Kumbaya, Bitches
Don’t bitch with me, fuck.
March 11, 2017
I have not yet felt endangered while walking with the sign — or, since I’m a woman, no more endangered than usual. People disagree with me, usually in passing, muttering as they walk by:
“Get a job.”
“Why don’t you move to Saudi Arabia.”
“Trump rules!”
“Get over it already.”
“Hillary was worse.”
But nobody has been aggressive in any way. They’ve been provocative, sneering, patronizing, and unpleasant, but not physically aggressive. In fact, the two most aggro encounters I’ve had so far have been with women.
- Walking up Lafayette by Great Jones. I’m on the south corner, waiting to cross, and this couple is on the north corner. They’re in their late 50s or early 60s, expensively dressed, and when she sees me across the street, she goes, “No! Don’t you dare!” and lunges in my direction. Her husband catches her arm before she launches into traffic.
I am singing so gaily. I sing so much louder and more gaily when I know I’m singing to someone who’s not already in the choir. “Kumbaya, he’s in bed with Russia, kumbaya! Kumbaya, he’s in violation of the Emoluments clause, kumbaya!”
We pass each other as we cross and they’re both yelling at me, and she’s SNARLING, but hubs has her by the arm, and now other people are looking, and I smile bigger and sing louder. “Kumbaya, he’s Putin’s little bitch, kumbaya!” She’s screeching, he’s saying something sarcastic about Hillary and I can’t hear them at all. Then they’re gone.
- Standing in Union Square with the sign in mid-February. Trying not to annoy the chess players to the south of me or the people at the sparse farmer’s market to the north of me. In February I usually stand there for an hour at a time, until my hands get too cold, then I go to my office or home.
A woman in her late fifties who could be Future Me — jeans, army jacket, hair in a ponytail — stops, crosses her arms, and gives me this deadpan “bitch please” look. She points to “#IMPEACH” on my sign and demands, “Who would you rather have. Who would you rather have.”
“Anybody,” I say pleasantly. “Pretty much anybody else in the world.”
“Who, though. Who. Pence?”
I am willing to settle for Pence in the short term, yes. But this isn’t about my opinions, it’s about listening to the people who want to talk, so I say, “Who would you rather have?”
“You didn’t answer my question.”
See, now, here in March, I don’t take that shit anymore. If someone wants to talk, but they’re obnoxious, I say, “Okay, thanks,” and I walk away. You have 30 seconds or until you state that you actively devalue others’ lives. But I wasn’t walking away as fast in February.
“Are you a teacher?” I ask. “You’re extremely pedantic.”
She keeps at me, and I keep parrying. She’s being really wearisome, ranting about fake news, peppering me with questions. Then she finally gets down to the heart of it. “My daughter wanted Hillary. She has no idea what’s going on. She lives in a fact free silo. You think Hillary wasn’t ten times worse?”
Okay. What this woman wants is to argue with her daughter. If she could be Future Me, I could be Present Daughter. Well, fuck that. My own racist paranoid mom is dead, thank God. The only saving grace about this Trump situation is that she’s not here to argue about it with me. Thus, I am out.
“I don’t think we need to continue this conversation,” I tell the woman, who, it turns out, is not at all Future Me. “Thanks.”
(To read Kumbaya, Motherfucker in chronological order, click here.)