Frankfort Fall Festival: Jackass Interlude

Walking around with Liz through the booths, we spent a good hour plus checking out the local arts and crafts. For the most part, nothing really caught my eye… although Liz did purchase some soap, and we tried a few different veggie dips along the way.

Here’s the thing that got me all riled up, and took me a while to shake off: as we were walking through one of the sections, I saw this outline of a kid waving and heard him say Hey, Daniel-san!. I took a step or two before things registered, turned around, and walked up the kid.

“What did you say?” I asked, putting my hand up to my ear. “I don’t think I heard you.”

He looked at me and said “I didn’t say anything.”

I kept on walking up to him, and said “I though I heard you say something.”

He jutted his chin out, and stepped up to me, and said “I didn’t say anything.”

I held his eyes for a second, and then just turned away.

I’m upset for a variety of reasons. First, I’m pissed that I rose to the bait. Nevermind the fact that he got the slur all wrong. Technically, he should have yelled out Hey, Mr. Miagi, cause you know… I’m the asian guy, and I’m also the older guy. Referring to me as Ralph Macchio’s character is just off the mark.

Note to all the teenagers: if you’re gonna use derogatory language… for god’s sake, get the shit right before you say it, huh? Is that too much to ask?

Honestly, I’m pissed I took the bait. I should have just ignore the kid and walked away. He really was just a kid, probably 15 or 16, with an awful caterpillar of a moustache across his upper lip.

The second part? I’m mad I didn’t escalate things more. When I got in his face, the kid didn’t back down at all… which was pretty ballsy, I have to admit. But it made me want to beat the crap out of him.

The older I get, the less tolerance I seem to have for this kind of racial stuff. I’ve received and dealt with it for most of my life, but only recently have I gotten fed up with simply accepting it. There is the rational side of my brain that says “it’s only words, spoken in ignorance – ignore it.” Then there’s the others side of my brain that says “teach this kid that actions have consequences.”

Ultimately, I’m glad I walked away. It’s probably best that I didn’t start a fight at Fall Festival, especially with somebody half my age. Voicing the fact that I wasn’t going to tolerate crap from this kid is about the best I could hope for. Being older, I guess the prudent thing to do is just to walk away from things like this. But still – the fact that the kid didn’t budge at all is what bugs me. When he stuck his chin up to talk back to me, I wanted to help him stick it back down.

I met up with Liz shortly after (who was walking ahead, and missed the whole thing). I was pretty riled up, and it took me a good while to finally shake it all off.