I really wanted to talk about Orientation today, or July 4th, but it turns out I’ll be talking about racism. Honestly, I never really cared for the topic. People would say an Asian joke, look at me and ask me if that’s racist, and I always responded “No, I don’t care.” I’ve never met a truly “racist” person. Plenty who sterotype, or maybe even doesn’t like a certain race, but never someone who actively hates a race. I’ve visited a large amount of countries, states and cities, and never have I once experienced something like this.

I now realize it’s an understatement to say that I grew up in a sheltered environment. Greenwich, Connecticut is probably the most guarded place around. Of course there’s a good deal of diversity, but no one really hates someone else just because of race, and many sterotypes are broken there, because we all tend to be of the same (higher class) demographic. We took loads of surveys at orientation, and each always had a question about diversity, like “Will you make friends of a different race?“, “Do you think you’ll get along with minorities?“. Orientation went great, but what I’m going to talk about is Saturday evening/Sunday morning in Long Island, New York.

(FEEL FREE TO SKIP THIS PARAGRAPH, IT’S JUST BACKGROUND INFORMATION) I had invited a couple of my buddies to hang out during July 4th at my uncle’s place in Long Island. I figured we could get away from home for a weekend and just spend the days relaxing. swimming, playing soccer, socializing with people we’d most likely not interact with, eating plenty of food that was barbequed, and sleeping… Anyways, it’s pretty late out, probably near midnight and we decide that a Wendy’s run is in order. We really wanted those 99 cent sandwiches, and frosties. When we get there, the fast food restaurant had already closed, but the pick up window was open, we had gotten there via 5 minute walk so we decided, just to go to McDonald’s across the street. We ate there, but returned to the Wendy’s in an effort to use the pick up window and still get frosties. We weren’t served since apparently it’s required to have a car, so we started walking away.

(THIS STORY IS CENSORED, I TOOK OUT ALL THE REALLY BAD WORDS) Now I take full responsibility for the following events. These guys in a beaten up Buick, drive up to the pick up window and yell to one of my friends, “You in the orange shirt, you’re gay! Yeah, I’m talking about you faggot!” Evidently, they beleived that because my friend happened to be wearing an expensive orange polo, he’s gay. Now, 4 years ago I would have let it go and run away, but nowadays I won’t let anyone get away with that, nor would I back down. I turned around and yelled back, telling them to basically shut up and say that to our faces. Of course, there would be no story if they didn’t, they got out of the car and the 4 of them were clearly bigger than the 3 of us. My friend in the orange shirt, was the smartest and quickly speed-walked away heading back to the house. I, being the thick headed idiot I am, turned around to confront them, while slowly walking backwards to the down the street. They reached us and we were still both yelling at each other. Mainly it was me versus the smallest one of them.

During one of “taunts” I stuttered on a word, and the guy took his chance. “Hey, you speak American, Chinese boy?” and I classicly responded with, “Yes, I speak English.” He came back with, “But we’re in America right now.” At this point I had turned around and started walking away, when 2 of them cut me off. My third friend could have walked away too, but he stayed to help me. 1 of the guys behind me punched my in the ear, and the other guy behind me threw one into the back of my neck. I’m surprised I took both hits without falling or even yell in pain, the only reaction I had to it was that my hat had fallen off. My friend leaned over to pick up my hat, and as he was getting up one of the guys yelled “Here’s my Jackie Chan kick,” and proceeded to kick him in the “gentleman’s area.” Every guy knows how much it hurts. I’m proud to say that he took the surprise kick, just grunted, stood up, and stared right back at them. 2 of them had already run away since their recent actions had acquired attention and some people were honking there horns. The kicker ran away quickly, and the last one said, “You ain’t no Bruce Lee, you can’t fight,” and he walked away too. They called us more names and taunted us more, and I still couldn’t let it go. I don’t know why, but I refuse to get pushed around even in a bad situation like this. I continued to yell back, refusing to recognize their “strength,” they had attacked us and ran away before we could do anything? One of them came back from their car, and we did one of those face to face, pissed off, pre-fight stares while yelling at each other. His gang called him back, he faked a punch, and ran away.

In retrospect, we decided that while they originally were aiming for my friend in the orange shirt, because they thought he was the one talking back to them, when they saw me, they instantly targetted me because of my race. It’s severely disappointing that people still act this way. My friend who stayed with me earned a great deal of respect since he could have left me there. I’ve already told the story to multiple audiences, and I’ve gotten mixed responses.
1. Impressed that we took these hits, and didn’t fight back.
2. Blame the entire event on me, for provoking/instigating the entire event.
3. Blame the other group, and just hope we’re okay.
4. Think we’re lucky that they didn’t have weapons of any sort (which we are).
5. Glad that we stood our ground, and didn’t let them walk all over us.

Oh, did I mention they actually asked for our money too. I told them we’re not giving them our money, and they gave up on it. They obviously weren’t very experienced muggers. We’re lucky that we walked away from it without any injuries, and perhaps in the future I should be more careful. That’s my story of the July 4th weekend, I’m an American, always considered myself one, more so than those guys ever will be, and proud of it. I’m just frustrated that there are still some people in our nation that act like this…

This entry was posted on Monday, July 6th, 2009 at 10:18 am and is filed under Intern's Corner. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can leave a response, or trackback from your own site.