Gay is the New Black

I saw in my peripheral vision something fly across the classroom, hit the trash can, and knock it over, spilling trash across the floor. "Damn it," I thought mid-lecture, "why do they always have to do that shit? When will they freaking grow up?" I was lucky I didn't say that sentence out loud because that would've made twice in two weeks I would have cursed in class.

The first time happened last Monday when two 18 year olds were playing grab ass- as in slapping at each other, calling each other names, and trying to take each other's pens. They were doing this as I was giving directions on appropriate behavior in an assembly - the one we were about to attend. My actual words were, as I pointed in the air, at their behavior, "OK, that shit can't happen. It has to stop. NOW." Immediately they tried to escalate the situation by saying, "You can't say that to us. You don't have the right and we weren't doing anything wrong." What they don't know is they got the nice version of what I really wanted to say which was far more brutal and inappropriate. But I backed down. They were right. I shouldn't have cursed. But I was right, too. They shouldn't have taken me to that level of frustration.

Needless to say, my blood pressure has been a bit elevated lately, so when I saw the object- which I later learned was a water bottle- fly across the room and the trash strewn across the floor, I was pissed. I was acutely cognizant of what my reaction should be seeing as it was being monitored by 25 people who were waiting for a theatrical temper tantrum. So as not to give in, I calmly asked the kid to pick up the trash and then stay after class to pick up the rest of the room. My tone was measured. I tried to remember that I like the kid and anyway we had eight weeks left to survive each other. I took a breath, proud that I hadn't lost it, and continued with my lecture. I noticed that there were some whispers in that area of the room, so I raised my voice over them, as usual, and tried to finish out the class without losing my temper.

When the bell rang, I reminded the offender that he needed to stay after and pick up. He was shaking. He said, "Mrs. Haag. I don't know if I should say anything or not because it's all stupid high school drama, but you should know that if the girl sitting next to me were a boy, I would've punched her in the fucking face! I mean it. And I apologize for throwing the water bottle and for knocking over the trash. It wasn't the right thing to do. But it kept me from hitting her. And I really wanted to fucking hit her!"

"OK." I said as calmly as I could, "I appreciate that you're apologizing to me, but what exactly is going on?"

"Look," he said, "I'm friends with John (who sits behind him in class) and you know he's gay. I don't care about that. I like him. We're friends and we hang out outside of school sometimes and it's fine because we're friends and I don't care what people say about it. "

"That's great," I said. "So, what's the issue?"

"I mostly don't care what people say. But they get mean, and take it too far. They all joke that I want to bang him and stuff. Whatever. That's stupid. They can make fun of me all they want, but today that girl crossed a line. She started drawing pictures of me banging him. She wouldn't shut up, calling me a faggot fucker and stuff. I lost it, and I'm sorry. I shouldn't have thrown the water, but I had had enough."

I paused to get my brain wrapped around the enormity of what he was saying. All that came out was,"I'm sorry." And I was. In the second it took for me to process, I realized I was sorry - sorry that I didn't hear the conversation or catch the girl drawing the pictures; sorry that I punished the reaction, rather than catching the real deviant; sorry that John was sitting next to the girl, knowing what the joke was, but allowing it to happen because in our society it is OK to make fun of gay people. It's just another day for him. I was really sorry. And then I was sick.

I collected myself and continued, "It's not OK, the way she treated you, or how any of the others treat you regarding John. You're a really good person to still be his friend and hang out with him anyway. Tell her next time that it's not OK." In my anger, I said something I shouldn't have, but that I still think was necessary to the point. I said, "Tell her to replace the word "faggot" with "nigger" to show her how absolutely WRONG it is to be so racist/sexist! Ask her if she would ever say 'nigger fucker,' that of course she wouldn't because she learned a long time ago that saying such racist, hateful things is not OK. Tell her that saying "faggot fucker" is just as wrong, and hopefully she'll think about it next time. It's ignorant."

We both calmed down, and he apologized again and then went to his next class.

That would be the end of the story, except that there has to be a "now what" on my part. And really. Now what? What is my responsibility with this? What is the follow up action? I have eight weeks left with these kids. It is times like these when writing papers and reading novels seems ridiculous in the face of all the other things they need to learn - like tolerance, for example. I hate the word tolerance because there is a connotation that one is "putting up with" people who are different, tolerating them. Really what I want to teach them is how to love people and their differences.

But I'll settle for tolerance.