I don't 'ave nofing against French people, but...
When people start their sentences with "I don't have anything against gays, but..." warning signals go off immediately to prepare me for the offensive thing they are about to say. The thing is, what they say next is usually totally inoffensive and maybe even something I would agree with, but by starting the sentence that way, they have made it insulting.
On our recent trip to Portugal, we stayed at a little B&B run by a French couple, Muriel and Andre. They were both somewhere in their late 30s, he of some North African descent (I'm guessing), she blond and impossibly slim and beautiful (she probably would still be impossibly slim and beautiful were she 13 weeks pregnant, so we hated her. And when i say we, I mean me). They, especially Andre, with whom we interacted the most, were incredibly friendly. Incredibly.
At some point, there arrived a "problem guest". Now to start off with, we had a weird interaction with him, where he demonstrated himself to be completely inconsiderate and oblivious to the fact that there might be other people who exist in the world. He parked his car at the exit of the parking area so that so one else could get in or out. Despite the fact that I walked past him to get to the parking lot (and he stood in the middle of the path with his hand on his hip, blocking the path, not moving an inch), he did not offer to move his car or anything like that. So Nico tried to maneuver the car around his, but to no avail. Even during this experience, he didn't budge. Finally, I walked back down the path to the guy (who was talking to a group of people) and asked, as sweetly as possible, "Is that anyone's car parked on the hill?" And his reponse was, "Oh, yeah, I thought we were the first to leave." Now, this cannot possibly be true. Number one, because I WALKED PAST HIM TO GET TO THE PARKING LOT and he could see us from where he was standing as we tried to move past him. And, number two, it was 10:30 in the LATE morning. If you're leaving at the crack of dawn, you can maybe assume that you will be the first to leave. But not at 10:30 and not when YOU SEE SOMEONE ELSE TRYING TO LEAVE.
Okay, so that was our interaction with him. The next morning, as we were eating breakfast in the garden, we hear a commotion coming from the inside dining room. Screaming and shouting at each other are Andre and this guy. The guy is saying," I am the customer and i have the right..." and Andre is saying, "Yes, and I have the right to manage this place." More screaming and shouting. A few minutes later, Andre comes by and apologizes to us about the shouting. He hates shouting, but this guy, he says, is nuts. And he can't manage someone who is so nuts. Then he says, "You know I 'ave nofing against gays, enh? But this guy is so exuberant and he's completely nuts."
Now, besides the fact that it's completely unprofessional for Andre to be bitching to us about another guest, calling him nuts, what the hell does his being nuts have to do with him being gay? Here's what Andre was saying in code, "Normally I can pretend like I have no problem with gay people, but then they behave badly and prove themselves to be the contemptable creatures they really are."
I wonder how Andre would feel if he heard the same sentence with a racial group at the beginning instead?
And where does exuberant come into it at all?
On our recent trip to Portugal, we stayed at a little B&B run by a French couple, Muriel and Andre. They were both somewhere in their late 30s, he of some North African descent (I'm guessing), she blond and impossibly slim and beautiful (she probably would still be impossibly slim and beautiful were she 13 weeks pregnant, so we hated her. And when i say we, I mean me). They, especially Andre, with whom we interacted the most, were incredibly friendly. Incredibly.
At some point, there arrived a "problem guest". Now to start off with, we had a weird interaction with him, where he demonstrated himself to be completely inconsiderate and oblivious to the fact that there might be other people who exist in the world. He parked his car at the exit of the parking area so that so one else could get in or out. Despite the fact that I walked past him to get to the parking lot (and he stood in the middle of the path with his hand on his hip, blocking the path, not moving an inch), he did not offer to move his car or anything like that. So Nico tried to maneuver the car around his, but to no avail. Even during this experience, he didn't budge. Finally, I walked back down the path to the guy (who was talking to a group of people) and asked, as sweetly as possible, "Is that anyone's car parked on the hill?" And his reponse was, "Oh, yeah, I thought we were the first to leave." Now, this cannot possibly be true. Number one, because I WALKED PAST HIM TO GET TO THE PARKING LOT and he could see us from where he was standing as we tried to move past him. And, number two, it was 10:30 in the LATE morning. If you're leaving at the crack of dawn, you can maybe assume that you will be the first to leave. But not at 10:30 and not when YOU SEE SOMEONE ELSE TRYING TO LEAVE.
Okay, so that was our interaction with him. The next morning, as we were eating breakfast in the garden, we hear a commotion coming from the inside dining room. Screaming and shouting at each other are Andre and this guy. The guy is saying," I am the customer and i have the right..." and Andre is saying, "Yes, and I have the right to manage this place." More screaming and shouting. A few minutes later, Andre comes by and apologizes to us about the shouting. He hates shouting, but this guy, he says, is nuts. And he can't manage someone who is so nuts. Then he says, "You know I 'ave nofing against gays, enh? But this guy is so exuberant and he's completely nuts."
Now, besides the fact that it's completely unprofessional for Andre to be bitching to us about another guest, calling him nuts, what the hell does his being nuts have to do with him being gay? Here's what Andre was saying in code, "Normally I can pretend like I have no problem with gay people, but then they behave badly and prove themselves to be the contemptable creatures they really are."
I wonder how Andre would feel if he heard the same sentence with a racial group at the beginning instead?
And where does exuberant come into it at all?
posted by Brooklyn Blade at
Monday, June 19, 2006
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1 comments
