“Get out of here, faggot!” The insult hardly shocked me. It wasn’t the first time I’d heard it, and I knew it wouldn’t be the last. Which isn’t to imply that the verbal assault didn’t sting. As any gay person will tell you, when hurled abusively, the word always bites at self-confidence. But that’s not what this post is about.
Here’s what it’s about:
A couple of years ago, I was protesting horse-drawn carriages in New York’s Central Park. (The city’s mayor recently introduced a bill to ban them.) Part of a small group of individuals, I calmly carried a sign urging the public not to support this cruel industry. I wasn’t yelling at anyone; I wasn’t yelling at all. I was, however, ensuring that those waiting on line for a ride saw the sign.
A few potential patrons stopped me to ask questions. Some I convinced to leave the queue; others, not so much. Regardless, we were all civilized folk about the whole matter.
Well, not all.
A carriage driver had been watching me with disdain and explaining to everyone what a crazy, stupid, loser I was. I ignored him because engaging with him would’ve been crazy and stupid and a losing proposition.
My resolve to disregard him seemed to fuel his anger, spurring him to chuck other insults at me—at which point the crazy, stupid loser should’ve been obvious.
Then he called my friend a nigger.
Well, you can imagine what happened next! Everyone on line was shocked and infuriated by the driver’s obvious racist rant. Some calmly explained that they were offended. Some angrily told him off. Either way, many people stood up for my black friend.
You can imagine all that because you, too, would stand up against such prejudice, right?
None of that actually happened, though. There was no black friend; there was no N-word. Instead, there was, “Get out of here, faggot!” and “Why don’t you take your faggot ass home?” and…oh, you know, other equally clever suggestions.
Well, you can imagine what happened next! Everyone on line was shocked and infuriated by the driver’s obvious homophobic rant. Some calmly explained that that were offended. Some angrily told him off. Either way, many people stood up for me.
None of that actually happened, either—that is, no one said a word. Not. One. Word. At least 30 people, many with children, watched idly while the driver berated me with homophobic slurs.
The moral of the story should be plain. Bigotry is bigotry is bigotry. The combined silence of all the observers was louder than anything the driver screamed. Yet it would’ve taken a single voice to drown him out.
Granted, this happened right as the push for legalizing gay marriage started gaining momentum. A lot of progress has been made on the LGBT front since this incident, with 35 states now approving gay marriage, up from only 12 in 2012, and over half of Americans saying they favor legal recognition of same-sex marriage.
Even so, I wonder if my experience would be any different today. It’s easy to anonymously answer one way in a public-opinion survey, but in the light of day, would there be anyone who would speak up? Would you?
