Extra! Extra! (S)Law Review Student Almost Starts Racial Conflict!
“She grabbed my arm/ and said ‘Let’s leave calm’…”
By popular demand, I will recount the story of the near race war almost started last week by a younger member of the law review.
Last week we had our annual (S)Law Review banquet, the usual course of events being a bunch of nerds dressed up, discussing cite checking and law with professors and each other, ending at the “wild” time of 10:00 p.m. This year, however, the event produced quite a bit of near-fireworks. Here are some of the mildly amusing things that happened:
1. “Gelato” and “Camp” arrived together, prompting one employee of the LR to speculate that they were an item. We were just glad she was talking about something as mundane as this, compared to last year, when she talked about her sex life.
2. The bar tab at the restaurant was a flat cap, meaning that once the set amount of dollars were reached, drinks were no longer “comped.” The R.D., sensing how this system could be abused by one who arrives early and drinks quickly, kept ordering revolving rounds of whiskey sours, Kamikaze shots, and beer until the tab was tapped. I ordered about 9-10 free drinks, as opposed to the 3 I got last year. I refer to it as my “sense of fiscal responsibility to ensure that no dollars of the bar tab were wasted.”
3. Camp asked “Professor Rooker,” an Asian professor at our school with incredible teaching skills but an odd sense of humor, if he would do a Kamikaze shot. Upon hearing this, I exclaimed to Camp, “You Racist!” Camp, who was three sheets to the wind at the time, thought I was serious and felt horrible for a while. Camp, if you’re reading this, I’m sorry, I’m a bastard. But it was too funny.
4. An attractive 2L from the LR almost started a racial conflict.
What? What was that last one? That’s right, we almost got involved in a racially based argument/fight with a customer at the restaurant. Here’s what happened:
“Chaps,” a younger member of the LR, apparently also took advantage of the LR’s bar tab system and got really, really hammered. Chaps is an attractive, female member of the lower class who dated another member of the LR earlier in law school and is single now. Maybe because she was uncomfortable being there, or maybe because her Baptist upbringing has inculcated in her an inability to drink moderately (i.e., either you can’t, or you can’t stop), Chaps got so drunk that she could not walk, talk, or even sit straight. I first noticed her on a trip back after “breaking the seal,” sitting in a bar stool, swaying back and forth with a glass of red wine talking to a customer who was most decidedly NOT a member of the LR party. Chaps’s audience was a black guy, about 6 feet tall, and probably about 250 pounds, and looked to be about 40 years old. He was clearly flirting with her. After I passed her, I looked back, and Chaps nearly fell over in her stool and onto the guy’s lap, prompting him to smile and laugh, and then act as if nothing had happened. The worst part was that “Chaps’s Wingman,” some girl who I don’t know, was standing right next to her and was not intervening.
So, let’s recap: we have a drunk, lonely girl, still drinking, 10 minutes from Pukeville, inhibitions totally gone, possibly about to go home with a 40-year-old man drinking alone at a low-quality Italian restaurant at 10:00 at night, with a friend nearby who would not stop the madness. The R.D. could see that the dookie was about to hit the fan, and hence summoned Gelato to help him intervene.
Gelato and I had a simple plan – intervene in the conversation. This would take two people – one to interrupt the “conversation” (if you could call it that) and one to get the drink away from Chaps and help stand her up. Then we would take her to “Wingman’s” car and get her the hell out of there before the LR was spending some of its bar tab on vomit cleaners. Unfortunately, as I pointed out to Gelato, this plan forced us to “cock block” the dude, but we thought it was necessary before Chaps did something she would regret or got herself into a bad situation.
The plan worked fairly well. Gelato cut in while I grabbed the drink, which we drank (so she could not). We criticized “Wingman” for her lack of proper wingman etiquette, but she was cool, and promptly agreed to drive Chaps home. Chaps took ahold of my arm and Gelato’s and we walked her out. The condition: I had to walk her by the LR table so she could calmly say goodbye to everyone. So, after Chaps’s slurred goodbyes, which sounded more like German than like English, we got her out to the car and they drove home.
Gelato, being the nice guy that he is, decided we should go apologize to the dude for interrupting him. After Gelato apologized, the dude turned around, clearly upset. Then, the dude dropped the bombshell:
And I quote, “I thought you guys were just playing the game of getting the White girl away from the Black guy.”
We have just lost cabin pressure. Now, we were so shocked that there was an awkward second of silence before Gelato and I reassured him that we were just trying to get our drunk friend home before she did something she regretted, like attempting to drive home herself. “Spritz,” a female 3L member of the LR who likes wine and was nearby, also chimed in, telling the man that we were “two liberal guys from the law school” and that “we weren’t like that.” Now, while I appreciated her non-sequitur-ish, off-topic, lies about my/our political affiliation, they did nothing to calm the situation. Gelato, who to this day takes full credit for calming the situation down, adopted the somewhat better strategy of over-laughing at everything the guy said after this point in order to convince him that we thought he was a good guy and were not racist, angry, or bad in any form. I chimed in with agreement, although I could tell for some reason the guy liked me even less than he like Gelato, of which I can’t understand, unless my absolute amazement and irritation at him for attempting to play the “Race Card” was showing on my face. Well, it probably was. Here were some of the ridiculous things the guy said after that, followed by our attempts to calm him down (to the best of my memory):
[Race-Card-Playing Black Man]: I didn’t want to go home with that girl. I don’t need another ‘mistake’. I’m not like that.
[Gelato]: [incessant laughter]: That’s right. We know that. You don’t want another mistake. You’re a good guy. We’re sorry we had to interrupt you.
[The R.D.]: Yeah. [I just agreed with Gelato and followed suit. I just smiled and tried to conceal the look of scorn on my face. I just kept thinking about have been lied to by a lot better and lot more genuine guys than this. This dude clearly wanted to take the girl home. I mean, she fell over into your lap, guy, and you just kept flirting with her. Give me a break!]
[RCPBM]: I have a 15 year old son at home. I don’t need another ‘mistake.’
[Gelato]: [laughter]. Wow, a 15 year old son. You don’t want another mistake. You’re a good guy. We just didn’t want her driving home.
[The R.D.]: If you don’t want to go home with drunk girls, than you are a better man than I am. [This was my one good line of the conversation, I hoped it calmed him down.]
[RCPBM]: I mean, I don’t want another mistake. I’m not like that. I don’t go home with drunk 3Ls.”
[Gelato]: [laughter] Drunk 3Ls? That’s awesome. No, no, we’re not saying that you do. That’s awesome. Neither would I. We just didn’t want her to drive home.
[The R.D.]: That’s right. [At this point the look of scorn on my face was probably visible. First of all, Chaps is a 2L and not a 3L. This means that this guy was probably not even listening to what Chaps was saying to him. Second of all, if you didn’t want to go home with her, guy, perhaps continuing to flirt with her and letting her almost fall over into your crotch was not the best way of demonstrating your intentions to the outside world.]
After several more repetitions of him using the phrase “I don’t want another ‘mistake’” in varying forms, and us agreeing, we squashed it and went back outside. We didn’t even buy the guy a beer or anything. Gelato seemed convinced that “we could take him,” and I agreed, but I still could not believe what had happened. I felt bad, sad, and angry all at the same time. We stayed for another hour or so, having a few more drinks, and then we all went home. I think “the incident” ruined some of the night’s potential for me.
Just for the record, please note that I am not racist in any way. I am offended by racism, sexism, and discrimination on the basis of religion and national origin, like any decent person should be. I hope I didn’t even need to say this part, considering the fact that this blog is a virtual shrine to a black man, but I just wanted to be sure. If it was a 40 year old white dude trying to get with Chaps, I’d cock block the hell out of him, too. Was I out of line to be angry? Do people really use the race card to justify behavior like that? Am I a bastard, a good friend, or just lucky that Gelato was around? I don’t know. I thought it was the right play at the time. If I had to do it over again, I’d do the same thing.
I saw Chaps the other day and she didn’t even thank us for taking care of her. I guess it’s true that no good deed goes unpunished. Or, maybe she just doesn’t like me because I’m white.
By popular demand, I will recount the story of the near race war almost started last week by a younger member of the law review.
Last week we had our annual (S)Law Review banquet, the usual course of events being a bunch of nerds dressed up, discussing cite checking and law with professors and each other, ending at the “wild” time of 10:00 p.m. This year, however, the event produced quite a bit of near-fireworks. Here are some of the mildly amusing things that happened:
1. “Gelato” and “Camp” arrived together, prompting one employee of the LR to speculate that they were an item. We were just glad she was talking about something as mundane as this, compared to last year, when she talked about her sex life.
2. The bar tab at the restaurant was a flat cap, meaning that once the set amount of dollars were reached, drinks were no longer “comped.” The R.D., sensing how this system could be abused by one who arrives early and drinks quickly, kept ordering revolving rounds of whiskey sours, Kamikaze shots, and beer until the tab was tapped. I ordered about 9-10 free drinks, as opposed to the 3 I got last year. I refer to it as my “sense of fiscal responsibility to ensure that no dollars of the bar tab were wasted.”
3. Camp asked “Professor Rooker,” an Asian professor at our school with incredible teaching skills but an odd sense of humor, if he would do a Kamikaze shot. Upon hearing this, I exclaimed to Camp, “You Racist!” Camp, who was three sheets to the wind at the time, thought I was serious and felt horrible for a while. Camp, if you’re reading this, I’m sorry, I’m a bastard. But it was too funny.
4. An attractive 2L from the LR almost started a racial conflict.
What? What was that last one? That’s right, we almost got involved in a racially based argument/fight with a customer at the restaurant. Here’s what happened:
“Chaps,” a younger member of the LR, apparently also took advantage of the LR’s bar tab system and got really, really hammered. Chaps is an attractive, female member of the lower class who dated another member of the LR earlier in law school and is single now. Maybe because she was uncomfortable being there, or maybe because her Baptist upbringing has inculcated in her an inability to drink moderately (i.e., either you can’t, or you can’t stop), Chaps got so drunk that she could not walk, talk, or even sit straight. I first noticed her on a trip back after “breaking the seal,” sitting in a bar stool, swaying back and forth with a glass of red wine talking to a customer who was most decidedly NOT a member of the LR party. Chaps’s audience was a black guy, about 6 feet tall, and probably about 250 pounds, and looked to be about 40 years old. He was clearly flirting with her. After I passed her, I looked back, and Chaps nearly fell over in her stool and onto the guy’s lap, prompting him to smile and laugh, and then act as if nothing had happened. The worst part was that “Chaps’s Wingman,” some girl who I don’t know, was standing right next to her and was not intervening.
So, let’s recap: we have a drunk, lonely girl, still drinking, 10 minutes from Pukeville, inhibitions totally gone, possibly about to go home with a 40-year-old man drinking alone at a low-quality Italian restaurant at 10:00 at night, with a friend nearby who would not stop the madness. The R.D. could see that the dookie was about to hit the fan, and hence summoned Gelato to help him intervene.
Gelato and I had a simple plan – intervene in the conversation. This would take two people – one to interrupt the “conversation” (if you could call it that) and one to get the drink away from Chaps and help stand her up. Then we would take her to “Wingman’s” car and get her the hell out of there before the LR was spending some of its bar tab on vomit cleaners. Unfortunately, as I pointed out to Gelato, this plan forced us to “cock block” the dude, but we thought it was necessary before Chaps did something she would regret or got herself into a bad situation.
The plan worked fairly well. Gelato cut in while I grabbed the drink, which we drank (so she could not). We criticized “Wingman” for her lack of proper wingman etiquette, but she was cool, and promptly agreed to drive Chaps home. Chaps took ahold of my arm and Gelato’s and we walked her out. The condition: I had to walk her by the LR table so she could calmly say goodbye to everyone. So, after Chaps’s slurred goodbyes, which sounded more like German than like English, we got her out to the car and they drove home.
Gelato, being the nice guy that he is, decided we should go apologize to the dude for interrupting him. After Gelato apologized, the dude turned around, clearly upset. Then, the dude dropped the bombshell:
And I quote, “I thought you guys were just playing the game of getting the White girl away from the Black guy.”
We have just lost cabin pressure. Now, we were so shocked that there was an awkward second of silence before Gelato and I reassured him that we were just trying to get our drunk friend home before she did something she regretted, like attempting to drive home herself. “Spritz,” a female 3L member of the LR who likes wine and was nearby, also chimed in, telling the man that we were “two liberal guys from the law school” and that “we weren’t like that.” Now, while I appreciated her non-sequitur-ish, off-topic, lies about my/our political affiliation, they did nothing to calm the situation. Gelato, who to this day takes full credit for calming the situation down, adopted the somewhat better strategy of over-laughing at everything the guy said after this point in order to convince him that we thought he was a good guy and were not racist, angry, or bad in any form. I chimed in with agreement, although I could tell for some reason the guy liked me even less than he like Gelato, of which I can’t understand, unless my absolute amazement and irritation at him for attempting to play the “Race Card” was showing on my face. Well, it probably was. Here were some of the ridiculous things the guy said after that, followed by our attempts to calm him down (to the best of my memory):
[Race-Card-Playing Black Man]: I didn’t want to go home with that girl. I don’t need another ‘mistake’. I’m not like that.
[Gelato]: [incessant laughter]: That’s right. We know that. You don’t want another mistake. You’re a good guy. We’re sorry we had to interrupt you.
[The R.D.]: Yeah. [I just agreed with Gelato and followed suit. I just smiled and tried to conceal the look of scorn on my face. I just kept thinking about have been lied to by a lot better and lot more genuine guys than this. This dude clearly wanted to take the girl home. I mean, she fell over into your lap, guy, and you just kept flirting with her. Give me a break!]
[RCPBM]: I have a 15 year old son at home. I don’t need another ‘mistake.’
[Gelato]: [laughter]. Wow, a 15 year old son. You don’t want another mistake. You’re a good guy. We just didn’t want her driving home.
[The R.D.]: If you don’t want to go home with drunk girls, than you are a better man than I am. [This was my one good line of the conversation, I hoped it calmed him down.]
[RCPBM]: I mean, I don’t want another mistake. I’m not like that. I don’t go home with drunk 3Ls.”
[Gelato]: [laughter] Drunk 3Ls? That’s awesome. No, no, we’re not saying that you do. That’s awesome. Neither would I. We just didn’t want her to drive home.
[The R.D.]: That’s right. [At this point the look of scorn on my face was probably visible. First of all, Chaps is a 2L and not a 3L. This means that this guy was probably not even listening to what Chaps was saying to him. Second of all, if you didn’t want to go home with her, guy, perhaps continuing to flirt with her and letting her almost fall over into your crotch was not the best way of demonstrating your intentions to the outside world.]
After several more repetitions of him using the phrase “I don’t want another ‘mistake’” in varying forms, and us agreeing, we squashed it and went back outside. We didn’t even buy the guy a beer or anything. Gelato seemed convinced that “we could take him,” and I agreed, but I still could not believe what had happened. I felt bad, sad, and angry all at the same time. We stayed for another hour or so, having a few more drinks, and then we all went home. I think “the incident” ruined some of the night’s potential for me.
Just for the record, please note that I am not racist in any way. I am offended by racism, sexism, and discrimination on the basis of religion and national origin, like any decent person should be. I hope I didn’t even need to say this part, considering the fact that this blog is a virtual shrine to a black man, but I just wanted to be sure. If it was a 40 year old white dude trying to get with Chaps, I’d cock block the hell out of him, too. Was I out of line to be angry? Do people really use the race card to justify behavior like that? Am I a bastard, a good friend, or just lucky that Gelato was around? I don’t know. I thought it was the right play at the time. If I had to do it over again, I’d do the same thing.
I saw Chaps the other day and she didn’t even thank us for taking care of her. I guess it’s true that no good deed goes unpunished. Or, maybe she just doesn’t like me because I’m white.
posted by TheRealDookie | 12:40 PM
1 Comments:
Yeah...it's hard to resolve things both well AND peacefully. That's the situation that we were in, and we just did it the best way we knew how.
Glad to hear you got out of your situation, too. And I'm also glad you have a great guy to protect you nowadays.
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