I got my black eye roughly 48 hours ago now, on what just so happened to be the last day of my College’s Fall break, which ended Tuesday evening. I spent the entire evening on Tuesday with a frozen bag of peas on my face– a strategy that I learned, not from any prior experience with fists to my face, but only from some vague memory of black-eye remedies a la 80’s sitcom TV– and I felt very fortunate to see the evidence of injury go down to the point where the splitting headache and blinding swelling weren’t, well, so noticeable by the time I woke up the next day. This morning (Wednesday morning), when I had to return to work/classes, here’s how I explained my obviously weird-looking face to my students and colleagues: “I was reaching up to get something off of one of the top shelves in my pantry and– because I’m short and clumsy– I accidentally dislodged a can of beans in the process, which fell and hit me in the face.” For what it’s worth, I am short, but not particularly clumsy, just for the record.
That story was a lie. I knew it was a lie when I told it. It was a lie almost as transparent as “I fell and hurt myself,” which may be the most transparently dubious lie ever told by women to explain their black eyes. But it was a lie that nobody– not ONE SINGLE PERSON– questioned when I told it. I think that’s at least in part due to the fact that I’m not what one would call a “passive” female, but I hope you will see, shortly, how that does not matter at all.
Some background is necessary in advance to fully appreciate this post: my job– what I’ve spent the last decade doing– is to teach political and moral philosophy, including feminist, queer, race and gender theory. That is to say, I have absolutely no excuse for what follows.
Contrary to the story I told, here’s the true story of what happened: I was in a gas station in North Memphis on
Tuesday, where three older males (I’m guessing in their 20’s) were harassing a kid (I’m
guessing 14 or 15yrs old), calling him a “faggot” and saying that they would
“beat his fairy ass down” if they ever caught him somewhere that there
weren’t cameras. All four of them were ahead of me, as I was last in the checkout
line. I told the older guys to STFU and leave the kid alone, that they were just
showing how ignorant and scared they were by picking on someone who they
obviously outnumbered and were bigger than. Many words– many of which can only generously be described as “unkind” words and probably more accurately described as “fighting” words– were exchanged between us,
ending up with one of the older guys saying: “Of course you’d say that, DYKE.” (Fwiw,
I don’t care at all about being called a “dyke.”) So, I waited until
all of us checked out, the kid was kind of hanging out by the door, so I walked the kid to his bike, and I waited to watch him ride
off. All the while we were in the parking lot, the older guys were
threatening the kid and giving him sh*t as he rode off, so I shouted
back at them that they were a bunch of “p*ssy bullies” who “couldn’t
possibly be as hard as they claimed since they were so afraid of a kid
on a bike.” (Full disclosure: I used more expletives And, if I’m being completely honest, I consciously and intentionally tried to “bait” them in order to distract their attention from the kid.) When the kid was safely out
of sight, the older guys cornered me up against my car and started in again
with the “you must be a dyke” stuff, to which (in retrospect, stupidly) I
said “so what if I am? does that scare you, babies?.” Then the one
guy delivered what can only very generically be described as a “punch”–
it was, strictly technically speaking, more like a “misdirected shove”– but at any rate, I got hit in
the face. Hence, my black eye. It was over after that. I got in my car and left, as did they.
I want to say now that I feel really terrible about not telling this
story initially and I apologize to everyone who I told the “oh I was
clumsy and dropped something off the top shelf” explanation. I
especially apologize to all the LGBT people I know for telling that
story. Of all people, as someone who regularly teaches feminist and queer theory, I really should’ve known better. In my defense,
and this is not even a legitimate defense by my own standards, I felt guilty for what I
thought was “instigating violence” language/behavior on my part. Even now, looking back on it, I am convinced that my intention in the parking lot was to “bait” them, to redirect their aggression toward me and away from the kid, which is only excusable in a very reductive ends-justifies-means way. In retrospect, I still
wish I had not contributed to the escalation of this situation, which I
could have (and probably should have) easily walked away from when
danger was no longer really imminent, but I now realize that the very deep
embarrassment I feel about my behavior in this whole situation is misdirected. And, even more so, my willingness to lie about it the next day was wrong. Deeply, morally wrong.
I’m going to have a hurt and (slightly more) ugly face for a couple of days. Whatever. Nbd, in the grand scheme of things, really.
In my own estimation as a philosopher and a moral agent, I should’ve used better
judgment/language in this case. I should’ve done my part to reduce the possibility for violence, rather than provoking the likelihood of it, and I think I clearly did the latter. I want to take full responsibility for my part in this But, more importantly, I want to apologize for lying about this story, for letting my pride get
in the way of telling the true story that should have been told. I did a real disservice to LGBT people everywhere with my lie, and there is no excuse for that. These situations happen every day, and people get hurt in situations like these every day, sans any justifiable fault. That I did (a number of) things in this particular situation for which I am blameworthy does not diminish the fact that the situation itself only arose as a consequence of the deeply blameworthy, and deeply embedded, social structure of homophobia. I should have known better and immediately recognized this situation as an instance of such,
Why did I lie about my black eye? It’s so hard to explain that, even to myself, even now, even with a PhD in Philosophy. I’m no stranger to moral dilemmas, to be sure, but I’ve never encountered one like this. I found myself embarrassed by right action, I felt (at least partially) responsible for wrong action, I did not want to be seen as weak, and so many other insufficient, inadequate, and fundamentally unprincipled reasons to defer good judgment. But more than anything else, I lied because I wanted to be able to give an account of my actions as a rational and independent moral agent, which I felt I could not do if I appealed to a set of conditions that did not obtain to all rational, moral agents. These are the ties that bind, after all, and also which BIND.
Most importantly, they bind sufficiently-informed moral judgement in cases like the one I *should* have made when I chose to tell (or, in my case, not tell) the true story.
Apologies always, by definition, come too late to mend the things they regret. I register this apology as a promise to do better next time. And, believe me, my “physical” black eye will remind me every day that I have it that I have to reckon, beyond it, with my moral black eye in this case.