The Wife Beater

Reality has a way of biting you in the butt when you least expect it.

Last week, I was waiting quietly in the car as my husband went to get some halibut at our local fish store. I was parked in the handicap spot, right next to the entrance, because Michael is recently disabled.

A prematurely wizened guy, filled with tics, misfiring energy, and wearing a “wife beater” that displayed his many tattoos, held the door open for Michael as he was fumbling with his bag and cane. Michael thanked him profusely. The guy, in a smoker’s ravaged voice, said, “Of course — always glad to help a fellow American.”

A gratuitous comment, I thought. Aren’t we expected to extend such courtesy to any person in need? But, okay, whatever rationale it takes to behave as a good human being in a small community like ours, I’ll take.

Then came the zinger, the butt chomp.

Mr. Wife Beater went on to add, “There ain’t many of us left.”

Michael has blue eyes and pink skin, bringing him within the fold of acceptable Americans, I guess, because the guy certainly wasn’t talking about the lack of “Americans” generally — what, with the Hamptons swelling to the gills with people as we careen into summer.

And I am certain he wouldn’t have included me, a fourth-to-11th-generation American, depending on how you count, and the vagaries of Ancestor DNA trees. My skin’s dark, my hair a little crispy, my pronounced nose and high cheeks reflect the vestiges of my Native, American, Iberian and African ancestors.

I wonder if the guy would have held the door open for me if I had a cane? Even if he did, what sentiments would have been masked behind that courtesy?

I have no way of knowing. So what I’m left with is speculation as to what was behind Mr. Wife Beater’s thought process, and what it triggered in me.

First is the reminder that micro-aggressions are real. It’s a term I’ve shied away from, because it implies oversensitivity, the kind of thing that’s become fashionable to call “woke.”

When you confront a micro-aggression as a person of color — a person who gets judged by the color of their skin and not the content of their character, as Dr. Martin Luther King Jr. famously said — you are left hanging in a state of doubt-filled paralysis, because it’s usually veiled. Here, because Mr. Wife Beater thought he was speaking to another “white” person (Michael is Jewish), the veil was lifted — I could eavesdrop and hear what’s usually not spoken to my face.

Despite the obviousness of the aggression, I went through my usual analysis in these circumstances. Was that indeed an offensive statement? If so, was it said out of ignorance, but with good intentions? Do I correct the perpetrator and call attention to the offense, or let it slide?

This kind of fractal calculation takes place in milliseconds, because you know that if you challenge it, the other person will say aloud, or think internally, “What the heck are you talking about?” And they are right — I usually can’t be certain of what I think I’ve perceived: Was it well-meaning but misguided? Simply impolite? Or an intentional offense, disguised by a forced smile?

My judgment of such an offense, determining if the statement was thoughtful and not merely reactionary, is contextual. For example, someone asking me at a cocktail party, “Where are you from?” can get a stony “New York, and, before that, California” when I sense that the implication is that, given my name and appearance, I am presumptively an immigrant and, by extension, not fully American.

Or, if I sense the questioner is sincere, I’ll extend the courtesy of explaining my lineage: “My mother was Puerto Rican and my father Mexican American. Actually, Hispano from New Mexico/Colorado, where they’ve been since 1600.”

Context with Mr. Wife Beater meant everything. It’s why I’ve gone to such lengths above to describe him in pejorative, value-ladened terms. He was dressed the part of someone lost in his ignorance, disdain and hate.

But I generally try to look beyond superficial assumptions based on appearances. I’ve met enough people who break stereotypes. If I didn’t try to move beyond initial perceptions, I’d be committing the same offending sin.

My presumptive posture of inclusiveness is why I gave the guy the benefit of the doubt, with his first, “Always glad to help a fellow American.” I believe in dialogue and grace. But the “There ain’t many of us left” provided all the context I needed.

My mind ran to “replacement theory” — the theory floating among white supremacists that immigrants from the global south are coming into to the U.S. and Western European countries to replace the white population.

The extreme right in the United States picked it up from the European right, until it is now an electoral issue, with Republicans saying that Democrats were facilitating an influx of Central and South American immigrants in order to fill their voting rolls. Never mind that, lately, some Latinos are turning Republican, a portion even MAGA (among them, many of my extended family).

Behind replacement theory lies white supremacy, the belief that white means a superior Western European culture that is responsible for all of civilization’s advancements. Excuse me, but that conveniently forgets the wealth of civilizations that formed the foundations of Western civilizations: From our African primate mother, Lucy, came a lineage that led to Egyptians, Babylonians, Sumerians, not to mention the competing sophistication of advanced Chinese, Aztecs and Incan cultures. Nope, Moorish mathematicians be damned, the white folk did it on their own — the immaculate conception of loutish racism.

Forgive my riffing here, but this is where the parochial insult of a micro-aggression leads — to bristly reflexes. My reaction tends to be limited to analysis and thought. For many others, this kind of brutish attempt at superiority can lead to resentment, separation and distrust — a toxic roux for a pluralistic society that currently finds itself on the brink of the ugly quagmire of violence.

So when people talk in disparaging terms about “woke” (a term and philosophy that I think has its limits), I say, “Damn straight, I’m woke, because you just slapped me out of complacency. You, Mr. Wife Beater, lifted the veil. I could see the way you privileged someone you presumed to be white — Michael — when you thought no one else was looking.

“And in this Trumpian world, you feel entitled to such miscreant behavior. Well, guess what? I was listening, and I can get you with my pen. Keep it up and others may come after you with their sword.”