
I hadn't received an RSVP from him, and I knew he was interested, so I called him to follow up. I also wanted to know if there was a particular reason that might keep him from attending, such as money, and tell him not to worry about it. He could pay whenever, or just come. The whole point of this affair is that everyone should be able to attend.
So I called and his wife answered. I thought of the exchange earlier about his wife being concerned about another woman, and I also didn't want her to think I was some kind of bill collector or telemarketer, so I just said, "Hi, this is Sabrina from the high school, can I speak to B?" She dropped the phone on the floor. I could hear it hit the hard floor and bounce. Then, she does it - she mocks my voice to B letting him know he has a phone call. If you haven't guessed this already, I am white. I get INFURIATED when someone outside my race makes fun of my voice/accent. This black woman was making fun of me by doing her "white voice" and laughing at me. She's laughing at me for being white? For speaking properly? What exactly? For not knowing who I am? For not living in the projects? WHAT???
B gets on the phone and I just ask if he's coming to the reunion, he says, no, he won't be able to make it. Okay, bye. I'm not exactly in the mood for chit chat at that point since I am envisioning his wife in the next room laughing, B being completely uncomfortable with the situation and trying to shield me from his wife while not pissing her off. Yes - okay, bye was all I could say.
Now I'm not about to make the argument that what goes for whites should go for african americans, too, I'm not that naive. I know it's different. There is just something about this particular behavior that infuriates me. It's happened before when I was working in retail and it was so blatant and so rude and so racially dividing I was appalled. Here I am trying to be as nice as I possibly can only to get slapped in the face for it. Yes I am white and I do talk really white. I have a high pitched voice and I use the word "like" a lot. I am what I am, and I think it is far more damaging to change my tone of speech depending on with whom I'm speaking. That would mean that I would have to be mindful of the race and socio economic status of the person I'm interacting with. Then what I am going to do? Start speaking in a different tone, using different slang? Umm, I don't think so, that would be, at best, legitimately hilarious, at worst, racist. (Note, the song, "Pretty Fly for a White Guy")
Should I be like the oblivious heads of state and corporation and laugh it off while I count my money? Shaking my head at those poor, poor people? Umm, no, to that, too. Not only am I not a rich white man running a Fortune 500 company, I live down the street from the projects, in the same zip code, schools, stores. Am I poor? No. Am I rich? Nope. Am I a yuppy? Umm, no. I work in social services in one of the highest crime areas in the United States. Do I see myself as different from my classmates' wife? No, I don't. I didn't when I picked up the phone to call her and when she did her "impersonation" it was a clear statement of "you're different from me" and I had only spoken one sentence.
I am thankful for my life and my blessings, and I honestly pray in thanks every day. I wouldn't trade it for the world. Maybe it's naive to think that while we are all different, I expected to be considered a peer by my classmate. I have traveled around the world and have embraced this place as my home and these classmates as my friends, and know that no matter where I may go in the world, these people share a part of my history that no one else does. To have that taken away in one snide phone call is disheartening at best, infuriating, at worst.
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