"black man's music"

i was in front of grauman's chinese theatre the other day with felix (i took my mom and godmother to see cirque du soleil's iris at the kodak theatre for mother's day and invited felix to come along since he likes photography and doesn't get out much). it was a saturday so there were tons of people: tourists, costumed characters, performers, panhandlers. we were walking back to the kodak when i realize that felix is no longer behind me. he's standing with a guy who handed him a homemade cd.

i go back to him. the guy was asking where he was from. "taiwan." he asks me where i'm from. "i'm from here." and he starts giving his pitch: this is his first cd. it only costs 50cents (not sure if i heard that part properly. 50cents is cheap!). he has earbuds and asks if felix wants to hear the music. i translate the gist of this to felix in chinese since it's his choice if he wants to buy the cd though i'm pretty sure he thought the cd was free. someone hands you something and you take it (well, naive people anyway).

anyway, so the guy starts getting kind of pushy and i can tell felix isn't interested. there's a ton of people around and it's really loud so i'm pretty sure he can't hear what either of us is saying. so i tell the guy that actually felix can't listen to his music, he has a hearing problem, and i point to felix's hearing aid in his ear. the guy turns to me and asks if i want to listen. i tell him that "no, i'm okay, thanks." and he says "you don't want to listen to black man's music?" and i get pissed.

i take the cd from felix's hand and shove it back to the guy and say something along the lines of "don't be racist" and walk away. felix follows me this time (good thing too, i would've left him if he didn't). and so does the guy. he starts yelling after me about how i'm a fucking bitch or whatever. i don't say anything in return. then he calls me a hater. i yell back "that only hater is you, you fucking racist." he keeps following us. i ignore him. honestly, i don't care to fight with him and i'm not scared he's going to do something. there are way too many people around. eventually he leaves us alone.

i realize later that the reason i reacted so badly to this could've been a whatever incident is that i honestly feel like i've never been so insulted in my life. unwilling to listen to "black man's music?" i didn't even think about what kind of music he was offering. the reason i didn't want to listen is because i don't like panhandlers. and i don't like pushy people. and using some stranger's earbuds when they've probably been used by many others that day grosses me out. for him to assume that i don't want to listen to his stuff because i've somehow deduced that he's made stereotypical "black man music" even though he never said what kind of music he made is fucking ridiculous. also, who's to say i don't like that kind of music? does he think i go home and listen to chinese opera or asian pop or something? i live here, i've grown up on music / books / culture that isn't "my own."

i also felt like (rip and ting said the same) he was trying to racially guilt me somehow. as if him pointing out that he's black means that i owe him a listen. owe him to buy his cd. that's fucking stupid. i don't buy into white guilt, least of all for the reason that i'm not white. i just feel like it's such a low blow to use a serious matter like racial discrimination to guilt people into buying your stuff.

anyway, turns out that if you ever want to get me really fucking angry, call me a racist. lol, who knew?