idiot lines

so really, im a little bit angry right now.

that is a lie. i am seriously angry right now. and i want to go home. ok not really, i dont actually want to go home. but i am angry. and, just for this next hour tonight, i really wish i was back in california.

every monday, we go to a bar. it's called the long hop. it's an american bar, and on monday nights they do american music trivia contests. we discovered it around the 3rd week here, and we've gone almost every monday since, even with class at 930am the next day. because it's fun, and it's awesome, and we can hear music we like and buy overpriced drinks and have fun.

so tonight we made our way over there- mind you, it's a 40 minute trip there because there is no direct metro line, so we have to transfer twice. and we walk up, 5 of us, and we're laughing and talking to each other, and the bouncer stops us. this is not A bouncer, it is THE bouncer. he is there every week, we say hi every week, he knows us, and we know him well enough to know his name is buddy, or teddy, or something. pretty sure it's buddy. anyway. he knows we're there every week, and he knows we're american.

and tonight, he didn't let us in. which, i mean, it's a bar, that's not something im ready to get offended by, but as we walked up, the people at the table next to him made some disdainful comment about the "american girls", and he laughed and nodded, and then refused to let us in the bar. let 3 guys walk past us into the bar. let another girl walk past us into the bar. still wont let us in. so we leave, we walk away, and watch him laughing with the other people on the patio. and we just stood there, around the corner, without any idea what to say or do.

we were furious. i was furious. it makes me angry. i dont know that i've ever dealt with something like this on this level before. i mean to some extent i am constantly looked down upon here by people who can't stand to look at an american girl wearing colors, carrying a giraffe, and trying to practice her french. luckily, i am used to being looked down upon. maybe it was all those years of everyone thinking i was dumb. or maybe it's just all the practice i get from being a girl. but things like that dont even bother me. i mean it sounds silly, but i've never lived without the semi-constant harassment and objectification, not to mention danger of personal safety, that comes with being female. in the context of my life, that barely even gets me angry anymore. (which, byt the way, is awful). but i have never felt as if i was being discriminated against in this particular way. and it hit an interesting chord. i was really, really, really angry.

and i know it's ridiculous for me to be angry about it, because i know people deal with that kind of stuff every day on a way bigger scale than i may ever have to. but i am angry about it. and i think i should be angry about it. because what those people on that patio were doing, i can't think of a single time i have ever, ever ever done that. to anyone. and i dont understand it, maybe i never will, but please tell me, buddy, what gives you the right to look down on me because im not you? i've never understood it. i remember in high school, dr. burns took almost an entire class period trying to explain racism to me. he spent another trying to explain sexism to me. and every time, i just sat there deer-in-headlights, trying to understand, and feeling like an idiot. but where does it come from? i kept asking. the sense of entitlement, the supreme arrogance that is required in order to declare yourself superior to another, WHERE DOES IT COME FROM? and no one had an answer for me. i finally resigned myself to a total lack of understanding of the concept.

so i want to go home. and it's so selfish. because i know it's not about france, and it's not french people. americans are experts at declaring ourselves to be exceptional, above all others. i mean, look at the way we treat mexican immigrants. look at the way we treat even fellow americans whose families came from different places a long time ago. it's awful, it's so, so awful. and it really depresses me how good we are at deciding that other people aren't quite as important of people as we are. and im angry at those people tonight, and im angry at rude people in general, and im angry at myself because really, all i want to do is go home, where my racial/national/whatever group (i dont think american is a race, haha... even if i believed in races in the first place) is in the power position, so that i dont have to deal with things like this anymore. and that's selfish, and it's stupid, but it's true. that's what i want. and i hope (but actually i know) that tomorrow i will be less angry, and i wont want to leave, and i'll love paris again. because this isn't about americans, and it isn't about french people, it's about idiot lines in the sand.

just for the record, we decided that buddy's karma would eventually catch up to him (even if his only punishment was having to be buddy forever, that would be punishment enough) and we went and got mcdonalds. we weren't even hungry. but we waited in a 25 minute outdoor line for mcdonalds, because on principle, i wanted a cheeseburger and a coke tonight. funny how those things work.